About the office Vastu Shilpa are Sanskrit words denoting the Art of Built Environment. Established in 1955, in Ahmedabad, VSC holds a reputation of being a exemplary firm dealing with interdisciplinary fileds of Architecture, Planning and Urban Design. In Sangath each project is an oppurtunity to try something unique with an approach which is not know to many. Sangath tries to break the barriers of conventional norms which define architecture and present the world with work which makes a statement for itself. Sangath focusses on creating experiences rather than creating buildings. It strives to crreate architecture which can be configured to the changing demands, to further enhance the potential of the space whilst still holding the vision of its entirety. The relationship with projects is for a lifetime.
Nature of projects Sangath houses multidisciplinary practices concerned about the habitat and its impact on society. Even though major practice involves architecture, urban design and planning there is an active participation in academia, research and studies in environmental issues. The projects undertaken by Sangath fall under a wide spectrum. From large scale institutional projects dealing with areas up to 600acres, to extensions of existing architecture projects and to small scale residential projects, the team does it all. Having projects of such varied scale requires the office to categorise and split the work in order to have better coordination and systematic approach in dealing with the project.
Large scale projects such as universities, residential towers, urban planning, public architecture (memorials) are taken up by Ar. Rajeev Kathpalia (partner). While Ar. Soenke Hoof (partner), deals with small scale residential projects such as private houses, bungalows and commercial projects which include art galleries. Ongoing major projects include • • • •
Nalanda university, Rajgir, Bihar. Udyatt residential tower, Kolkatta. Smritivan Earthquake memorial, Bhuj. Svaram Music school, Auroville.
Working as an Intern Sangath is often looked at as the Holy grail of Architecture practices in India. Working as an intern in an office like Sangath is intimidating for any architecture student. It is understandable that a degree of nervousness and curiosity engulfs a student before stepping into any office for the very first time. That’s exactly what I felt, but as soon as I had my first interaction with a senior architect, Ar. Monisha Ma’am I felt at home and part of the family, just like that. It was indeed very easy to get acclimatized to the office environment.
Sangath has many fragments to it. It has the nature, some music, a sense of timelessness and most importantlypeople. The people here make the place what it is. At various instances and spots you find people - working tirelessly, eating together, interacting, giggling, strolling around and doing various other activities which makes the place come alive. For me all these tiny yet vital things constitute the soul of Sangath.
The office is compartmentalized, and as an intern, I did not know what to expect at a firm with such mammoth practice. But to my surprise, I got an opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects from large scale institutional buildings to small scales residential homes. I worked on conceptual designing, construction and working drawings, detailed drawings, presentation drawings, model making, and on-site visits as well. It was a refreshing experience with a learning curve that will remain for long in my memory.
The exposure that I got while working here is incomprehensible. I learnt numerous things in various ways and at all times. The office taught me to be professional and precise at what I undertook. It taught me to be sincere while doing even menial work that might not seem important. It taught me to work as a team and how every contribution regardless of its magnitude, matters. Kirit Kaka- the model maker taught me to be patient and do my work with perfection while keeping my mind at peace. My reporting architect Ar. Indrajeet Ghule always taught me how to schedule my work and finish it before time. Ar. Rajeev Kathpalia during our constant discussions shared his treasure of practical knowledge and wisdom with us. At some times like small curious children, we would all gather around Ar. B.V. Doshi Sir to gain as much knowledge and wisdom as we could get from him.
Interactions with Rajeev Kathpalia 
Rajeev Kathpalia sir is a partner at Vastu Shilpa Consultants. Kathpalia’s work integrates frugal and environmentally responsible strategies to create inclusive habitats for people. Renowned for his institutional designs, he has won several national and international competitions. Designing across a range of scales, Kathpalia’s practice encompasses regional and city plans, institutional campuses, individual buildings, and even furniture. His net zero approach to campus design, which integrates architecture, landscape, ecology, energy generation and management - both human and mechanical - while creating an equitable and inclusive social milieu, has set new benchmarks for sustainability and innovation. Kathpalia sir in many ways helped us understand major technical and constructional aspects of a project. What idea goes behind designing a building and how does the process work to suite the ecosystem of construction, he went through all.
He was an avid reader and surely, he made us all readers too. Every two or three days we would discuss our favourite books and try to come up with interesting inferences that we were then left to ponder upon. He made us make a reading list of books the genre could be anything, he made sure that we not only read the book but also understand the underlying meaning of it.
We would frequently discuss the current projects which we interns were working on. Each of us had to present projects that we worked on as interns and then explain our out take and understanding the same. This helped us understand the principle design ideas on which the projects were based on and how other architectural aspects would work around those ideas. We understood to the evolution of design from concepts and ideas to execution on site to the final output. While Doshi sir taught us the importance of creativity and being original, Rajeev sir taught us how to makes those ideas become a reality.
Interactions with B.V.Doshi
While we all used to talk about Architecture, spaces, structures, materials, technology and the future, Doshi sir used to talk about life, soul, childhood, the present, and about how architecture is connected to our sensibilities. He infused emotions with architecture and called buildings as living organisms. He would ask us to have a conversation with the light and play with scale, he would ask us to go back in the past and cherish our memories which we had lost and regenerate them for us to be a child again. Doshi sir interacted with us at least once or twice a week, and in each discussion he humanized us even more. He made us realize that we have forgotten the human in architecture, our buildings have become callous forgetting how it will affect our sensibilities and he would ask us to let go of the gravity and be a child again, which in turn changed the way we perceived architecture. We would venture out to observe and grasp, to understand the real meaning of his words and try to come up with sketches, notes, pictures that would strike the next conversation with him, always a new lesson to learn.
He often asked us to describe Sangath, in a way we would describe to our grandparents. Doshi sir spoke about reference- we always narrate through reference, with relation to some other entity that would help us get a sense of the place. Without context or comparison, it is impossible to perceive. Our impressions of a place should always be connected like a story, which would unfold gradually and as they unfold, our impressions become more intimate.
We did one such exercise where we compared and referred Sangath to different entities of varied scales, it helped us to feel the size and scale of the structure, and generate an image. We measured the vaults by walking barefoot
and invoking our senses, we tried to climb, run, jump and play, just like old times. We considered the building as our friend. By doing this we became more aware about ourselves.
Scale and comparison study of Sangath - March 2020
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Sketches of Sangath - December 2019
Sketches of Sangath - November 2019
Sketches of Sangath - November 2019
Learnings from Ahmedabad
The architecture of Ahmedabad ranges from the ancient to the very modern. Working in Ahmedabad presented me with the opportunity to explore and document the architectural treasure the city holds within. Every weekend I travelled to different places with my sketchbook, sometimes in groups and sometimes alone to sketch, learn, observe and understand various aspects of architecture from the holy grail itself. We would discuss these trails with Doshi sir and arrive at conclusions that would in itself open our world to a wide range of possibilities.
“Learning by observing� made me more conscious about architecture, its smaller aspects and the larger ones. This experience has altered my beliefs and opinions about architecture in an exponential way. The way I perceive architecture and spaces has undergone a change which I think is very vital for all architecture students.  
Here I present some sketches from my Therefore, I regard it as very personal and meanderings in Ahmedabad. I have also specific to my experiences of my time at tried to express in words my feelings Sangath. about the spaces and their conversations   with my mind. The observations made are very naive in a sense that these are the first thoughts that crossed my mind while sketching the spaces around me.