The School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada (SPA Vijayawada) is a higher education institute in Vijayawada, India, specializing education and research in the field of urban planning and architecture. It is one of the two School of Planning and Architecture (SPAs) established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India in 2008 as an autonomous institute and a fully Centrally Funded Technical Institution (CFTI). It forms a part of the league along with the other two SPAs: SPA Bhopal and SPA Delhi.
The roots of the institute are with a report made by the Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI), on the request of the Ministry of Human Resource Development regarding the establishment of more SPAs, in addition to the SPA Delhi, established 1959. Based on this report, the decision was made to establish two schools, in Bhopal and Vijayawada.[2] On 7 July 2008, SPA Vijayawada was established as an autonomous Centrally Funded Technical Institution (CFTI).[3] In 2014, Lok Sabha passed a bill to make all the three SPAs "centre of excellence" on the pattern of IITs and IIMs, now it is a Institute of national importance.
Initially, the school was operated out of a temporary campus in Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur till 2011, before moving to its current campus. In 2011, the foundation stone of the Vijayawada campus was laid by Daggubati Purandeswari, Minister of State for Human Resource Development. The present campus is located at Nidamanuru, on National Highway 5, close to the Vijayawada Airport (12.4 km only).[4] Expansion plans include building more hostels to accommodate the growing number of post graduate students, a state-of-the-art sports complex and residential quarters for doctoral students.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh is in the process of allotting nearly 60 acres of land, spread over two locations in and around Vijayawada, for the development of the school. Of this, the first 7.2 acres was handed over on 22 February 2010. In January 2012, design for the new campus was adopted as part of an all-India competition and it is proposed to develop it as an eco-friendly campus with state-of-the-art facilities. The proposed campus will comprise academic, co-curricular and residential facilities
The school is being run under supervision and guidance of a board of governors. The board comprises members from Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education, Andhra Pradesh Government, two representatives of the Government of India from the fields of architecture and planning, representative of the Institute of Town Planners, Indian Institute of Architects, University Grants Commission, School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi and All India Council for Technical Education.
