NANDITA
Founding Director | Content Curation, Development & Deliverance
Nandita engages in industry relevant research and design consultancy in Architecture and Interior Design as an Architect, Academician and Architectural Journalist. She graduated in Architecture from Bengaluru University and received her post graduate degree in Interior Architecture from University of Oregon, USA. She has also supplemented her writing skills with a Diploma in Print and Broadcast Journalism. Nandita acquired work experience in many leading architectural firms and MNCs in India before proceeding for her post-graduation. After garnering valuable teaching and work experience in USA, she returned to India and set up her own practice while renewing her teaching assignments in India.
Nandita has contributed many articles on architecture and interior design in leading newspapers and was penning a column on architecture in Times of India in her undergraduate days. She was also the correspondent for the leading architecture magazine A+D for a few years. She has written over 40 articles for design journals & national newspapers in India. She has authored two books on architecture 080 Transform: Contemporary Architecture in Bangalore & Project Files 02: Sai Spiritual Center, Bangalore. She was part of the Think Tank of InCITE, an organisational initiative dedicated to the cause of Contemporary Architecture in India. Extending her writing beyond the print medium, she has scripted and hosted many radio and television shows on architecture.
Nandita has been awarded the A3 Foundation Architectural Journalism Award 2013 – 14, a national level award for achievement and contribution to the field of Architectural Journalism in the Professional Category. She has presented many research papers in national and international conferences. Her research on Architecture and Typography presented in IDC, IIT Mumbai in 2015 and in DID, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in 2017 was well received and acclaimed to be pioneering.
In her crusade to empower architects with written expression, she conducts architectural writing workshops for students, faculty and professionals apart from offering it as a 16-week elective course as well. She has been selected as the Resource Person for faculty induction, training and development programs undertaken by COA – TRC. As an extension to this effort, she has co-authored many papers with her students in international conferences like ‘Cumulus Mumbai 2015: In a planet of our own - a vision of sustainability with focus on water’ in Mumbai and ‘Inheriting the City: Advancing Understandings of Urban Heritage’ in Taipei City, Taiwan in 2016.
Nandita’s teaching experience spans over 15 years, having served in many esteemed institutions in the Department of Architecture and Interior Design. Her latest teaching assignment was as Adjunct Faculty at R V College of Architecture [RVCA] Bengaluru and Dayanand Sagar Academy of Technology & Management. She was associated with RVCA for over 8 years as an Associate Professor. She has also previously taught at Center for Design – Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College, Jain University, Bangalore, Department of Interior Design, Berkeley College, New Jersey, USA and Department of Architecture, Bangalore Institute of Technology Bangalore University, Bangalore.
During her tenure at RVCA, Nandita carved a special place for herself as an exceptional faculty owing to her dedication and innovative teaching approach. She has sound professional experience, good design skills and a fair understanding of design theory and practices that underpins all facets of her teaching. She has taught and coordinated Architecture Design Studios, Interior Design Studios, Thesis Studios and Architectural Writing and Journalism elective at RVCA. Her contribution and model of teaching design studios has been very successful where students have expressed keen interest and have had immense learning.
Under her guidance, RVCA students have won many national awards for their architectural thesis projects like COA-NIASA National Award for Excellence in Architectural Thesis, NDTV Grohe Student Award, A3 Foundation Award for Interior Design and the Park ELLE DECOR Student Contest in the Lighting category for light fixtures designed as part of Interior Design Studio that she teaches. In 2015 alone, her students won 13 national awards. Recently in April 2017, under her mentorship, RVCA students qualified as one of the 26 finalists for the International Refugee Marketplace Competition ‘Place and Displacement’ hosted by Ideation Worldwide (IDeA). These students’ design proposals were selected from among 300 designs and policy proposals submitted from over 700 participants in 43 countries and 150 universities around the world.
At RVCA, Nandita’s core areas of engagement has been in teaching 3rd and 4th year [Thesis] Architecture and Interior Design Studios as studio coordinator and faculty. She extended her contributions to RVCA in many other roles ranging from administrative support, academic counsellor, conceptualization, execution, co-ordination of events and exhibitions, content development for RVCA website [2012] and brochure and graphic design for RVCA brochure, event posters, invites and fliers. The Annual Exhibition at RVCA which she put together for the first time in 2007 is having its 10th run in 2017 as Zeitgeist. She has also co-organised Theses 10/10 exhibition of COA award winning thesis projects from RVCA. As the Creative Head & Co-ordinator of Publications at RVCA, she has put together FOLD: RVCA Student Periodical in 2012, 2014 and 2015. Rashtreeya Sikshana Samithi Trust [RSST] has in recognition of her contributions rendered to RVCA conferred the honour of ‘Recognition of Achievement’ in 2014, 2015 and 2017 to her.
Nandita has been the jury member for NASA’s [National Association of Students of Architecture] Writing Architecture Trophy in 2018.
Being a meticulous organiser and optimistic enthusiast, Nandita extends her creative practice to varied mediums like graphic design and furniture design as well. She curates and has put together many architectural exhibitions which she envisions as a spatial narrative of her written expression.