Mainstreaming ecological design – Chitra Vishwanath

About: Chitra Vishwanath, is a senior architect and managing director of Biome Environmental Solutions a multidisciplinary firm of 30 workings in the field of ecological architecture and intelligent water and waste designs. After graduating from School of Architecture CEPT India, she started her practice in Bangalore in 1990. In the beginning, the practice concentrated mostly on economical ways of building learning largely from Laurie Baker. In the past 15 years, it has gravitated towards the ecological spectrum because we felt that the buildings we design and build need to be positive additions in this Anthropocene environment. Architectural practice for her has been a serendipitous flow where she at Biome try to make every challenge of material, ecology and requirements amalgamate into a design of an ecosystem. Her approach in evolving architectural designs has placed emphasis on indigenous natural resources, in both an active and passive manner. Mud forms the basic element in her architectural designs in view of its easy availability, labour intensiveness, and ease of construction, incorporating water, energy and land-use processes.