How India’s landscape architects reframe nature

“No 1 has been capable to seizure the breadth of what a scenery designer does,” says Aniket Bhagwat, an Ahmedabad-based scenery practitioner. From the stepwells of Chand Baori, wherever h2o collects successful a magnificent setting, to the immersive acquisition of a ‘Terminal successful the Garden’ astatine Kempegowda International Airport T2, scenery architecture has ne'er been lone astir nature. It’s astir reframing the discourse betwixt the built and unbuilt — earth, water, sky, light, sun, and satellite — to nurture and renew relationships betwixt humans and nature. Whether it’s astir creating a jungle acquisition oregon carving retired greenish spaces, the scenery architect’s relation is immense and complex.

While the erstwhile procreation was moving astatine a clip erstwhile the tract was hardly understood, the existent procreation has the complaint to bring contextual relationships successful wholly innovative ways, beyond beautiful. Today’s scenery architects are progressively conscious of raising consciousness among municipality metropolis dwellers, who person go progressively distant from nature, by applying the principles of biodiversity and permaculture, creating pollinator-friendly habitats, and cultivating medicinal herbs and nutrient plants.

With the immense amounts of discarded being generated, reusing debris and rejuvenating ungraded person go paramount. Bhagwat of premier workplace Prabhakar Bhagwat lauds the committedness of the caller generation, galore of whom helium has taught. “A full clump of the existent gen are passionate, focused, and calm; they are successful nary hurry to spell anywhere, pouring their bosom into it, and doing 1 scenery astatine a time.”

The meaning of sustainable landscapes is rooted successful applicable concerns. At BIC, VSLA navigated a nala (stormwater drain) to recreate an ecological corridor, enabling biologic filtration and improved stormwater quality. Connections betwixt scenery and water, nutrient and steadfast soil, gardens and medicine, ‘oxygen’ parks and caller air, terminals and spiritual contemplation, and autochthonal versus exotic taxon person regenerated a caller inducement to landscaping.

We look astatine 5 starring studios that make interventions betwixt the municipality scenery and nature. Their projects incorporated skywalks, planted ledges, parks with greenish tunnels, dedicated township parks with ponds and streams, rooftop gardens, jungle-scapes, and ruinscapes.

Behind the medicinal garden

Varna Shashidhar, VSLA, Bengaluru

Established successful 2013, VSLA, a aggregate award-winning steadfast (ISOLA, IIA, HUDCO), was recognised by Wallpaper this twelvemonth alongside planetary scenery architects. Founder Varna Shashidhar, a Geoffrey Bawa enthusiast, had apprenticed with Sri Lankan designer C. Anjalendran, moving retired of his famed verandah office. The immersion into taste landscapes and contextual plan (including Anjalendran’s SOS Children’s Villages) rooted Shashidhar successful an appreciation of civilization and successful integrating with the environment. “In India and South Asia, our acquisition of scenery goes beyond the sensorial.It’s ne'er astir the region betwixt the idiosyncratic and the landscape.” For Shashidhar, this means preserving ineffable groves, ecosystems and biodiversity, and conserving lakes and wetlands. It besides extends to the resourceful reuse of materials, including demolition debris specified arsenic laterite blocks, which she utilized arsenic paving successful her Parra Retreat task successful Goa. Her halfway ngo has been to enactment contextual by engaging with quality done rituals, play and regular life.

For Shashidhar, scenery architecture means preserving ineffable groves, ecosystems and biodiversity, and conserving lakes and wetlands.

At Neev Academy successful Bellandur, she created impermanent h2o landscapes for children, allowing them to observe micro-ecosystems with their ain flora and fauna. For an entrepreneur mates successful Bengaluru, she designed an oushadi, oregon medicinal garden. Navigating constrictive spaces and minimal ungraded depths successful pre-built municipality environments, Shashidhar focuses connected creating shared spaces wherever families tin walk clip successful activities with nature. Her ‘pandemic garden’ for a multi-generational household includes an intensive greenish extortion with 12 inches of soil, wherever herbs, vegetables and flowering plants are grown. For her, landscape, biodiversity and putting nutrient connected the array are each interconnected.

BYG Brewski Hennur, designed by Soumitra Ghosh of Mathew Ghosh crossed 65,000 sq ft, presented a earthy challenge. “Everything was connected a slab, hard concrete, nary transportation to earth. The Hennur neighbourhood is busy, large and dense. How bash you make an astir oasis-like information successful specified conditions?” Shashidhar’s solution was to prime fast-growing species, mostly medicinal herbs, smartly sourced wrong 20 km to make prolific greenery that merges with the ruinscape. Herbs tin beryllium freshly plucked for drinks.

Of ponds and rewilding

Sujata Kohli, IPDM Services (India) Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi

In 1989, erstwhile Sujata Kohli started her practice, scenery plan was hardly mainstream terminology. A changeable of luck landed her a task doing maestro readying and landscaping for the British High Commission. “Andrew Slater from the overseas bureau was precise wide they wanted a scenery architect,” says Kohli. There was nary looking back.

The benchmark task led her into the coveted ellipse of diplomatic missions, from New Zealand and Japan to America. Thirteen embassies successful her archetypal six years gave her a immense palette and heavy knowing of taste nuances.

To conscionable the accelerated physique gait required by IT firms, the institution utilized a operation of dilatory and fast-growing plants. Nurseries excessively evolved with the IT boom, increasing trees successful gunny sacks that could beryllium replanted.

In 1993, Kohli entered hospitality, winning a contention for 1 of Hyatt Hotels’ refurbishment projects. Then she got called to bash a 25-acre scenery for an IT steadfast successful Siruseri, Chennai.

“I’ve learnt mostly on-site. Working with unrecorded entities is fascinating,” enthuses Kohli, who accompanied her clients adjacent for the onshore purchase. In the confederate landscape, antithetic from the north, achromatic fabric ungraded posed drainage problems, truthful the full aboveground drainage was taken to a created h2o pond, disposing of lone the overflow. The h2o from the pond besides helped successful irrigating the ground. 

To conscionable the accelerated physique gait required by IT firms, they utilized a operation of dilatory and fast-growing plants. Nurseries excessively evolved with the IT boom, increasing trees successful gunny sacks that could beryllium replanted.

Her caller landscaping was for Vindhyavilas Oberoi, a jungle edifice successful Bandhavgarh, Madhya Pradesh. Featured in Time magazine arsenic 1 of the must-visit places of 2025, the 25-acre spot has 19 luxury tents and an infinity excavation adjacent to the water with a natural, chaotic consciousness astir the gym and spa. “A batch of the enactment was rewilding, h2o absorption and tract drainage, making it a functional yet integrated solution. In landscapes, determination are nary boundaries,” concludes Kohli.

Apolitical spaces

Prabhakar B. Bhagwat, Ahmedabad & Mumbai

“No 1 has been capable to seizure the breadth of what a scenery designer does,” says Aniket Bhagwat, the third-generation scenery practitioner successful the family. His father, Prabhakar Bhagwat, is acknowledged arsenic the archetypal qualified scenery designer of India. Prabhakar Bhagwat entered its 50th twelvemonth successful 2023, a pioneering unit down the scenery profession’s improvement successful India.

From their landmark rejuvenation of the timba basalt quarry into a dense wood crossed hundreds of acres successful Gujarat to their committed probe astatine Landscape Environment Advancement Foundation (LEAF), the 50-person studio, with offices successful Ahmedabad and Mumbai, has influenced a sweeping scope of interventions. “The magnitude of alteration India has seen successful these past decades is huge. There is conscionable truthful overmuch enactment — offices, lodging colonies, homes, IT offices,” says Bhagwat’s steadfast is designing buildings, parks and nationalist spaces for the astute metropolis of Palava successful Dombivli, Maharashtra, planned crossed 4,500 acres.

For this ardent architect, who queries profoundly arsenic to however scenery tin bring meaning, gardens and landscapes look arsenic repositories of culture, history, sociology and governance: works and ungraded conscionable creation and philosophy, representation and nostalgia. “Gardens pb to an knowing of wherever we are arsenic a people,” helium says. “Landscapes connection apolitical spaces of soliloquy to bespeak connected what we are doing successful beingness — this tin beryllium precise powerful.”

One of the projects see the landmark rejuvenation that involves transforming the timba basalt quarry into a dense wood spanning hundreds of acres successful Gujarat.

Bhagwat steered the Pratiti Initiative with ‘The Parks People’, which includes LEAF, UNM Foundation and like-minded designers, to redesign parks. It began with his belief, ‘Great societies are built by the thought of existent patronage’. Between Ahmedabad and Surat, 15 parks person travel up implicit 8 years, done the public-private concern betwixt the UN Mehta Foundation and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. “These parks are not conscionable funded but maintained for beingness by UN Mehta, which is precise rare,” points retired Bhagwat.

Zen expression

Ravi and Varsha Gavandi, Pune

Since opening their signifier successful Pune successful 1990, Ravi and Varsha Gavandi person believed successful creating context-specific landscapes, connecting the earthy scenery of the tract to the manner and aspirations of its people. Sensitive to scenery typologies astir Pune, they adopted a functional-aesthetic perspective. “For instance, we utilized Woodfordia fruticosa successful hedge rows, which attracts birds with its tubular red-coloured flowers,” says Varsha.

Magarpatta township was a turning constituent successful their vocation successful 1999. With the IT boom, caller demands arose. In 2003, their archetypal firm task for Zensar Technologies led to a caller absorption with the client’s inquire for a zen expression: simplicity, cleanable lines and integrated tract services. The minimalist designs, which merged Indian and planetary ethos with holistic tract development, acceptable a caller trend.

In Nanded City, Pune, with liana and climbers lending a unsocial quality to existing dense vegetation, the parkland is simply a abstracted entity wherever the township residents tin link with nature.

Varsha says, “In 2009, different furniture got added — ecological landscaping. Instead of designing connected the site, we started designing with the site.” The archetypal signifier of 7 acres of Stream Park, conceived astir 2009, was completed by 2012 astatine Nanded City, Pune. It had the plan nonsubjective to enhance, reenforce and heal the earthy landscape.

The parkland bound was decided based connected assorted surveys and ecological assessments. The naturalistic mounting incorporates nature-based solutions for cleaning water. Existing onshore usage was incorporated successful the proposal, specified arsenic a angiosperm workplace astatine the entrance, and the aged walking trails utilized by workplace folk. The entranceway on an axis terminates successful the stream, which is revealed lone aboriginal successful the journey.

With liana (long-stemmed woody vine) and climbers lending a unsocial quality to existing dense vegetation, the parkland is simply a abstracted entity wherever the township residents tin link with nature.

Gardens successful the sky

Suneet Mohindru, Oracles - Landscape Architecture, Planning and Design, New Delhi

In 1997, Suneet Mohindru started his practice, Oracles — a sanction that implies envisioning the future. His halfway doctrine is grounded successful capturing ethos to make narratives of place. Creating a consciousness of standard and positioning the acquisition is key. The Taj Mahal’s dome astatine 240 feet compares with a 20-storey-high present-day building, but it appears smaller. “We look up astatine a building, but we immerse successful the landscape, touching and adjacent trampling connected it! When we participate a property, thoughtful scenery plan unravels successful layers, 1 aft another, inviting exploration,” says Mohindru.

Out of astir 360 entries, Oracles precocious won the Outstanding Award for its ‘Skywalks’ task astatine DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, astatine the IFLA Asia Pacific Region Congress 2025. The elevated skyways link buildings crossed a 16-lane high-speed arterial roadworthy — different intolerable to cross. With DLF’s little of “let’s bash prototypical bridges”, Oracles projected 3 optional concepts — based connected the metaphors of waves, connectivity and younker — and each 3 were selected, resulting successful 3 unsocial skywalks. Focused connected municipality greening and mobility, these ‘gardens successful the sky’ are a wholly enjoyable acquisition for walking, societal interactions and relaxing.

At DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, the elevated skyways link buildings crossed a 16-lane high-speed arterial roadworthy — different intolerable to cross.

Mohindru’s 2023 scenery plan for Delhi Airport’s Terminal 1 was shaped by the situation of constricted outdoor space. The conception drew from the city’s geography, framed by the earthy boundaries of the Ridge and the Yamuna — a mounting that makes ‘Dilli’ the ‘Dil of Hindustan’.

Transcending its accepted bounds, the landscapes were devised successful and retired of the terminal building, wherever quality could assertion its mislaid space, utilizing the travel of h2o done constrictive ledges, creating ‘forests’ astir columns, and intermittent boulders and rocks. Mist implicit elevated lakes and diyas in the waterways implicit the ephemeral acquisition astatine the terminal.

Word root

Landscape — views of landforms successful the region — was besides a connection borrowed by 17th period Dutch painters to picture their caller genre of creation focused connected earthy scenery. The Dutch connection landschap relates to ‘shape of the land’ arsenic besides the English basal ‘sceppan’ means ‘to shape’.

Tracking history

Historically successful India, architecture has celebrated scenic vistas by framing — beryllium it done the model arches astatine the Udaipur palace, the pavilions astatine Hampi oregon the five-storey stepwell of Rudabai Vav — playing with the expansive consciousness of scale.

The writer is simply a marque strategist with a inheritance successful plan from SAIC and NID.