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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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Emerging middle-class aspirations: a case of Whitefield in Bangalore

Expansions, Intensification and Form
Pranav Kadambi, 2024


 The emerging middle class in a tertiary economy, with the means and resources, has appeared to shape the urbanity of Bangalore that has been taking form in the last two decades. This thesis examines the new aspirations that seem to be the driving force in shaping the urban fabric through Whitefield, a suburb transformed by the rise of the IT industry. Bangalore saw rapid growth driven by global markets, especially in areas where corporate industries have set up hubs. Once rural stretches, the edges of the city are now filled with IT parks, new neighbourhoods, and shifting social structures. This study explores these changes through a swatch of five neighbourhoods along a road that was once farmland that is now lined with urban villages, lakes, housing complexes, and offices. The research captures the everyday, communal structures, relationships, methods of image making, and ambitions of people living in these spaces.

Taking a narrative approach, combining personal observations with semi-fictional stories, the thesis illustrates the complex relationships between residents, spaces, and larger economic forces. This storytelling method sheds light on how a globalised, corporate culture influences ideas of home, community, and identity, while also revealing new divisions and fluctuating community dynamics. Findings suggest that, although driven by aspirations, these desires often come with hidden anxieties and compromises; highlighting emerging neighbourhoods as a place where ambition and inequality coexist, reinforcing social divisions while also creating new forms of community. By exploring the dynamics of Whitefield’s growth, this research allows a broader understanding of urban identity, place-making, and the social impact of rapid urbanisation in a global economy.





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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