Architecture Off-Centre

In our previous episode, we spoke to the team from Better Shelter about their kit-of-parts approach to providing emergency shelters in crisis situations. Today, we continue that line of inquiry and look at the work that Pop-Up Housing has been doing in India by deploying an industrial and modular construction system. Sampat Althur is the founder of Pop-Up Housing, a social innovation organization...

The very first episode of our podcast focused on the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh and highlighted the role of designers in alleviating the living conditions of the refugees. Today, we speak to Better Shelter about their work in providing shelters to refugees and displaced people around the world. Better Shelter is an independent Swedish non-profit without political or religious ties. They d...

We have been talking extensively about housing this season but have not really looked at the identity of the cities within which it exists. In today's episode, we zoom out a little to take stock of new capital cities and discuss their planning through the theoretical lens of feminism. Dorina Pojani is Associate Professor of urban planning at The University of Queensland, Australia. Her latest book...

For those of us who have grown up in India, we were introduced to the concept of segregation and apartheid very early on as we were taught about the discrimination Gandhi faced while living in South Africa and how that marked the beginning of the independence movement in India. In this episode, we speak to Adi Kumar about the history of apartheid in South Africa and how those land policies continu...

In this episode, we speak to Yutaka Sho about working in a context that has a history of genocide and colonization, and we discuss the challenges of working on ground, at the grassroots level.   Yutaka Sho is a partner of nonprofit architecture firm General Architecture Collaborative   (GAC) that has been working in Rwanda since 2008, and a professor of architecture at Meiji University in Tokyo. G...

We are no strangers to the AirBnB phenomenon – and how it has revolutionized the travel industry. Over the last two episodes, we have been focusing on the rental housing markets in Kenya and India, and today we'll take pan over to Australia to see what the short-term rental market looks like.  Dr. Thomas Sigler is an academic researcher in urban and economic geography. He holds a PhD and MSc from...

Bandhu is an AI driven urban-tech startup that is solving for India's rapid urbanization by enabling low-income workers to access urban jobs along with housing and thereby directly addressing the roadblocks that rural migrants face while entering the urban workforce. Rushil Palavajjhala is Co-founder and CEO of Bandhu, and holds a Master's degree in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Te...

When we talk about discourses on housing, we usually draw references from the western context. It is only in the last few decades that developing countries have come to the forefront of housing dialogues owing to their growing economies and increasing populations. Today, we take a closer looking at the housing market in Kenya, especially in Nairobi. Etta Madete is an architect, sustainable design...

Toolshed is a platform, a project and a place in Hudson, New York, where artists Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris collect and share tools for ecological living. They have categorized these tools into four distinct groups: food, kin, shelter and magic. Today, we speak to Susannah and Edward about what ecological living means and how Toolshed plays into it. Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler...

People are increasingly making the conscious choice to live alone and it just so turns out that the number of people living alone in Europe has doubled since the 1980s. We speak to architects Maria Vittoria Tesei and Flavio Martella about the social, economic and architectural implications of living alone.  Founded by Maria Vittoria Tesei (architect and urban planner) and Flavio Martella (PhD arch...

By living in a world of wars and unrest right now, we are witnessing one of the largest human displacements to have ever happened. People around the world are on the move to seek refuge – whether it is because of military action or a natural disaster. The idea of a "home" is under constant scrutiny as entire populations are uprooted from the very places where they built their whole lives. We ask o...

In this bonus episode, we speak to Kim Holden, whose change of careers has been unconventional and courageous at the same time. She was a founder, managing principal and architect at the renowned SHoP Architects and decided to become a doula after 20 years of practice. We speak to Kim about her initiative Doula x Design and how she helps people during pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum. Kim is...

For our final episode for this season, we speak to doctor and architect Diana Anderson, who has skillfully carved a unique career path for herself as a "dochitect" – by pioneering a collaborative, evidence-based model for approaching healthcare from the medicine and architecture fields simultaneously. Dr. Diana Anderson is a triple boarded professional – healthcare architect, internist, and a geri...

In our previous episode, we got an overview of medical tourism around the world and the key factors that drive people to travel from one country to another for medical treatments and procedures. Today, we take a closer look at some of the medical tourism hubs along a very specific geographic area, i.e., the US-Mexico border.  Viviane Clement is an epidemiologist and a cultural Anthropologist whose...

Medical tourism is a rapidly growing industry that has emerged out of people's need to travel across country borders to access medical treatments and procedures. In order to understand this global movement, we need to understand the reason for travel, the destinations that attract individuals and the web of factors that shape this global industry. Dr. Valorie Crooks is a health geographer who spec...

What is your idea of good mental health? What does it taste like? What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like to touch? And if you could design your own safe space, what would it look like? What would you have in it? James Leadbitter, also known as The Vacuum Cleaner, is a UK based artist and activist who makes candid, provocative and playful work. Drawing on his own e...

It has been a while since architects have been attempting to address various forms of disability in the buildings, neighborhoods and cities they design. However, these attempts are most often limited to increasing access for differently abled bodies. Our guest today, David Gissen, argues that a disability critique of architecture is not one that solely seeks to make the built environment more acce...

We don't talk about the technical and logistical aspects of death enough. For example: How does one's economic status affect the conditions in which they die? Do gender identities play a role in how people receive end of life care? Can we choose the memories that we want to leave behind for our loved ones? And how does social media become an archive of one's life after passing? We speak to artist...

Historically, many communities around the world spatialized the bodily function of menstruation and integrated it within their architecture in the form of menstruation huts – often leading to the isolation and oppression of women as impure beings. Our guest today argues that these spaces in the west African Benin Kingdom were intentionally designed for women to rest and recuperate – that the isola...

Over a century ago in 1896, the bubonic plague broke out in colonial Bombay. While the British officials maintained detailed records of the various aspects of the plague, local newspapers reported on the public sentiment towards the disease and its colonial management. Ranjit Kandalgaonkar explored one such archive to draw out a subaltern narrative of the bubonic plague. Ranjit Kandalgaonkar lives...

The discourse on care within the field of architecture has recently been gaining a lot of traction as ideas about health are expanding beyond the limits of traditional hospitals. In this conversation with Fiona Kenney, we discuss the history of long-term care facilities, residential hospices and pediatric respite centers, and how they differ from institutions that are aimed at providing cure. Fion...

Ever since the pandemic, questions and concerns over the human body and the public health have heightened. We wanted to ensure that the conversations we would have with our guests went beyond our experience of the last three years. Some of the questions we ask this season are: Can we look at the role of architecture for providing care beyond the design of hospitals? What are the ways in which medi...

We explored the themes of agriculture, food and waste in season 4 but did not get into too much detail about the idea of hunger, which is caused by the lack of food. For this bonus episode, we speak to Abby Leibman, who was at the forefront of conceptualizing The Hunger Museum - a virtual museum that takes a deep dive into the history of hunger and how it can be ended. Abby J. Leibman has been Pre...

For this season's final episode, we have a candid conversation with Dr. Vandana Shiva about the fears, concerns and anxieties of a young architect. Dr. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmentalist, ecofeminist, writer and activist. She is the founder of Navdanya, a national movement in India to protect the diversity and integrity of indigenous seeds along with the promotion of organic farmin...

Parts of Ateya Khorakiwala's doctoral research focused on grain silos in India and how they were a post-colonial import - built not just for the purpose of creating food security after witnessing one of the worst famines in the country but also to serve as a currency for exchange. In this conversation, Ateya talks about the history of silos, its construction materials and her course Feasting and F...