Feature
Awards
Responding to the announcement that Vedhant Maharaj had been presented with this
year’s Corobrik Architectural Award, Dr. Mpho Matsipa, Maharaj’s co-supervisor said
that Yantra explored water infrastructure providing water that was safe for human
consumption while respecting the rich architectural heritage of Varanasi. “In so
doing, he demonstrated both a nuanced and layered understanding of sustainability,
technological and social innovation which encompasses daily spatial practices on
the Ganges River, larger scale developmental processes in India, heritage in the built
environment and everyday spatial practices as well as the complexities of religious
plurality in India. Additionally, this thesis is rigorously researched, using both primary
and secondary sources, with confidence and creativity.”
She said that Maharaj’s attention to questions of access for the majority populations
was both poetic and attentive to questions of social and spatial justice.
“The mastering of change of scale is exceptionally convincing: Yantra works as political
argument down to the design of bricks in 1:1. He uses the language of tectonics as a
tool to make the city into a space for a society of the collective, a rare yet highly needed
ambition within our profession,” added co-supervisor, Kirsten Doermann.
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