Associate Architect at DWP Interics (Interview PART 1)
The following extract is from the Best Creators interview with Sathya Madhavan, an associate architect in architecture. As we explore the experiences and learnings of the industry, we take to the pioneering forces in the world of architecture and design. The expert reveals powerful ideas that fuel the progression of modern architecture to the forefront of innovative technologies and best practices.
Sathya is a leader in interior design, especially workplace interior design, and has over 16 years of experience, working in the industry as a designer.
From her childhood, she always wanted to be a fashion designer but unfortunately, she could not be. Then with a suggestion from her friend, she admitted herself to architecture college. Gradually she started to realize that, it was not about fashion technology or architecture, but her passion was more towards creativity, and innovation and that’s where her love for architecture started.
Post-graduation she started exploring the different areas of this field like residential architecture, residential interiors, hospitality, and many others. Finally, she found her passion for workplace interior and she has been in this area for almost 11 years. She said the main reason to enter workplace interiors is to explore more.
According to her, “in designing and building, in one year you will be able to design only one or two projects maximum. but when it comes to this workplace interiors it’s more to do with it. You can do a lot of design and do a lot of revolutions, able to do 6 to 7 projects in one year so, you keep thinking and innovating. You have the opportunity to learn about the behavior pattern of human beings as well. When it comes to workplace interiors it is a balance between design and behavioural patterns of human beings as you need analysis your client, and not only the client, you need to understand the entire group who were there in the office.”
Sathya credits her achievements to what this industry has taught her. She shares her experiences and her firm belief in the simplicity of Design and the sheer importance of understanding human beings.
In line with the Best Creators’ vision of making the fraternity more accessible to share knowledge and expertise, we asked her a few questions, to which the responses have been segmented into key takeaways.
Sathya expressed the ever-evolving nature of thought, in an industry that is driven by the creative mind.
She expresses, one of the philosophies is when anyone has 360 degrees, why need to stick on to one? She very much follows that. Her designs have a lot of angles, and fluidity, it’s not like a conventional kind of design. When she talked about these angles, she is not going to give a solution where you have a lot of acute angles and difficulties in maintenance. It’s more like giving a pragmatic solution.
She believes that when you get into someplace be very excited about the space. you should have a stimulating journey, you should feel wonderful and the design language has to speak about the human emotion and also it has to reflect the surrounding, all these have to be implemented in the design and finally, detailing is a very important element to design any places. you have done wonderful design, planning, and everything but if there are some flaws in the detailing, that will spoil the entire design so she has always kept an eye on details.
“Every day is a challenge. She shared one of her experiences on this journey which was a turning point in her life.
She and her team got a project on workplace interior design and the area of the project was almost lakh square ft. So, she was under pressure because she was exploring all the other things along with the workplace interior. But she took the challenges and completed everything like planning, and designing but at the last moment owner of the property wanted to change the entire design due to some legal issue. She accepted this challenge and redesign the entire thing within 24 hours and presented it to the client. So, she said that she always believes that, hard work and determination always be noticed and will be rewarded. So don’t be afraid to take challenges.
She suggests, always going with the conventional processes, and always think out of the box to stand out from the crowd. Believe in radical thinking- think whatever you want and implement that in your design.
Lastly, she suggests come out of the comfort zone and take risks. Then anybody can understand their capabilities, strength, and weakness which helped them to sustain in this industry.
She also said this is a process. Time management, work management, staff management, and coordination with clients are all part of the process.
Everything has a process, from the time you get the requirement from the client, understanding the client and understand their core values then translate everything into a design so when you are very much into the process, then it will be easy to design a unique solution to your client. To be continued>>