South Asian Landscapes

Conversations on contemporary building practices across South Asia

an infra-regional e-symposium between June-October 2020




South Asian Architecture and Urbanism has remained an area of long-term investigation for the School of Environment & Architecture. Along with the continuing historical threads, cultural similarity and shared colonial past, South Asian countries also struggle towards articulating a distinct criticality in shaping their built environment today. How can architecture mediate cultural and political forces that emerge from our common past? What role may architects and spatial practitioners play in building relevant futures for South Asia? How can we respond to the distinct social tectonics that shape our people and place? What practices of the built environment from the past and present remain unrecognized in South Asia and how can these be intelligently deployed into a meaningful future? These are questions that the SEA City Conversation hopes to address over the online semester-long series, titled “South Asian Landscapes”; planned in the light of a virtual borderless environment compelled during the COVID-19 pandemic.


In recognizing the virtue of such borderless suspension, geographical and political impediments can be bypassed towards establishing stronger dialogue and understanding of building practices in the South Asian region. Through a series of conversations curated across its adjoining borders in surveying the contemporary built environment, institutional networks towards nurturing a collaborative environment of research and intellectual exchange may be nurtured, that may help prepare a preliminary ground from where the spirit of post-colonial inquiry into architectural and urban research for the South Asia may be securely launched.









86. A Repository of Nepal's Architectural Heritage 
        by Roshan Mishra, Nepal
10th July 2020


YouTube Link #086


87.Building Craft 
as Rebellion

by Nripal Adhikary, Nepal 17th July 2020

YouTube Link #087


88.Building Bangladesh: from Pavilion-form to Landscape-form
by Kazi Ashraf, Bangladesh
31st July 2020


YouTube Link #088


89. A Path of Curiosity in Architecture
by Salauddin Ahmed, Bangladesh
07th August 2020


YouTube Link #089


90. Spatializing Sovereignity and Civil War in Sri Lanka
by Prof. Anoma Pieris, Sri Lanka
21st August 2020

YouTube Link #090


91. Vernacular Architecture of South Asia and their Spatial Logics: Insights from Sri Lanka

by Ranjit Dayaratne, Sri Lanka
28th August 2020

YouTube Link #091


92. Developing Cities in the Tropics: The need for a climate sensitive approach
by Narein Perera, Sri Lanka
28th August 2020

YouTube Link #092


93. The changing of informal settlements in Pakistan with speacial reference to Karachi
by Arif Hasan, Pakistan
11th September 2020

YouTube Link #093


94. Aabe Guum: Coastal myths and urban exceptionalism
by Yaminay Chaudhri, Pakistan
18th September 2020

YouTube Link #094


95. SEA-Studio Research Programme
25th September 2020


Day 1
YouTube Link #095a

Day 2
YouTube Link #095b