Winner
Excellence-Public Building
Jesal Pathak, M9 Design Studio, Bangalore
Jesal is a strong professional with a Masters in Design focused on Product Design from Domus Academy. She worked as a lead design team member at Ajay Shah Design Studio, Mumbai before moving to Bangalore to join M9 Design Studio. The firm works at multiple scales with various organisations, right from private clients to corporates and NGOs. M9’s design approach is to reconnect architecture with nature, make optimum use of space, materials, lighting and landscape to reinvent living environments and urban spaces.
Do you think architecture has the power to build better communities?
In the urban context, architecture is becoming more about the ability to build something that has a real social function rather than just being aesthetically pleasing. Projects should be really about the fact that you are living together and could become a community. People forget that your neighbours can add value and create social
cohesion. A place where people can hang out and be together is more important than creating a nice building that does well on front page of an architecture magazine. The idea of creating a meeting space is evident in Mongkok Skypark (C), a rooftop recreation space for residents living in the densest part of Hong Kong.
How has the interactions during WADE ASIA shaped your perspective towards art and architecture?
The design discourse paradigms are always changing, because design is also materialised mirror of any cultural and social condition. On one hand our resources are limited, and on the other hand, the number of participants in the consumption process is constantly increasing. Design is about producing orientation and behavioural systems for a complex, yet simultaneously, fascinating open world. It is about seriously considering how to make this world a place where we can offer a tomorrow worth living for everyone.
A place where people can hang out and be together is more important than creating a nice building that does well on front page of an architecture magazine.
As a WADE Woman & WADE Winner, how would you contribute towards the cause & other fellow professionals or the sector in general?
My focus will be on encouraging women to go out there and do their best and not be bogged down by any bias voice they encounter.
Your opinion on WADE ASIA.
WADE is surely an amazing initiative and a great platform for all the women in the industry.
The result of all this is an architectural movement that makes people’s quality of life central in a genuine and creative way. The shortlisted projects look snazzy but they also challenge conventional thinking about how to deal with city life in the future. And as this way of doing things gains even more approbation it will also have a knock-on effect on developers and urban planners.
Note: This article was originally published on Surfaces Reporter December 2019 Issue.
