New Delhi, Oct. 6 -- Sai Lok Colony seems like any other residential neighbourhood on General Mahadev Singh (GMS) Road in Kanwali, Dehradun. A 15-minute drive from the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, it is home to a sprawling campus dominated by a striking red-brick building, Latika.

Behind the building is a deceptively simple question: How does one design a building around the needs of its most vulnerable users?

At Latika, the answer is everywhere. The campus serves children as young as a few months old and 21-year-olds with special needs, as well as their families, as a first-of-its-kind "accessibility-first" campus. Latika, which began in the 1990s in Vasant Vihar, a residential community in Dehradun, moved to this larger, better-equipped...