Aishwarya PadmanabhanAssistant Professor

Aishwarya Padmanabhan

Assistant Professor

Vidwan Profile

https://krvia.irins.org/profile/298044

Interests

Aishwarya believes that processes of design are intertwined with the development of self, bodily experiences as well as the dynamics of the world around. She believes that design ought to emerge out of a keen understanding of people, their stories, memories, and the subjectivities that are entailed as a result of their associations with the world around them. Her approach to understanding architecture and its meaning, stems out from her interest in architectural history. History, to her, is therefore constantly in the making, transmuting with time and space, relative to individuals and leaves its traces through both tangible evidences and intangible memories/ stories associated with it. She reinstates that we ought to digress from the history of a single world and instead enter a world of histories and subsequently open up the possibility of multiple worlds, thereby being more inclusive.

Pedagogy

Aishwarya Padmanabhan is an undergraduate in Architecture from KRVIA (2009- 2014) and a postgraduate in Architectural History and Theory from CEPT University (2018-2020). She has previously worked as a Teaching Associate at CEPT University for various history courses and was a Research Assistant to Prof. Dr. Gauri Bharat for her independent research work. She is an IGBC Accredited Professional and has worked on Heritage IGBC certification projects for the CSMVS museum and the Bombay House. Her interests lay in academic research, writing as well as explorations of architectural historiographies that borrows its frameworks from gender studies, feminist theory, theories of phenomenology, tectonics and material culture. Her perspectives are also derived out of her interests in dance theory which mainly revolves around the ideas of rasa, kinaesthetic senses, and haptic theories.

Milestones

1. Recipient of the Distinguished Student Award and the Academic Excellence Award at University level for the Department of Masters in Architectural History and Theory (2018- 2020).
2. One of the contributors (title of segment of contribution – ‘Technological expressions of the Chatrams at Thanjavur’) for a Showcase/Exhibition: Walk and Talk – ‘The Material City’ at Radical City- 2nd Conference on Research of Art, Design and Culture held on 20 and 21 of December, 2019 held at Srishti College, Bangalore.
3. Featured in newspaper articles titled (i) ‘Students document ruined Maratha structures in TN’, published in Time of India, Aug. 13, 2019 (ii) ‘World heritage week: Chawl recounts its rich life’, published in Time of India, Nov. 19, 2018.
4. Won the “High Commendation Award” in Design Dissertation Competition (2014) in KRVIA for her Fifth Year, undergraduate thesis “Dance and Architecture: Empowering Gestures”.