An explorer and an enthusiastic learner, I look at architecture through the process of crafting spaces, keeping in mind the framework of gender, the different factors on site and my own reflections. My process involves generating visuals and volumetric forms in order to communicate my ideas. I hope to form newer friendships and networks.
2005- 2008 Gems Our Own English High School, Sharjah - Kindergarten to Grade 1
2008- 2019 Gems Our Own English High School, Dubai - Grade 2 to Grade 12
2019 - 2024 School of Environment and Architecture (SEA), Mumbai - Bachelor of Architecture
Workshops
2019 Material Workshop- Working with Bamboo -Areen Attari
Sinan: Genius of Domed Buildings -Neesha Mewada
2020 Pixar in a box -Khan Academy
The Scribe and the Labyrinth -Apurva Talpade
2021 Environmental Typography -Ananya Tantia
The Rookie Workshop- After Effects -The Digital Journal
The Bricoleur: Bricolage as a method -Rupali Gupte
On Measuring -Poonam Jain
Material Workshop-with Steel -Manjunath BL
Material Workshop-with Bamboo -Sankalpa
Published books and papers
2022 The Gut Stories -SEA Press
2023 Rhythms, Forces & Energies: A collection of Engagements with the City and the Self -SEA Press
2022 Identity and Storytelling through Illustrations
-Sadhna Prasad
Storytelling and Urbanity
-Prasad Shetty
Design for Play
-Isha Gopal
2024 Living in a Metaphor - Workshop on Exhibiton Design -Anuj Daga
2024 The Cinematograph -Devdutt Trivedi
Work Experience
2022 Intern at Field Atelier in Goa -Under principal architects Teja Amonkar and Yatin Fulari
Volunteering Work
2020 Covid Glossary
2022 Teaching Assistant for the first year orientation workshop at SEA -Under faculty, Apurva Talpade, Tamal Mitra, Kaushik Mukhopadhyay and Prasad Shetty
Annual Exhibition 2021 SEA Content Committee 2024 Fablutions Exhibition - A 10 year retrospective exhibition
Awards
2020 Award for Enthusiasm and Embodying Process
2021 Award for Persistent Questioning
Autodesk AutoCAD
Sketchup
Rhinoceros Adobe Photoshop
InDesign
Illustrator
Office
2024 Kitchen Stories: Documenting experiences in the least planned spaces of homes.
-Question of Cities
Kitchen Stories
-Atlantis Magazine, BK Bouwkunde, TU Delft
Interests
sketching and watercolouring
booklet gathers a summed up
carpentary
Research Dissertation
Kitchen Stories:
Gendered practices and experiences of inhabiting the kitchen in diverse housing typologies in Mumbai
Drawing Experiments
The Hydra Moirang market
CONTENTS
Design Thinking
Factory as a Warped Space
Home as an Incremental Growth
Artist residency for the Differently Abled
Fragmenting of the body
Textile museum in Paithan
Writings
Fishermen of Powai
Daily Chores
Moving with the Mob
House in Nachinola (2)
House in Chorao
House in Vasco Da Gama House in Vadodra House in Calapore House in Aldona
Material Exploration
Tensile Strength Model
Bamboo Pavillion
RESEARCH DISSERTATION
Gendered practices and experiences of inhabiting the kitchen in diverse housing typologies in Mumbai
Research
Dissertation | Semester 9
How does a specific gender occupy the space of the kitchen?
How does kitchen's configuration influence how people move within a household?
How does a person's routine influence the way a kitchen space is organized?
The kitchen is an essential part of a household and is frequently used. Very often women are expected to help out in the kitchen chores. The segregation of different user groups based on gender takes place through certain social order.
This influences how a particular gender behaves and inhabits a place, thereby creating a specific gendered experience.
This thesis tries to understand how the space of the kitchen influences the hierarchies in the household, what kind of social spaces get generated, and how the efficiency of a kitchen, in turn, influences an individual and the social spaces that get produced.
The case studies ranged from a house in a tribal settlement, a three-storey bungalow, an apartment in a highrise building, a house in a slum, and a one-room kitchen apartment in a co-operative housing society, and were selected to understand a genealogical shift in the form of the kitchen.
Upon analyzing them, the kitchen's configuration played a large role in how different members in a household contributed to the kitchen's space. This study also looked at different ways in which the kitchen is occupied andcould be used in ways other than its utilitarian purpose.
It is looked at as a private space where the woman can have her privacy. It also becomes an extension of the house, allowing one to meander through both of them freely. It can also become a social space, where a large number of people can gather and interact. The city, in so many ways, opens up as a kitchen too, especially for people who frequent it.
DRAWING EXPERIMENTS
The Hydra of Lerna
Design Module | Semester 2
The Moirang Market acts as an anchor for vendors and merchants who drift between markets and homes to procure and sell goods of various kinds. Located in the north eastern part of the Moirang town, it is situated along the main road making it a junction for exchange of goods and services. Houses present on the edge of the market open up and become shops during work hours. The market is more than sixty years old. It has a small temple in the centre, where each shop owner worships before they start their day. The market is majorly run by women, all the men in the family are either working as government servants or in the army. It is divided into two parts each which are separated by a staircase. The northern part of the market is filled with fish sellers whereas the southern part is occupied by fruits, vegetable and clothes sellers. The northern part is more spacious in comparision to the southern part. The upper floors of the market have conventional shops with house banks, restaurants, cafes, salons and clothing stores.
DESIGN THINKING
Factory as a Warped Space
Typology Studio | Semester 3
The intervention begins by inculcating all the three programs of the medical equipment factory, exhibition and tution space onto the site. The current factory is located in Sangli - Miraj MIDC, where it is closed off from the neighboring factories as well as the landscape around it. The intervention allows the three proposed programs to sit as well as interact with the landscape, and is done to reduce the mundane nature of the factory. Bringing in the exhibition and tuition space in the factory would encourage a large audience other than just doctors and medical professionals. The form of the warp creates intimate spaces where people from all the three programs could interact and build various relationships. The roof is designed as an accesible ramp which intersects at various levels. The warp is also a metaphor for the womb, which itself is an intimate space and brings in an idea of femininity, since the factory employs equal number of men and women. It creates small courtyards where the staff members could sit and rest. These enclosures also create open spaces for the exhibition which is accessible to the other two programs. Since the exhibition takes place for a week in a year, the space can be used as lunch room, conference room and pantry for the remaining year.
NarrativeDrawingoftheexistingfactory
Home as an Incremental Space
Typology Studio | Semester 4
Narrativedrawingfortheexistinghouse
The existing house is located within a cluster of row houses in Charkop, Mumbai. It sits on a 3m x 8m plot, and has a MHADA house on one side and a G+1 house on the other. It has been renovated over the years by the family that inhabits it, with the purpose of creating more private spaces as more members join the family.
ExplorationofFormandVolumethroughthemodules
The design process started by looking at the house as a collection of modules, which could be turned, rotated, folded or split to give rise to different to volumes which can be inhabited. The logic was to use different parts of a single module or the module as whole to make the house. They were designed in such a way that their repetition helped in the incrementality of the house. The final modules were derived from a 3mX3m cube considering the average size of a room. These prefabricated modules work at 4 different scales:one of the room, the midroom,a seating and a step.
FirstandSeconddesignedmodules
The first module:
Acted as a seating and a slab at the same time. When rotated by 90 degrees, it can act as a wall and seating.
The second module: It combined both the wall and seating(or storage space). When rotated by 90 degrees it functions as a slab and a seating space.
The absence of a physical boundary facilitates movements of the family members between these levels while providing a sense of privacy to each group. The terrace is designed in such a way that it is not only playful but also gives a possibility of incrementing the house in the future and changing the volumes of the existing programs.
Overall Form
Artist residency for the Differently Abled
Resources, Flows and Systems | Semester 5
Artist’s residency for differently abled people, located in Hiranandani,Powai,Mumbai, aimed at designing a space for performing artists and canvas painting artists. Other programs included an exhibition space, artists studios, kitchen and dining , admin and housekeeping. The main focus of the space was to make it accessible to differently abled people. It was set in a 5m x 5m grid which had a service grid of 1.2m across the entire program. Each of these service grids were equipped with tactile tiles to help in the navigation. The same grid on the first floor opened up into balconies (which gave a larger visual connectivity across the program). On the roof the same grid opened up into gutters which circulated water across the entire program. Smaller inclined planes, elevators and emergency staircases were provided for overall circulation. It is a framed structure and the materials used were timber structural members and bamboo facade.
The process began by conducting experiments where one could fragment the image of a body using these mirrors, textures, and transparencies. The form of the pavilion is derived from planes that would get arranged together in a way that when a person stands on a higher plane, they can see someone standing on a lower plane, simply through the arrangement of the periscopic mirrors. It would also generate an experience of an exquisite corpse when one body fragments to merge with another while bringing in the surroundings. The whole design was then articulated as pockets of common gathering spaces. As a navigation path, a corridor was designed which would give direct access to some places whilst just a visual connection to others. The program of the artist studios, is placed along this corridor.
Hiranandani Lawns, located Hiranandani, Powai was selected as a site for the pavilion. The site provided a combination of different structures and green scapes as surrounding elements. The site has two sides where the passers-by on the parallel streets can visually engage with the artist’s work in their studios.
Site of Intervention- Hiranandani Lawns
Textile museum in Paithan
A museum becomes a space of archival, exhibition and a restoration of the history of a space. It also largely talks about the everyday practices and nuances of the people which shape the city. Looking at the culture and history of Paithan, a large part of the town’s economy and culture was shaped by the making of the Paithani saree. The houses in Paithan used to act as spaces where people would make these sarees, and the very intimacy of their houses would appreciate the saree. The intent of the museum was to make intimate spaces where the museum itself turns into a workspace where the local skilled workers could work on the sarees, while the public gets to engage and interact with them. The design consists of 2 large courtyards and smaller courtyards looking into them in order to encourage this interaction. The material used is mainly concrete, which would enhance the exhibits, while being presented against a concrete wall.
LongSectionAA’
Toilet
WRITINGS
Daily Chores
The bricoleur enters through the inhabitation produced by the practice of fishing. Here it opens up the idea of what it means for a carpenter to be a fisherman and how their childhood practices and hobbies influence the decisions they make for themselves. This course was conducted by Rupali Gupte. Please scan the QR Code to find the full story.
The everyday is not easy or glamourous. It talks about our privilege, gendered spaces, rituals, routines and relationships. These moments were captured through a series of Instagram stories, that were put together in a zine. The archive developed gradually because of the tendency to produce an everyday for the audience watching these stories. This course was conducted by Apurva Talpade. Please scan the QR Code to find the full zine.
Daily Chores Prishita Kulkarni
Fishermen of Powai
The Bricoleur: Bricolage as method, Allied Design| Semester 5
The Scribe and the Labyrinth, Allied Design| Semester 3
Moving with th Mob
The Sakinaka junction consists of a constant movement of vehicles and people on the road. The junction allows a large number of people to move from one point to another, and thus movement of the people happens parallel to the movement of the vehicles, whenever the signal starts. Within that movement, there are people walking quickly, people who are on a call and walking simultaneously or people who are just listening to music and walking. But this walking isn’t silent, or careful. This walking is worry free, there is a sense of direction. One may not be fully aware of their surroundings while walking, simply because they’re following a mob, while crossing the road. A confidence gets produced, while being with this mob. A collective confidence.
The engagement happens in a way in which one can play around with this confidence. A jester is introduced in the city, where they try to distract a person from the movement of the mob. The jester makes one aware of their surroundings, of their physical position within this junction.
INTERNSHIP at FIELD ATELIER
House in Nachinola (2)
| Internship
Physical Model
House in Chorao
Physical Model | Internship
Flooring Layout | Internship
House in Vadodra
Electrical Dimensioning | Internship
Drawings for a bench | Internship
House in Aldona
Conceptual Render | Internship
MATERIAL EXPLORATION
Tensile Strength Model
Technology Module | Semester 1
Bamboo Pavillion
Technology Module | Semester 2 | Collaborative Work
The module aimed at understanding concepts of tensigrity and compression. The exercise involved making a structure that spans for a meter, by using a maximum of three materials, with no adhesive. Tension in the stretched and the interlocking between the individual pieces helped the structure to stand without any support.
The bamboo pavillion was a hands-on exercise done to understand the properties of bamboo and the joineries that go into the construction of a bamboo structure.
Bamboo dowels and fish- mouth joineries were used and it stands on concrete foundations.
