Samarth Das
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Name
- Samarth Das
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Designation
- Lead Architect/Urban Designer
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Company Name
- PK Das & Associates, Mumbai
An early exposure to his father PK Das’ work, which involves running a leading architectural firm (PK Das & Associates) as well as working as an activist on open spaces and housing for the city’s poor, was instrumental in kindling Samarth Das’ interest in architecture. He remembers, “Even as a child, I was exposed through dinner conversations to questions about the city’s built environment and its various lacks and wants. My intellectual interests were shaped by questions about the democratic potential of architecture, specifically about the relationship between experts and professionals on the one hand and ordinary citizens on the other.”
Studying at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies in Mumbai opened up various avenues of thought related to urban scenarios. The course structure promoted interaction with the city and its issues, he remembers. “Sensitising myself to these aspects helped in achieving designs that respond to specific conditions and aim to contribute to the city’s overall development. The projects that I worked on consistently examined the role of architecture and built form as a response to their immediate surroundings and the city. And I pursued the notion of ‘Architecture for the People’, after I graduated with a B.Arch degree in 2011; my projects have successfully demonstrated these ideas.”
Das has been influenced by greats like Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Geoffrey Bawa, Charles Correa, BV Doshi and Jane Jacobs. The 30-year-old says, “In more recent years, the work of landscape architect and designer Jean Nouvel along with landscape architect Kate Orff have demonstrated hugely successful projects with their respective approaches to design; and Bjarke Ingels deserves a mention simply for being as bold and direct as his practice is.”
His focus on urban design and, more importantly, his motto ‘City of its People’ has become a core passion with him. His design philosophies of the synthesis between the built and the unbuilt, landscapes and structures, and spaces and the public further evolved through his time spent in New York City, where he completed his Master’s in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University and subsequently worked with renowned landscape architect and urbanist Kate Orff at SCAPE.
Das believes that the re-invigoration of the Irla nullah in suburban Mumbai, can be considered as the most significant project that he has been working on. He underlines, “The project involves the cleaning, re-invigoration and re-appropriation of one of the most neglected elements within our city’s landscape – nullahs – into fantastic public spaces for walking and cycling, complete with landscaping and lighting. A project led by citizens of the Gulmohar area in Juhu, this will be a first-of-its-kind project in the entire country – where both sides of a nullah (the 1.2 km stretch of Irla nullah to be specific) is re-envisioned as a public space. The project is now in its final leg, and should be opened to public use in the coming months.”
He feels design is truly design when one works on ideas that have emerged in the past, but evolved to fit the current political, social, economic and environmental scenarios. “We don’t need to re-invent the wheel each time we look to ‘design’ something, but we should certainly learn from experiences of designers of the past and build on contextualising them to the present,” he emphasises. “And I would like to see a greater push from all architects and designers to contribute to their local areas and surroundings through design in order to help create better, more habitable cities and those that provide a greater quality of life to all.”
