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Be the change you want to see in the world. A simple yet a

powerful and meaningful statement. It ordinarily means be the
guiding path to the unexplored galaxy. Each person has a unique
goal which they strive hard to achieve and make a name for
themselves. My happiness was in making others happy through the
very little things we could do. Bringing about a modification in
someone's life is not as easy as one thinks it could be.
At a very young age I devastated by the catastrophe that shook
the whole of India, the Tsunami 2004, the aftermath of which left
thousands and thousands of people homeless. Since then there has
been a small thought inside me, that I wanted to do something
related to their well-being. Every year the monsoon season would
bring in a lot of news related to all this trauma, yet nothing
noticeable has been done so far. This drove my passion to get into
the field of architecture to explore the immense possibilities what
are uncovered yet.

I got admitted into Manipal University in 2012 and the quest for
knowledge continues till today. The initial years were a concrete
platform helping me understand everything that I had to know. As I
progressed each semester, the designs which were influenced from
Basic Design classes began to take shape and become something
more intelligible . The forward march helped me learn the
importance of users and functionality of the space rather than just
the surface artistry.

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My constant interest to do something in Disaster management and
Low cost housing pushed me to work on a project relevant to this
field during my 4th year at college. So I started off with a
research paper during my dissertation namely, “ Dealing with
disasters- Approaches to Architecture of adversity” where I
worked on studying about the coastal disasters occurring in South
India and coming up with a housing module, made of low cost
materials and that which can be erected easily and dismantled in
case of emergency. Following this my thesis was to come up with
housing for a fishermen community in Dhanushkodi, Rameshwaram.
The process was to develop incremental housing scheme, with
layouts based on their family size and interests in other

The reason for doing this project was because, I wanted to come
up with innovative and affordable housing There new
developments and design strategies along with a growing factor
of ground breaking materials which can be well utilised if done
the right way at the right place. No city can attain high levels of
performance until the planning proposals and regulations demand
them to be. So my keen interest lies in praticising to build structures
using alternative materials and to try and reduce the city’s
growing concrete jungles into less polluting, self containing, high
performance structures.

Research and learning can be done anywhere and anytime, but

studying in a growing country and esteemed university like yours,

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will help me expand my horizon in a much better way and shape
me as a renowned architect in the world. Given a chance to
undertake the Masters program I would work more closely for
achieving what has been my long standing dream- To bring about
radical changes in the disaster-based communities by strong
designing methodologies.

When a person is engaged in what her keen interest blossoms, she

will never feel tired, instead would feel motivated and have an
enriching experience. Architecture to me, is like that.

Sincerely yours,
Shalini Shanmugam

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