About Us
The Kurula Varkey Design Forum is a student-led annual forum for critical discourse in architecture and architectural education. The forum involves discussion of projects by final year students of architecture from across South-east Asia and the works of panellists from around the world. The forum is not a jury or a competition but a dialogic event to understand and identify the diverse directions emerging in the discipline of architecture through student projects as catalysts.
The event is named after a beloved professor at CEPT, Prof. Kurla Varkey, in honour of his contribution and influence over the people he interacted with. The event has been graced by eminent personalities like B.V. Doshi, Lucien Kroll, Juhani Pallasma, Anant D. Raje, Peter Rich, William Curtis, Channa Daswatte, Charles Correa, Emre Arolat, Tatiana Bilbao, Yui Tezuka and many more.
The Kurula Varkey Design Forum, since its inception in 2000, has strived to critically question the discipline of architecture and its manifestations through student projects. Undergraduate student projects from architecture schools across Asia are invited and a few are selected as generators of the discourse. Furthermore practitioners, academicians, and young graduates from across the globe are invited to participate in curated discussions to explore pressing subjects and themes vital to the discipline.
Among the entries received, a few projects will be selected and displayed on the KVDF website. These projects will be discussed over the course of three sessions of the forum. The forum is not a jury or a competition, but rather a dialogue to understand the diverse directions emerging in the discipline of architecture through student projects. The panel for discussion will comprise eminent academicians and practitioners as well as student panelists. The selected projects will be categorised into thematic groups such that the students’ projects become take off points for discussions revolving around the relevance, discipline and craft of architecture. The proceedings of the forum are as follows:
- Exhibition of the projects.
- Presentations of projects by students.
- General discussions.
- Break-out sessions.
- Presentations/Talks by Panelists/Speakers
- Kurula Varkey Memorial Lecture
Professor Kurula Varkey
Professor Kurula Varkey was born on the 14th of July 1945, the elder of the two sons of T.K. Vergis and Sosamma Vergis. He studied Architecture in IIT Kharagpur. He came to Ahmedabad in 1968, joining Vastu-Shilpa as trainee and later as an architect. He started teaching in School of Architecture at CEPT University. He taught Design studios, history of architecture and settlement pattern, as well as guided a number of research theses.
In 1977, Prof. Varkey took up a teaching post at the University of Nairobi. In the years to come, he initiated a complete overhaul of the Department’s curriculum and teaching methods. A period of study and travel followed. He joined Masters Program in Architecture at the University of Helsinki and travelled all over Scandinavia and Europe. Returning to India in 1987, he was appointed Director of the School of Architecture at the CEPT University, Ahmedabad. This he saw as both a challenge and an opportunity. A school with high standards and well established tradition presented the challenge of enlarging the concerns.
Varkey took the opportunity to emphasize the relation of architecture to culture and urban contexts during this venture as Director. In these last years he had been a much respected and sought-after participant in educational and professional forums across the country. Yet he maintained a close relationship with each student that he taught.
Established in 1962, The Faculty of Architecture (FA) is nationally and internationally recognized as a prime School of Architectural Education. The issues underlying Modern Architecture in India and thereby Architectural Education itself, can be broadly discussed as: the relation between building and urban structure, the evolution of architecture of modernity rooted in the Indian tradition, and the need for theory as the basis of architectural practice, if practice is not to be mere construction.
It is these issues that have formed the basic thrust of architectural education and directions at the Faculty of Architecture, Ahmedabad. The specific issues of architectural education deal with the balance between development of mind, of sensitivity to the nature of architectural task relevant to our society and our time and the inculcation of skills to interpret them into the language of building.
