Themes

The part of architecture I return to most is the moment a design has to become buildable. A drawing is only useful when the people on site can build from it: when a column grid, a stair core or a kitchen counter is described clearly enough to be priced, ordered and made. I enjoy that translation from idea to instruction, and the detailing it demands: how a facade panel is fixed, how a terrace drains, how one material meets another.

Practice has sharpened this. Construction documentation, material specifications and site visits have taught me that coordination, sequencing and specification decide whether a good idea survives on site. As a medical planner, I work where architecture, building services and clinical needs have to be resolved together. I am interested in how projects are planned, managed and delivered, and in the decisions that carry design intent through to the finished building.

Indian cities keep rebuilding themselves, often by replacing what was there with buildings that turn inward, away from the street. I am interested in a different kind of growth: development that adds density and new uses while keeping the street, the community and the memory of a place.

That begins with reading a neighbourhood before drawing on it: how it formed, how people move through it, where it gathers and where it has been left behind. Public space, mixed use, walkability and productive landscapes are the tools I return to, together with an architectural language that grows out of what is already there rather than erasing it.

Long before air conditioning and engineered facades, buildings had to answer to climate and material directly. Vernacular traditions across India know a great deal about this: how to stay warm or cool without machines, how to build with what is close at hand, and how to make structures that last.

I try to carry that attention into contemporary work: orientation and daylight, natural ventilation, shading, green roofs, local and low-carbon materials, and the rigour that green building certification asks for. Sustainability, for me, is less a layer added at the end than a way of making decisions from the start.

Interiors are where architecture is felt most closely: in the height of a counter, the softness of a seat, the quality of light in a room. I like designing at that scale, where comfort, calm and use have to be worked out piece by piece.

Good spaces are inclusive by default. They should work for a child, an elderly visitor and a wheelchair user alike, and they should support wellbeing: quiet places to pause, rooms that can change with the way people gather, and warm materials and light that make people want to stay. Joinery, lighting and finishes are where those intentions become real.

Some places carry more than their function: the memory of a struggle, a ritual or a community. I am drawn to architecture that gives that memory a public form, so that people can walk through it, gather around it and pass it on.

Heritage, for me, is not only about conserving old buildings. It is about understanding what a place means to the people who use it, and designing streets, pavilions and public spaces that let that meaning continue into the present.