Lyth Design turned Ashoka University's food street into a giant bamboo caterpillar

Ashoka University's food street needed to be more than a row of outlets — a liberal-arts campus lives on dialogue and chance encounters. Shroff, trained in concrete and steel, had never built with bamboo as the primary structure.

Build the campus food street as one giant caterpillar: bamboo gridshell canopies shaped like folding leaves shelter 3D-printed kitchens and recycled-plastic furniture.

lyth Design draped 650 sq m beneath bamboo gridshell canopies crafted by Jans Bamboo with structural design by Atelier One, their geometry taken from folding leaves. Kitchens are modular units 3D printed in concrete to cut waste; furniture made from recycled plastic waste comes from Placyle; shading uses crushed bamboo mats for passive cooling. The pavilion launched in September 2025.

The Hungry Caterpillar became the campus's signature hangout, turned one year old in September 2026, and won a Blue Elephant at the Kyoorius Design Awards 2026 plus a Platinum at the International Architecture and Design Awards 2026.

In 2024, while designing the residence of Ashish Dhawan, founder of Ashoka University, Mumbai architect Apoorva Shroff visualised a structure for the university's food street: a cocoon nestled among the trees, 'almost like a caterpillar feeding slowly, feeling safe and sheltered'. That image became The Hungry Caterpillar, a 650 sq m pavilion launched in September 2025 that reimagines the food street as 'a playful, immersive ecosystem' rather than a row of outlets.

The caterpillar metaphor did real work. A university campus, Shroff argues, is one: a space where young minds feel protected, nurtured and constantly evolving, and the creature also stands for 'learning forever, growth, and harmony with Nature'. Concretely, the design drapes the street under bamboo gridshell canopies inspired by the geometry of folding leaves, crafted by Jans Bamboo with structural engineering by Atelier One. Rather than treating bamboo as a steel substitute, the team worked within its structural behaviour.

Sustainability runs through every layer: kitchens are modular units 3D printed in concrete for low waste and energy efficiency; furniture made from recycled plastic waste comes from Placyle; even shading is crushed bamboo mats for passive cooling. The spaces unfold as a sequence of shared places where students, faculty and visitors overlap — architecture that, like a liberal arts education, 'resists rigid boundaries'. Shroff credits studying bamboo in Bali for turning the material from a sustainable checkbox into a primary structure.

The creative move is legible in one line — the food street is a caterpillar — and the metaphor shapes structure, material and meaning at once.

It carries a verifiable third-party result: a Kyoorius Blue Elephant and an IADA Platinum, both 2026.

The execution is specific and buildable in the telling: named fabricators, 650 sq m, 3D-printed kitchens, recycled-plastic furniture, passive cooling.

It shows sustainability engineered into construction and furniture, not claimed as a slogan.

One metaphor can organise an entire building: calling the food street a caterpillar decided the form, the materials, the sustainability story and the emotional message in a single move.

The pavilion turned one in September 2026 and collected a Blue Elephant at the Kyoorius Design Awards 2026 and a Platinum at the International Architecture and Design Awards 2026. Shroff's lyth Design is now working on a pavilion in Alibaug and a range of residential projects.