The event takes place every first Thursday of the month during the semester from September through December and from February through June and is open to PhD students at the Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art (HSLU), the National Institute of Design (NID), and other interested guests and PhD students from other universities.
Surya Kakani
Handmade Buildings: Craft, Agency, and Eco-Social Equity
Thursday, May 7, 2026
12:00 - 13:15 (CET / Central Europe)
3:30 pm - 4:45 pm (IST / India)
As architecture continues to evolve in the Global South, questions of social equity become inseparable from the contexts in which we practice. This talk tries to encapsulate attitudes – ours, the craftsperson’s and the market’s – towards skill and craft – and the act of making by hand.
How can agency be given to skill without becoming patronising? Or is it a matter of creating meaningful space for these skills within contemporary markets?
These questions connect to broader ideas of resource-conscious design. They point towards ways of scaling such practices; through mainstreaming, mass manufacturing, skill transfer, and the careful adaptation of technology.
Surya Kakani represents Kakani Associates, established in 1995 with his partner Jaai. Their work spans educational, cultural, and institutional projects across India, integrating local materials, climate-responsive strategies, and user-centred planning and has been acknowledged in various journals and conferences. The practice is naturally informed through their strong academic linkages as a collaborative between architecture and design, each informing the other and subsequently informing a way of life. In recognition of his contributions to practice and academia, Surya Kakani served as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at CEPT University from 2017 to 2020.
If you have any questions regarding the lecture series or the PhD programme please share them by mail to
esi@hslu.ch.
