30 Oct Diverse Practices in India and beyond
‘Diverse Practices in India and beyond’
About: This panel will be a discussion on the complexities, of working as a professional in today’s world. It aims to talk about Indian Contemporary architecture and the challenges as well as contradictions that professionals face in the current scenario. While on one hand, there are many young and new practices that are attempting to engage more with the public realm, on the other hand, there is some erosion of relevance of the profession as a whole. In this day and age how does one find fulfilment and a sense of larger commitment in one’s practice? What are the core ideas, positions and philosophies that form the foundational material of a practice? How does one continue to stay relevant? and finally, what is the ethos of ones’ work? The panel will discuss and address all these issues and will be moderated by Ar. Shahrukh Mistry
About: Shubhra Raje, Shubhra Raje is an architect and educator working in environments that engage diverse issues, multiple constituencies and varying scales, from interior design and architecture to creative urbanism and conservation. Her work is about the possibilities within the constraints of each project, and the weave of relationships that generate those constraints. With a design-intensive practice based out of the United States and India, she is inspired by the exciting shift in the dialogue between architecture and its context, in which the architect’s methods and approaches are being consistently re-evaluated. She also ascribes to an expanded definition of sustainability that moves beyond experimentation with new materials and technologies to include such concepts as social and economic stewardship. Using design as a tool, these undertakings not only offer pragmatic solutions to known needs, but also aim to be relevant for the communities and building cultures within which she works. With graduate and postgraduate degrees in architecture and a minor in theory and criticism, Shubhra Raje is a visiting professor of Architecture at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad (India) and the Denver and Boulder campuses of the University of Colorado. In addition, she has taught at her graduate alma-mater Cornell University. She has been a visiting critic at university across the globe, and lectures where invited.
LOCATION: Ahemdabad, India | STUDIO: Shubhra Raje Built EnvironmentsAbout: Monica Chadha, Monica Chadha is founder and principal of Civic Projects, a Chicago-based architecture practice with a focus on social impact. Prior to starting Civic Projects, she served as founding director of Impact Detroit and led project teams at both Studio Gang and Ross Barney Architects. During that time, Monica was integral to the design of award-winning, civic scale buildings, such as the Champaign Public Library and the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Civil Engineering Building. Her firm’s approach to design is hybrid and participatory, going beyond architecture to participate in pre-development, strategic planning, and revitalization on several scales. Civic Projects works closely with clients and local organizations to develop work that invigorates neighbourhoods. The firm is currently engaged in a wide range of projects: including their collaboration with Ralph Appelbaum Associates on the Obama Presidential Center Museum, the strategic planning and programming of the Chicago Torture Justice Center, and the development of quality housing on the South Side of Chicago.
LOCATION: Chicago, USA | STUDIO: Civic ProjectsAbout: Nela De Zoysa, Nela De Zoysa is a principal architect of Nela De Zoysa Design Corp from Sri Lanka. She is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a Fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, Royal Institute of British Architects & of the Royal Institute of Australian Architects. An International Associate of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, a Life Member of Indian Institute of Interior Designers & holder of a Post Graduate Diploma in Architectural Conservation of Monuments & Sites: PG Dip Acomas. She has the distinction of being the only living Architect in Sri Lanka to be a Hon. FAIA and FRIBA, the first Sri Lankan to win the ARCASIA Gold Medal in 2000 and also the First Woman in Sri Lanka to win the South Asian Architects Award in the same year. She won the Geoffrey Bawa Commendation Award for Excellence in Architecture in 2008. She was awarded the Gold Award in 2016 for Best International Woman Leadership from IFC and Women in Management, a Platinum Award in 2009 for Architecture and the Zonta Int’l Woman of Achievement Award in the Category of Architecture in 1993. She is the first Sri Lankan to be elected to the RIBA Council, which she served from 2011 to 2017. She initiated the RIBA Members Sri Lanka of which she is the Founder Chair since 2015 to date. Her prelude to Architecture was her Painting and Sculpture, through which she possesses an uninhibited boldness for colour, form, the texture being an Artist Architect.
LOCATION: Colombo, Sri Lanka | STUDIO: Princial Architect- Nela De Zoysa Design CorporationAbout: Samira Rathod, Samira Rathod is an architect, teacher, writer and editor, with an uncompromising sense of ethics and passion for design she established Samira Rathod Design Atelier in 2000 in Mumbai. Since the last 19 years, SRDA has built an enviable portfolio of more than 25 architectural and over 50 interior projects that remind us of the meaning of beauty, sensuousness and materiality. The firm’s outreach work is equally vigorous, and she is the founder and editor of Spade, a platform and design magazine that reinforces the need for esoteric investigations and thinking. Through this she commissions research regularly and looks at diverse areas of design discourse such as architecture in Kerala, dismantling and repurposing of buildings and a close look at the trees in Rani Baug in Mumbai in the book Museum of Trees. Her firm has been awarded nationally and internationally. She has also been awarded the arc Vision Award- Women and Architecture in Italy. She is amongst the designers in the country who truly care about what it means to work in a complex context that is India. She has also been teaching as a visiting lecturer for almost 15 years now at the Kamla Raheja Vidhyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies exploring a variety of topics relevant to the design milieu in India.
LOCATION: Mumbai, India | STUDIO: Samira Rathod Design Atelier (SRDA)About: Sharukh Mistry, Ar. Sharukh Mistry and his wife Ar. Renu Mistry are founder partners of Mistry Architects, a firm that has over the last four decades become known not only for their sensitive , sustainable architectural work but also a practice of sharing and caring. Known for his inspirational leadership, Ar. Mistry’s tireless endeavor towards holistic architecture takes inspiration from his keen observation of man’s interaction with nature. Ar. Sharukh Mistry is one of the pioneers of sustainable architecture, spearheading the Indian Green Building Movement.
LOCATION: Bangalore, India | STUDIO: Mistry ArchitectsPANEL DISCUSSION
9TH JANUARY 2020
SPEAKERS LIST
SHUBHRA RAJE, MONICA, CHADHA, NELA DE ZOYSA, SAMIRA RATHOD -MODERATED BY SHARUKH MISTRY