Biju Kuriakose co-founded architectureRED along with Kishore Panikkar, an architecture and urban design firm based out of Chennai, India. Having studied architecture in Mumbai, Biju received his Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban design from Pratt Institute, New York.

How does a practice respond to an increasingly polarizing urban environment – especially when it chooses to place itself within that context – to explore what negotiations are possible (or direly needed) keeping in mind the complexities of the city’s actors – politics, place, people and profit? In a milieu where less and less is in the hands of the public and more is in the control of the private – whether a corporation or an individual – what place does ‘social equity’ and ‘civitas’ have?
In a world of cash-flows, urban inequality and failed governance, and urban incongruences where wealth dictates access, how does an urban-focused architectural practice situate itself to affect its desired role as a practitioner rooted firmly within the sphere of ‘the public’?