9 years ago, I came here for the first time, taken by Paul Hekkert, Jeroen van Erp and Marieke Sonneveld from the TU Delft | Industrial Design Engineering and at the invitation of Sourah Gupta, architect and founder of the renowned Studio Archohm and mridu sahai patnaik, partner of Studio Archohm and soon-to-be co-founder of this new school.
They had a dream: to found a legendary design school in India. India is facing enormous challenges; the economy is growing rapidly and so is the population at 1.4 billion people. Growth and at the same time the transition to a sustainable and socially inclusive society in a country that is still de-colonizing is no easy task. This requires original, autonomous thinkers and visionaries who can think about new futures, new systems and new ways of doing things without losing the richness of their own culture. But that kind of education was missing.
During our visit, I got to contribute ideas about developing the curriculum for that new innovative design school. What would the ideal school look like, one where we would have wanted to study ourselves? The design school of the future. There was carte blanche!
Inspired by legendary schools like Bauhaus and our own experiences in education and practice, we drew, brainstormed and discussed for 4 days. I barely saw anything of Delhi or Noida, we locked ourselves in with this super fun and inspiring club and only came out when we had a plan. And it worked. I remember we were really excited about it! But as it goes with many good ideas, not everything becomes a reality. So I boarded the plane again, not knowing if I would ever come back to Noida.
But... I'm back! The Design Village (TDV) has now become that vibrant place we imagined, with hundreds of talented, eager to learn students from all over India. A passionate staff consisting of people who have all embraced that original vision and made it even better. Thanks to the great ambition, hard work and perseverance of Sourabh, Mridu and her team, Paul and the other advisors, what we once came up with has become a reality and I am still as enthusiastic and grateful as the first time I joined this group. So great to be able to be here again and now teaching social design to so many like-minded students and with such fun inspiring people.
To be continued...
