Aparna and Nida talked with Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty about their research and practice, and about conceptualizing climate within the register of the everyday. Rupali and Prasad have engaged in heterodox practices and ways of looking at urbanism and those involved in the making of cities. In this conversation, we discuss various topics as they relate to urban climates — how cities are made through everyday acts, ecology as one dimension of the environment, and how climate is mobilized in technocratic and other discourses. They also raise other ways of knowing and conducting urban practices, such as through what they call semi-fictional forms, and by embracing, rather than shunning, incoherence. These broader concerns are discussed through various themes, such as “small forces” and “energetic selves”, urban environments as flows, sponge-like ways of knowing, impermanence in housing, and challenging deficiency narratives.
RUPALI GUPTE is an architect, urbanist and an artist based in Mumbai. She is one of the founder members of the School of Environment and Architecture and currently teaches there (sea.edu.in). She is a partner at the Bard Studio, Mumbai (bardstudio.in). She has also been one of the co-founders of the urban research network, CRIT (crit.in). Rupali has studied architecture (B-Arch, Mumbai University) and urban design (M-Arch, Cornell University). She has earlier worked as: an Assistant Professor at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Consulting Urban Designer to the Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea and Architect at the Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, New York. Her work includes research on Indian urbanism with focus on architecture, urban culture, housing, urban form and tactical practices. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, storytelling, teaching, walks and spatial interventions.
PRASAD SHETTY is an urbanist based in Mumbai. He is one of the founder members of the School of Environment and Architecture and currently teaches there (sea.edu.in). He is a partner at the Bard Studio, Mumbai (bardstudio.in). He has also been one of the co-founders of the urban research network, CRIT (crit.in). Prasad has studied architecture (B-Arch, Mumbai University) and urban management (M-A, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Erasmus University, Rotterdam). Earlier he has worked with: Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority as an Urban Manager, MMR – Heritage and Environment Society as Secretary, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture as a Lecturer, Town Administration of Mendefera, Eritrea as an Urban Management expert. His work includes exploratory research and experimental pedagogy on different aspects of urban form, experience, practice and culture.
