IN CONVERSATION WITH RAJEEV KATHPALIA

The architect and urban designer reveals timeless architecture thrives with a profound interconnection of human experiences and our environment

- PRATISHTHA RANA

The thread of cognisance that we're all connected to is a thing of astonishment. A multitude of experiences, some voluntary and some involuntary, learnings and teachings, things we let go of to accommodate the other and moments of nothingness - all of it is fettered with one common link, that of perceptions and decisions. Architect and urban designer Rajeev Kathpalia, whose first half of life introduced him to the unavoidable, adventurous locomotives of being an army kid (moving homes across terrains and cantonments), a conscious interaction with his surroundings was given. Rajeev's visceral awareness that accompanied him from his early years to entering the Chandigarh College of Architecture in 1974 was only the beginning of a realisation of something greater. Something consequential. Architecture eventually became the throbbing pulse of his anatomy of decades-long work with the Late B. V. Doshi-the Pritzker Architecture Prize awardee and his father-in-law-being the propeller of his psyche on architecture, with whom he partook in helming Ahmedabadbased Vastu Shilpa Sangath LLP.

"I believe architectural design is a process of revealing and establishing relationships between people and their aspirations, joy and happiness.