Ahmedabad, Gujarat  |  2022

The 2023 edition of the Ahmedabad Collective emphasizes on young practices as an effort to collate new perspectives and visions from practices that are and will have a profound impact on the future of design in Ahmedabad.

Water scarcity, extreme inequality, and climate change are realities that South Asian cities must contend with, while also serving burgeoning populations in increasingly dense locations spanning an array of ecological and social contexts. Working among colliding trajectories, local architecture practices must be structured to adapt quickly and deftly to the diversity of contexts within which we work. From urban to rural, across varied regions, the act of building is reinterpreted and re-communicated for each new situation. Far from an impediment, this uncertainty has created space for radical experimentation in building form, material, and process. We rely on and work collaboratively within rich knowledge networks, developed out of necessity, to produce and impact space across our diverse contexts. As a practice, the studio aims to cut through disciplinary boundaries and transgress accepted modes of knowledge production.

We combine a materially sensitive approach to design with respect for the context into which each project is placed, celebrating that context through a considered relationship with the physical and social condition of its surroundings. Design is explored as a series of systems; of pieces working together whose addition and combination adds to a whole that works in conjunction with human created urban and rural networks, and with natural systems that grow, weather and decay.

The Ahmedabad Collective is a platform for celebrating design in its diversity, locally and globally.