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Designed as a comprehensive resource on spatial thinking, experimental pedagogy, and academic practices, this archive serves as a record for reference and critical analysis. 

More than a traditional institutional repository, it is envisioned as an "Archive of Ideas," structured to mirror the conceptual and intellectual framework of SEA. The platform captures specific engagements, explorations, and pedagogical reorientations, expressing the school's distinct set of practices constituted by its students and teachers. 

The collection encompasses intellectual articulations—from course books and objectives to studio briefs and lectures—alongside a  documentation of student work, field studies, and thesis projects. Through this structure, the archive navigates complex inquiries into typologies, ontologies, and genealogies, while exploring themes of environment, urbanisation, futures, and ethics. It serves as a space for rethinking geographies and histories of type, offering the school's co-learning experiments and its ongoing articulation of space and form.


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Narratives of public line in Asar Mahal: histories, events and everyday

Publics and Spaces
Nisha Shinde, 2024


 This research is set within the historic fort of Bijapur, a city rich in cultural landmarks that reflect layers of architectural and cultural change. More specifically, it focuses on Asar Mahal and the spaces surrounding it. The study views urban monuments not as static forms frozen in time or as ruins disintegrating into history, but as living sites that hold public stories and public life. As Bijapur grows into a denser urban environment, this research sees monuments as dynamic spaces.

Based on fieldwork in Bijapur, the study examines how monuments in various states of decay continue to influence and interact with the surrounding communities, urban fabric, and cultural landscape, even as they are often perceived as mundane voids. It explores the role of these monuments, particularly those in ruins, in shaping contemporary urban life, while challenging the traditional view of such structures as relics of the past. Monuments are seen as sites that absorb complexities of the environment.

The methodology guiding this research includes field visits, observations, informal interviews with locals, extensive site documentation, and a review of secondary literature and media. The final drawings in the book are based on detailed sketches and narratives that aim to create a comprehensive picture of the spaces in question, along with the events, everyday life, and histories that surround them. The research presents a view of these monuments beyond their historical significance, focusing on their present state and ongoing role in the urban landscape.

The research findings address the transformation of the space in terms of its physical form and function. They examine the role of historical events—such as the stories of justice, beliefs, and public life under Adil Shah—and their ongoing influence on present-day activities. The research also looks at the space’s importance to local and Muslim communities, serving as a venue for events and everyday life and opportunities for economic growth. It discusses the tensions between the mosque and the asi, where Islamic practices impact funding and use of the space. Despite its historical exclusion of women, the space has allowed women to form strong networks and friendships within this public setting.

This study reveals the dynamic transformation of these spaces—not simply as physical structures eroding over time, but as active places that absorb, adapt to, and shape the lives of those who engage with them. The goal is to rethink how architects can study urban monuments, beyond notions of permanence and conservation, but as spaces of simultaneity, where stories past, present, and future unfold everyday.



Read also under ‘Publics and Spaces’:

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Enclosed opens


Publics and Spaces
Akshada Dhamapurkar, 2021
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Urban grounds


Publics and Spaces
Alisha Jain, 2021
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Food institutions: spatial and social networks

Publics and Spaces
Chetasvi Patel, 2024
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Crowds and publics


Publics and Spaces
Gunjan Shah, 2022
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Spaces of dissent/protest



Publics and Spaces
Maryam Sheikh, 2021
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Changing publics and the making / emergence of new cultural spaces


Publics and Spaces
Neel Shah, 2022
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The architecture of public spaces



Publics and Spaces
Ritu Naik, 2021
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Architecture of repose: characteristics and perceptions of open spaces

Publics and Spaces
Rushabh Dedhia, 2019
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Aesthetics of erasure



Publics and Spaces
Sakshi Sawant, 2022
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"open" to "public" spaces in Amravati


Publics and Spaces
Sapna Chopda, 2024
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Interpretative capacities of builtform


Publics and Spaces
Shachi Shah, 2019
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Public as assemblage in Sharjah

Publics and Spaces
Tanushree Bhagwat, 2024
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