I'm quite fascinated about building new systems and questioning the existing ones. I mean all kinds of systems. The systems that structure our lives and shape how we experience the world. Like for now, think about the system through which you have reached me now, or the system through which we buy groceries or the systems that influence the architecture of cities. Some simple, some complex, and some incomprehensible (which means more curiosity). But our lives and our minds, are the result of the design of these systems that we have built for ourselves. Which is why one has to break them, form new ones and break them again to form other new ones.

systems Thinking is one of the strongest takeaways from my architectural education. For me, architecture is beyond the crafting of buildings. Architecture is a way of understanding the reality of life in relation to space, time and events. It about understanding a complex set of relationships between material and non-material components that can embody several narratives of emotion and function. Approaching architecture needs a balance of systemic and artistic thinking. It is about the part and the whole at the same time.

The academic journey in architecture taught me to observe the smallest parts of something as well as its interconnectedness with everything around it; to understand something in its complexity but to indulge with it in simplicity. Those thought processes drove my interest towards architecturally understanding all systems that contribute to the makeup of our lives, not just buildings.

Although it is a world of specialization and information is highly compartmentalized, I find myself more in connecting and reasoning things across its borders. Therefore, I tend to spend a lot of time researching various things without prejudices. Happiness is connecting the dots and there are endless things to learn. Probably the unending crave to learn all kinds of things have created my generalist nature.

With the advent of tools of instant/endless creations we are once again pushed to question —what is art?
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For me, art is the language in which I express myself and connect to the world around me. Art is also a useful tool in bringing out the imaginative possibilities of the mind —to create things that do not exist yet. Art inspires my own life. Art is the act and it is not an image or a product. Art is meaningful when it has a story to say in this world.

The mediums totally depends on the vision and how it wants to come to life. Mostly I use film, photography, fine arts, writing, body and space‍ for my artistic expression and storytelling. I fancy many more mediums like music and technology. Utimately, I’d love to blur the lines between all these forms and I dream of them being pressed into a mush of wholesomeness to uncover something unseen or unknown. 

As someone who grew up in Indian culture, I embrace art in our daily life — the way we dress, the way we celebrate festivals, the objects we use, and so on. More than what is galleried, I feel art should be more and more merged with everything we use, our cities and mundane spaces we inhabit. So I embrace bringing out artistic values and expressions as much as functionality in all my designs.

I believe everything has a story. People, places, and objects. Stories craft our beliefs and beliefs determine our actions. Therefore building the future is building new stories and stories can change the world.

We have to think about physical and digital space simultaneously in order to innovate for the future. My current research and passion is how can we develop tools/ infrastructure/ cultural systems that can merge the physical and the digital for positive socio-cultural changes.

And, we need all kinds of intelligences to build these systems –artistic, scientific, technical, emotional, and entrepreneurial. So it is all about building and working with communities that are open and diverse.