Welcome to Media Matters, an exclusive interview series by Fublis, where we delve into insightful conversations with media professionals, including journalists, editors, writers, and other industry experts. Our aim is to shed light on the experiences, challenges, and perspectives that shape their work in today’s dynamic media landscape.
In this edition, we have the privilege of speaking with Siddhi Hindalkar, an architectural researcher and designer with a profound interest in the social and political dimensions of architecture. Siddhi’s journey, from her studies at Sir JJ College of Architecture to her research on housing for construction workers in Mumbai, and her exploration of feminist critiques during her time at the Royal College of Art, provides a unique perspective on the intersection of architecture, society, and activism. Through her thoughtful reflections, Siddhi challenges the conventional notions of architectural practice and highlights the importance of addressing marginalization and inequality in the built environment.
Join us as we dive into her thought-provoking research, projects, and the critical role that media plays in shaping and disseminating architectural discourse.
What first drew you to explore the social and political side of architecture during your studies at Sir JJ College?
Siddhi Hindalkar: I believe that the social and political themes are not merely auxiliary sides to architecture. I would say they are rather inextricable units of good and responsive architectural practice. However, like many other students, it took me a while to grasp this concept. During my early years in architecture school, I was primarily captivated by the idealised portrayals of architecture—fascinated by glamorous forms and feats and easily mesmerised by renowned architects. Perfecting my sketching skills, reading up extensively about ‘starchitects’, and adapting to ‘Architect speak’, I longed almost desperately to fit in. In many ways, this is the expectation of contemporary architectural education—to produce conformist architects. Political and social ignorance are often tenets of such conformity. And I’m not projecting animosity of any kind to those who choose to practice in political limbo, but I genuinely feel that this ignorance does more harm than good as it impedes genuine change. I believe a good architectural practice catalyses positive changes in society.
Producing incentives or sound concepts for pursuing any architecture design or project, I realised how important it is to anchor theoretical research to the workings of any section of society, which, again, by logic, is invariably intertwined with its political systems. I credit this awakening to some of the finest professors at Sir JJ College of Architecture, one of whom, through their lectures, stressed how there’s nothing to be afraid of about embracing the political as it is an inescapable aspect of any and every human undertaking, let alone architecture. So why shy away from it? And as the famous adage goes, personal is political. Architecture comes from and for people – theoretically rendering the discipline political in all its essence. Having peeled off my metaphorical blinkers, I decided to let extensive ethnographic research lead the way, which also greatly pivoted my undergraduate thesis project.
Your research on housing for construction workers in Mumbai sounds impactful—what did you uncover, and how did it change your approach to architecture?
Siddhi Hindalkar: Meaningful change comes through responses to thorough investigations of the status quo—elaborate systems that, on all accounts, are coloured by social, cultural, and political brushstrokes. For my thesis, I wanted to do precisely this—get behind a system and understand its nuances and complexities. And at that time, what appeared to me as an indispensable and pervasive system in the architecture sector was the building and construction Industry – specifically, its workers.
In the first few months, I surveyed ten construction sites in the Mumbai metropolitan region and Navi Mumbai to get an overview of the living conditions of on-site worker accommodations. The visits unveiled a widespread issue of abysmal living conditions, a common observation for nearly all sites. Migration, displacement, marginalisation, and labour emerged as prominent motifs. Since the sector operates largely informally, the worker accommodation arrangements follow a hierarchical and exploitative top-down approach, leaving workers and sometimes even their families dependent on contractors for their housing needs. But what stunned me were cramped rooms made of metal sheets, disregard for lighting and ventilation, unsanitary kitchens and toilets, subpar implementation of worker protection policies, and—above all—a very casual attitude towards everything.
As educated, privileged citizens of society, how cognisant are we of living in a bubble that often compromises our visibility of such marginalisation? This study allowed me, in a way, to shift my outlook. And this alteration can be implemented in relatively straightforward ways. For starters, let’s say we swap to humane and honourable terminologies such as “housing” or “accommodation” instead of the dehumanising “labour colony.” I think it makes a difference in how we view and approach it then.
Additionally, this project expanded my understanding of architecture beyond traditional definitions, exploring transience and a soft approach to the design of housing environments. The proposed alternative architecture system embodies modularity, transportability, and sustainable materials for longevity. All the while adhering to the National Building Code and World Health Organisation guidelines for better livability. The proposal is not a solution to a problem or a sure-shot recipe for change but a step towards de-alienation.
Again, identifying the construction worker as the primary user of a system of architecture was an attempt to redirect agency to the workers. Granting autonomy over their housing needs expunges the middleman or contractor from the system. More importantly, it triggers a discussion around reformed housing arrangements in the workers’ interest.
What inspired you to dive into feminist critiques of architecture, and how did your time at the Royal College of Art help you develop these ideas?
Siddhi Hindalkar: I have always harboured a strong penchant for feminism. At the Royal College of Art, I had the space to inspect this interest on academic grounds. The successive waves of feminism crashed onto the shores of Architectural education a little later than desired. Some fields await its arrival even today. At the Royal College of Art, I was granted exposure to freely tinker around themes and concepts regarded as Western—including but not limited to the advent of Feminism in the West and its spread to other parts of the world. For the longest time, I looked at feminism singularly. Then, its theoretical splashing into spatial studies and architecture, as uncovered in subsequent readings, got me curious. Fortunately, I had an exhaustive range of literary and social resources at my disposal, which I hoped to use to expand my knowledge about the subject matter.
I dove into the canon of contemporary feminist writers and scholars, such as Jane Rendell, Doina Petrescu, Lori Brown, Rosi Braidotti, Leslie Kern, and The Matrix, among others. Writings about conflation with architecture, unravelling experimental and academic approaches to spatial theories, and entanglement with deconstructivist concepts were all decent mull-overs. While some papers washed over Western capitalism and paved the way for materialist feminism, others extended to the global south and called for an intersectional approach. Again, this area is politically charged, so naturally exciting. But in all this, I wondered how I could contribute to this ongoing effort to bridge academic and practical explorations of feminist spatial theories. Going over several commentaries and their vast ideological effects inspired me to reflect and initiate my research into the inherent genderedness of domestic spaces- through the project ‘Working Around the Kitchen.’
“Working around the Kitchen” is such a unique project—how did you use it to explore the roles of gender, labour, and technology in home spaces?
Siddhi Hindalkar: Following the Feminist vein, I was interested in addressing stereotypes related to domesticity and femininity. Specifically, it is the idealised role of women in a kitchen. The domestic kitchen holds significant political and gendered symbolism, so it serves as the ideal focal point for exploring these concepts. Across many cultures, kitchens are associated with unpaid labour, predominantly carried out by women. In the kitchen, alongside gender, an interesting interrelationship of labour and technology ensues.
A simple example would be the invention of labour-saving technologies in the West. This included your run-of-the-mill gas stoves, toasters, washing machines, ovens etc. Often marketed as ‘for women’ so that they may save time in the kitchen for other pursuits. But, many feminist writers critiqued these inventions as paradoxical and counterintuitive. Saving time on one task meant raising expectations for making time over other domestic tasks. It also fails to address the fundamental question: Why are only women held accountable for the physical and mental workload of managing a household?
Again, this may only be universal to some cultures. An intercultural space like the Royal College of Art was perfect to compare these tropes. I wanted to push further and bring real-life experiences into the research. To achieve this, I designed a workshop activity, gathering insights into the actual experiences of individuals working in domestic kitchens. It involved conducting focus group sessions with a diverse range of participants. People of different cultural backgrounds, gender profiles, age groups, and designers and non-designers volunteered. My motive was to understand their personal associations and experiences with kitchen work. This, again, included thoughts on gender roles, labour, ableism, and the challenges and joys they encountered in a kitchen environment.
It was refreshing hearing people discuss this in such extensive detail, sharing personal anecdotes, instances, and even illustrations—all recorded on specially designed booklets and tape. Incorporating discussions often overlooked into an active academic discourse felt like overcoming a thought barrier. While I am still flexible about the beneficiaries of this research, the ongoing status of the study grants me more time to modulate it further. In my experience, the research process was immensely fulfilling. It allowed me to step back from the traditional role of a designer/architect and instead act as a facilitator. I worked as nothing more than a moderator, shifting agency almost entirely to the respondents or the users. I think this needs to be exercised more often in design practices. Finally, the findings from the initial phase were consolidated into a publication which summarised the background research and laid the foundation for future study.
How did your time at Way Out East Gallery shape your thoughts on blending art, technology, and architecture?
Siddhi Hindalkar: I’ve learned that architecture is, at its core, a composite of art, design, technology, and research. It’s gratifying once you understand its pliability. You can constantly tinker around this mix, conjuring endless iterations. The artist residency at Way Out East, London, provided a fantastic opportunity to do just that.
Art is what you make of it. For the past few months, I have been exposed to this overlap between contemporary art and design at the Royal College of Art. At one point, I lost track of the seams where art ended and design began. Then I thought, perhaps there wasn’t a seam to begin with.
This residency started with an initial context or brief, which, with successive ideas, bloomed into a conceptual playground of themes. Throughout, I focused on allowing instincts to guide creative decisions. Trusting the process is crucial, as every decision reveals something new. I’m grateful I had the chance to experience this firsthand during the residency. I created an installation or suspended sculpture, collaborating with other artists who worked with prints and metal. Our work, titled Tamesa, paid tribute to the role of the River Thames in the industrial flourishment of East London precincts. It was beautiful to see how our practices coalesced in this piece. Ice melted from a metal mesh suspended above onto water-soluble prints and transparent acrylic sheets below, highlighting the form of the river personified. The piece’s essence lay in its performativity—a contemplation of transience and temporality.
My most significant takeaway was to break free from the traditional architect’s mindset and let my training be a subtle guiding lamp. In my experience, this inevitably showed up in areas like spatial management and curation. My collaborators took away something different yet deeply individual as we reflected on the journey, which was quite a ride due to its briefness. Frankly, I had fun dabbling with it all.
The themes in your installation project are fascinating—how have they influenced your current work?
Siddhi Hindalkar: I found great freedom in this humble art space that supported such unbridled self-expression. This experience has given me the confidence to continue exploring the merger of art, technology, and adjunct creative fields. The themes I touched on in my previous artwork have also inspired me to remain curious and persistent in my interdisciplinary pursuits. Currently, I’m intrigued by the potential intersection of computational fabrication, 3D modelling, and sound or performance art–something I look forward to working on in the future.
What challenges in architectural education in India do you feel need urgent attention, and how are you addressing them?
Siddhi Hindalkar: Again, drawing back to my earlier response – the incessant enforcement of conformity. Before forming your understanding of what constitutes good architecture, you are required to conform to the criteria defined by your tutors, often regulated through grades and evaluations. For some, it might entail a sound comprehension of masonry and building construction. For others, it might be about managing floor space, volumes, and heights, and yet, for others, it might be adhering to building codes and regulations. Amidst this push for conformity in every aspect, how can one genuinely develop their own critical perspective on architecture? In hindsight, I also think of how current curricula trains one to appreciate and seldom critique.
Once you identify epistemic boundaries correctly, pushing past them becomes easy. For me, the most pressing issue is the rigid curriculum that perpetuates outdated practices. I wish more emphasis were laid on critical thinking, and developing skills atypical to architecture -say writing, vernacular crafts, sociology, research, performance, media studies etc. What range of practices would emerge if this were to come through? The pervasive one-size-fits-all mindset is also quite damaging to the overall academic experience. Architecture is a broad field. Why not formulate in-course vocations that scale the breadth and depth of what it offers? As students, college years are perhaps the only time you can truly learn, experiment, and test theories—why have a pedagogy that steers away from this academic freedom?
Even on practical grounds, some basic lessons in entrepreneurship would have proven handy for those interested in practising immediately after graduation. This brings me to ask: Could students receive more support and education for starting their own businesses rather than solely being prepared to work for established firms? Why is the experience of working in the field starkly different from the theory of professional practice subject? Can it be simulated through coursework itself to prepare students for the realities of the field?
These are not my thoughts alone. Sixteen architecture graduates we spoke to on our podcast have shared similar concerns. Project After Architecture (https://rb.gy/rncnfg), a production of the organisation I cofounded last year (InDepth), reflects on the experiences and journeys of architecture graduates through candid conversations. We focused on curating authentic, raw, unfiltered student feedback– often overlooked as student quibbles—asking questions to lead discussions on urgent architectural education and practice issues. The central question is whether a shift in pedagogy could drive a change in the culture of professional practice. Across several episodes, you’ll see threads that tug on these very themes. Another prominent issue is the taboo surrounding the diversification of architects. We came to see how and why so many architects still have a gripe with it despite its ubiquity.
Unfortunately, architecture’s notoriety does not end there. It continues into the field, with punishing work hours, a rampant low or no pay issue among junior architects and interns and a thriving toxic work culture. Despite the growing disparity between productivity and pay, no regulations are in place to safeguard the rights and interests of architects in the market. The romanticised and decades-long, worn-out narrative of ‘passion supersedes wages’ to justify unfair compensation needs to stop. All labour deserves to be paid. Why should architectural work be an exception?
Work level satisfaction, healthy working environments, pay, and working hours are all central to one’s overall quality of life, unfortunately and rampantly overlooked in architecture. The People of Architecture Survey (https://www.peopleofarch.com/) is designed to reflect on the actual state of architects in the country and ask questions about these experiences. I encourage readers who identify as architecture students, graduates, and architects to participate in this survey. It will help obtain a bigger picture of what fundamentally plagues the architecture workforce and push for better policies.
What sparked the creation of InDepth, and what have been some of the most exciting outcomes so far?
Siddhi Hindalkar: InDepth was born from the necessity of bridging real-world experience with architectural education. After finishing college, my colleagues and I felt a divide between our expectations and the realities of the field. While we longed for the intellectual freedom of the thought-provoking discussions in Theory and humanities lectures back in college, we were also faced with the looming question ‘What next?’. To preserve that scholarly spirit and address this gap, we initiated the project, aiming to somehow connect with the student and graduate community with similar experiences.
Likewise, Project After Architecture was inspired by my own struggle to choose between pursuing further studies after graduation or gaining practical experience. I realised that feeling overwhelmed after graduation, faced with multiple career paths, is a common experience—a daunting decision for many. If only we had access to sufficient intellectual and academic support to navigate this transition, I wondered. That’s when the idea of producing Project After Architecture hit. Initially planned as a report, we transformed it into a podcast to reach a wider audience and be more accessible. At Sir JJ College of Architecture, we have a culture of a rich network of connections with senior graduates that we decided to approach for the podcast- thus enabling current students to benefit from their experiences and better plan their futures.
Overall, the approach at InDepth is marked by a spirit of what we call ‘investigative curiosity’. We view critiques as dialogues and work to broaden our reach for the benefit of the architectural community, primarily through podcasts, blogs, and workshops. Our podcast has been a significant milestone for us, and it is set to return for a new season later this year. With a fresh lineup of guests, we hope to sustain our inquiry and encourage more perspectives to join us. This year, we also have some exciting collaborations in the works.
How do you plan to continue exploring social, political, and feminist issues in your future work?
Siddhi Hindalkar: Given the nature of these topics, I believe they cannot be constrained in academic silos. They bleed well into our daily lives. So, I’d say it requires ongoing effort, extending beyond your typical definitions of ‘work’. And there’s a valid explanation for this. It’s unfortunate that even today, many people perceive feminism as a negative term, often mistaking it for misandry or other misconceptions. Only some fully understand its meaning. I’ve met many who visibly feel uncomfortable when the subject of gender equality comes up in group settings yet are the first to crack up on sexist jokes.
In such instances, embracing the role of a “feminist killjoy,” as Sarah Ahmed describes, can be necessary despite the discomfort it may cause. This is a real problem—how can we address it if it remains such a taboo? Evidence of gender disparity is everywhere. Not only in societal structures but also in the design of everyday objects, as Caroline Criado Perez points out in ‘Invisible Women’. Even in architecture, many authors and feminist critics have highlighted how cities are often not designed with women in mind.
Fortunately, the social landscape is changing rapidly. With more women entering the architectural workforce and ongoing efforts to close the gender data gap, we can expect favourable changes. I’ve joined these efforts myself in prior research, developing ideas to address gender gaps in the use of public spaces and infrastructure. I know I still have a long way to go, with more to read and engage in. So, in the future, I hope to carry forward feminist spatial investigations, building on the work of those who came before and setting the stage for posterity.
Would you offer any advice to aspiring architectural journalists on how to successfully navigate this field?
Siddhi Hindalkar: I’d say there’s no single mantra that works for all. I, too, am still working out mine. And what does ‘successful’ even mean in this context? I think it should be a sincere and truthful navigation, at best. Through trial and error and genuine effort, one must find what works best for them—their unique footprint for practice. I am passing on some advice given to me not long ago: be open and flexible to change. Do away with orthodox constructs and trust in the process of inquiry. Journalism is an exciting field, but one’s exploration should not be limited to its conventional iterations. These are some principles I stick by: Always ask before assuming. Be curious and bold to follow your instincts.
