What are your current job and recent career path?
After my Open Thesis Fabrication Postgraduate at IAAC, I returned to India to resume my practice. The knowledge gained through the programme gave me a new perspective for my practice and my professional approach has shifted towards the integration of new technologies in architectural projects. Currently, I am applying all this background in a new project called CoolAnt, where we are working together with my colleagues from Ant Studio in New Delhi on sustainable cooling solutions using clay.
“At Ant Studio in New Dehli, I work at the intersections of Art, Nature and Technology to innovate low-cost products that are environmentally friendly and low carbon footprint”
How satisfied are you with your career?
>I am very satisfied. India is not as developed as the West when it comes to design, technology and computer manufacturing. It is more difficult to execute complex projects here with limited access to new tools. It is encouraging to see that our work receives little recognition for our efforts and that more people are working in this direction in India creating healthy competition. We are at a very early stage and hope to do better in the future.
What are the next steps you foresee?
I founded the Ant Studio in New Delhi, which is very research-oriented. In the studio, we work at the intersections of Art, Nature and Technology to innovate products that are environmentally friendly, low cost and low carbon footprint. We are able to convince customers of small-scale experiments in all our work and this is helping us to convince many with the results of large-scale projects on which we could really have an impact. We are pushing this agenda through teaching, workshops, facilities and products to get started. Our vision is to attract emerging technologies to India through collaborations, to develop a culture for research as part of the practice of architecture.
“Taking the Open Thesis Fabrication programme at IAAC was a perfect choice”
Based on what you know now, how did IAAC prepare you for your current career?
I am very happy with what I learned as a student. IAAC’s vision and ideologies align very much with the way I think and I think I made a perfect choice in taking the IAAC’s OTF diploma. Working with robotic manufacturing technology in the OTF programme gave me an idea of the potential in combining the technologies, which we used recently in the CoolAnt project, with 3D clay printing to generate more efficient results.
Today, how connected do you feel to IAAC today?
Not much directly in terms of work and projects, but a lot in terms of the vision or approach it conveyed to me during my time as a student. In addition, I made very good friends there with whom I still talk almost every week.
