Hyderabad Architect Takbir Fatima defies macho hazing, featured in ‘100 Women: Architects in Practice’ by RIBA
Founder of DesignAware, an experimental architectural firm in Hyderabad which also designed the Hilltop School Bright Horizon Academy for underprivileged children at the heart of Golconda Fort is one of only two Indians, the other being Anupama Kundoo, to be featured by The Royal Institute of British Architects.
It’s time for architecture schools to value results over hazing culture, the book published by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Edited by Tom Ravenscroft (Dezeen), Harriet Harriss (Pratt University), Naomi House (Middlesex University) and Monika Parrinder (University of the Arts London) aims to shine a spotlight on women architects from across the globe.
Takbir is associated with various schools of design and architecture, including CEPT university, The Boston Architectural College , and Turenscape Academy to name a few. She is a global teaching artist with Meta Open Arts (formerly Facebook Analog Research Lab).
As per Takbir Fatima, “There is a dearth of voices of women in architecture, I want to make architecture and design universally accessible and applicable.”
“One of the directors of the Hyderabad-based studio DesignAware, Takbir Fatima aims to create awareness through design by leveraging interdisciplinary processes to create socially relevant, community-building projects.
“The studio recently designed the Bright Horizon Academy for children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Hyderabad. Built at the heart of the 800-year-old Golconda Fort, the principles were to preserve the existing terrain, to respect the built heritage of the fort and to ensure the sustainability of the project in the future.
“Fatima’s work is essentially what she calls ‘architecture without architects’. It also emphasises an open-source, participatory design process, where anyone can apply the system.
Now DesignAware is making inroads in sustainable architects, researching how the local processes can be applied to modern architecture, using strategies that are sensitive towards nature.
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