Genesis

My journey in architecture began in 1983 in Manipal, Karnataka. I was 18 then and took the train in Oct 1983 to go to Mangalore, the nearest railway station to Manipal then. A train travel that would take easily 56 hours, but when it was with other college friends, it was a party each semester, for the next five years. I graduated in summer of 1988 with two internships by then. First, a brief summer internship with Uppal Ghosh and Associates and then with MN Ashish Ganju.

I was very clear even after my first year in architecture that I wanted to have my own practice in landscape architecture. After graduating, I spent another year in India with Ashish Ganju and Mark Warner Architects. In 1989, I went for graduate studies to State University of New York, Syracuse, New York.

My landscape program was a long one and I made it even longer my doing a thesis rather than getting additional credits through studio work or project work. By the time I graduated in 1992, I had done four internships in Oakland, California. First, with a Professor Randolph Langenbach in Berkeley who works on Seismic Restoration of Historic Buildings. Followed by three more internships with William P Coburn  where I worked on more than a  dozen house and garden design all over California.

In 1993, the office of Peter Walker and Partners was working on Boeing Headquarters project that was coming up in near Seattle, Washington. I was hired to do the project drawings in CAD as a landscape architect. It was a dream come true to work in that office. I worked with Tom Leader, William Johnson, David Walker, David Meyer, Anuradha Mathur, Pamela Palmer, and many talented landscape architects in the office.  I worked closely with William Johnson and supported him through computer-generated graphics for his illustrations. I worked on Principal Life Mutual Insurance Company project in Des Moines, Iowa and on the Library Walk Project, University of California, San Diego and a quite a few other projects.