The things I know

Planning, 8 August 2008

- Where did you study planning?

I took a degree in architecture at Ahmedabad, India, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, with a final-year project and dissertation in urban design. I then did an MPhil in environmental design and a PhD on the symbolic value of cities at the University of Cambridge.

- What attracted you to planning?

The opportunity to look at the strategic issues that link cities with the wider landscape, relate built form with movement, infrastructure and the specific character of a place.

- What did you learn in your first job?

As an apprentice at an urban design practice in Zurich and at Llewelyn Davies Weeks in London, I perceived the wide gap between architecture school and practice and the different mindset necessary between architecture and urban design.

- What skills have you had to learn over your career?

Patience, persistence and careful assessment of the potential of every situation.

- What or who have been the biggest influences on your career?

Interacting with a variety of disciplines at Alan Baxter, which improved all our work. Also my tutor Kurula Varkey in India and doctoral supervisors Peter Carl and Raymond Allchin at Cambridge.

- What is your career highlight?

Moving into professional practice after a career in academia and reconciling the two worlds so as to influence and create good places.

- What have you learned outside work that has influenced you?

Through my travels I have come to appreciate the richness and diversity of how cultures build, animate and inhabit space. This has influenced my approach to urban design.

- What further skills do you aim to obtain or develop?

More foreign languages.

- How important is it to keep abreast of developments in allied professions?

Some of our biggest environmental problems are due to the lack of a holistic approach that draws together developments in related professions.