Sustainable Mega Buildings!

Deepak Sadhwani Start Date: Apr 16, 2021 - End Date: Aug 15, 2021
  • Cardiff, United Kingdom

My Travel Story

by: Deepak Sadhwani Start Date: Apr 16, 2021 - End Date: Aug 15, 2021
Often, seemingly insignificant events of one’s life align in a way that there is a clear vision displaying the path to be followed. I realized a dream during my early childhood while playing with toy architectural models of Opera Houses, Railway Stations, and Boutique Hotels. The dream was to build such structures unascertained to the quantitative effort. As I grew, I realized that everything around me was designed with an intricate thought towards building an efficient environment for all. The dream transcended towards creating a built environment that celebrates freedom for every user, for which architectural practice was essential.

 

Moving ten years forward, Emaar Group hosted the prestigious Millennial Architect Competition to design a 50-acre residential township in Gurgaon as a dream project. This competition fit the brief to my dreams and I was awarded Gold Medal for designing a utopian way of living for the city in crisis; Gurgaon. I have been participating in architectural competitions of various scales since then. I am currently engaged in designing a Railway Station for the majestic city of Xi’an, China.

 

Creative influences, I believe, come to me from my mother. Mistress of the house, she necessitated craft as a hobby to work towards my dream. Often, I would assist her with embroidery and cooking. Mathematical and analytical skills come from my father while assisting him with management, administration, and sales of his Furniture stores for a majority of my school years.

 

Contradictory to popular belief, I personally find podcasts to be an efficient learning medium. I feel auditory inputs rapidly process information and stay embedded in me. I particularly enjoy the podcasts from The Design of Business and Adventures in Design. They showcase podcasts from highly eccentric personalities which makes the business side of design alluring. Podcasts and audiobooks enable me to devour mammoth amounts of information and keep me sharp on long working days.

 

The college study tour to Singapore proved to be an eye-opener. Norman Foster’s Supreme Court, Zaha’s D’Leedon complex, and Gardens by the Bay by Grant Associates sprout an urge inside me to explore the world of Advanced Building techniques. This set in motion a chain of events that considerably steepened my learning curve. An architectural practice, Morphogenesis, fell on the radar in my search for similar practices in India. The co-founder of Morphogenesis and alumni of AA, Manit Rastogi’s TEDx talk got me hitched to the concept of ‘Wisdom in architecture’. Thus began my pursuit to work at Morphogenesis, New Delhi.

 

With 50 million Sq.ft. under green certification, Morphogenesis is a global leader in the creation of a sustainable built environment. Working with Morphogenesis is the small dream of every young architect in India operating on a sustainable future. I earned the opportunity to work directly with the Founder partner, Ms. Sonali Rastogi by establishing built excellence in Interiors of Common Area Interiors for an IT Park in Gurgaon by capitalizing on the uncompromising accuracy of BIM. A year later, I saw myself working in a team of 3 towards design and development of some of the most impactful sites in India. From designing as big as a 2 Million Sq.ft. Central Business District showcasing 32 Acres of Open Landscape and 28 Acres of carefully articulated Pedestrianized movement with Traffic segregation for seamless connectivity in Aerocity, New Delhi to a school for experiential learning of a relatively smaller scale in Faridabad to an office for the Commissioner of Delhi Metro Railway Safety on a small highly premium parcel of land. I’ve dedicated over 5000 hours pursuing design excellence and the attached resume elaborates the vast list of projects ranging from Corporate, Commercial, Retail, Residential, Educational and interior projects I have been a part of during the course of my architectural practice and internships. I am presently working on Passenger Experience Enhancement for Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, which I believe is an honor for a young architect to be a part of prestigious airport development.

 

While pursuing Architectural Practice, I took part in various Architecture competitions including Emaar Group’s Millennial Architect Competition to design a 50-acre residential township in Gurgaon for which I managed to bag a Gold Medal for designing a scheme that encapsulates the future. Other competitions include a Train Station in Xi’an, a design processing Anthropocene epoch, and a couple more.

 

As I gained competence in Rhino and Grasshopper, I started freelancing as a product designer. I experimented with various architectural styles like Deconstructivism, Brutalist, and Art Deco in most of my projects. These little experimental baby steps led me to take up an interior design of a Bar in an upcoming hospitality district in my hometown of Bhopal. The most challenging part of this exercise was incorporating the desires of each of the three clients. The ambiance turned out to be exactly as the clients had envisioned it to be and the user experience exactly as I had envisioned it to be.

 

I have been keenly watching the lecture videos on the Welsh School of Architecture website, trying to comprehend them as much as I can. My interest builds up as I watch them one after the other. The array of courses speaks of the magnitude of the collective knowledge offered by Cardiff. I believe that a designer’s skill-set must go hand-in-hand with cutting-edge technology tools and evolve together. I’d appreciate the opportunity to be an active part of the Cardiff family and am sure that I will fit in its intellectually rigorous and vibrant lifestyle like a glove. Having read through the details of the course offered, I know now that the MSc Sustainable Mega Buildings is the most favourable ‘next step’ in the path to where I see myself in the near future.
  • Cardiff, United Kingdom

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