We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amit Upadhye. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amit below.
Hi Amit, thanks for joining us today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?
That, Architecture is a noble profession to be practiced with immense integrity for the humanity and the Mother Earth. The nearest blade of grass is connected to the farthest star and all doing comes around like what we are experiencing through the climate change. The construction industry alone contributes up to 40% to the global climate crisis.
Architecture, ideally, is to be practiced with wholistic thinking about the entire planet in terms of its shared resources, focusing on sustainability, and long terms-built environment than immediate financial gains for self-interests. Developers should go through licensure tests to develop projects from ecology standpoint just like Architects are expected to have licenses for public safety and competence. Developers/Clients need to be educated about the repercussions of their decisions before they make unruly profit driven demands from vulnerable architects who serve their whims at their beck and call. There should be stricter regulations about the construction waste generated by projects which should be separated on site as recyclable waste and landfill waste such that more plastics and paper could be recycled. A greater percentage of demolition waste, through regulations, should be repurposed on the same site, and not taken to the landfills. The amount of demolition permits issued per year must be regulated to curtail demolition in their jurisdiction to encourage more adaptive reuse projects. Many a times good and structurally sound looking building get erased and replaced by another similar looking building for no apparent reason other than the capitalistic agenda.
Architecture education today is a whole different discussion to be had sometime in the future.
Amit, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Since my childhood I found myself building toys to play with, glider airplane models from notebook covers, and in general always being enthusiastic to create something original. I enjoyed making drawings and writing poems which led me to believe that creative field was my destiny, and Architecture turned out to be a good balance between the right and the left brain.
To be an Architect is innately fulfilling if one practices with ethics and the greater cause in mind. It is a monastic profession with a deeper spiritual pursuit. The intrinsic urge to make things right that gives fulfillment in life and Architecture does that for me. With this underpinning in mind, I have been teaching as Adjunct Faculty at Arizona State University for the past 2 decades to lay solid foundations for the students.
Creation is a patient phenomenon that requires profound alertness of the mind. Creator is the creation itself, therefore, being one in the moment is the primal requisite. The pursuit for me has been to create meaningful work that brings about joy for me and my clients. I am interested in solving problems poetically and pragmatically than to create something trendy of superficial novelty. I take time with the projects to bring them to phenomenological perfection. It requires an open mind to recognize an opportunity, test it to see if it makes sense for a particular project. One needs to be agile and alert to be creative. I am inspired by the local flora, climate, orientation, sun studies, landscapes, philosophy, art, literature, culture, music, history to instill meaningfulness in my work. I like sensitive, passionate, and sensible work and I am inspired by anything that would take me in that realm.
I would encourage, those interested, to review some of my built work on my website. One may find moments where the Sun would rise on a client’s wedding anniversary and light up a particular window in their primary bedroom, or the sun would set in a particular notch on a particular day to celebrate something special in their lives, or a window that would align with the Polaris for a planetary scientist, or a simple shower bench that would glow with natural sunlight to start the day bright, or a curtain would bellow in the wind inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, or human emotions would get expressed subtly through personification of a particular window detail, or a dried prickly pear cactus leaf pattern would show up on the entry canopy, or the mesquite tree’s dappled light would inspire to design a patio roof, or a synanthropic gesture would make a wall a living membrane rather than a demising one, etc. And the list goes on.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
My story is that of an immigrant who came to the US in search of opportunity. I grew up in India in a middle-class family that gave me good values and education. My search for Architecture began when I met my mentor, Anant Raje, at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, which is designed by the world-famous American architect, Louis Kahn. My mentor was pivotal in getting that project built for Kahn but also making my life. I was making less than $10 per month when I started my internship with him. After graduation I was offered partnership by another firm, however, after a few months I realized that I needed to learn more from my mentor, so I sacrificed the cushy job and went back to IIMA to apprentice under him for less than $40 per month at the time. Later, my wife and I needed to start our married life somewhere far away from Ahmedabad, so we decided to move to Singapore in 1993 since a college friend invited us there. I moved first with two bags; an airplane return ticket and US$155 in my pocket with no job offer. My job search started the day I landed in the Singapore with a few walk-in interviews based on the newspaper adverts. A very kind friend of my dad offered me to stay at his apartment which saved me from spending on lodging and boarding expenses for which I am indebted to him for life. Days went by and my cash reserve was depleting fast, and I had no job at hand after 10 days and my two-week visa was about to expire. I used to walk several bus stops to save 50 cents. With a daily food allowance of $2.0 I could only afford to eat boiled eggs or something at a local food stall or a McDonald burger. I luckily secured extension to my visa for another 2 weeks which gave me an opportunity to land with a freelance job at a very small firm. Later I made new friends and one of them helped me land an interview at her firm. And it worked! I landed the job which changed my life forever. The firm offered me to stay in their 4-story office building that saved me lodging and boarding expenses. Had it not been for those few friends who helped me during those pivotal moments, life would be very different today.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
After 4 years of being in Singapore working on The Esplanade Theaters, designed by James Stirling + Michael Wilford, London in collaboration with DP Architects, Singapore, I decided to move to the USA for graduate school. My wife stayed back and worked in Singapore to support my education. After graduation in 1998 we moved to Scottsdale since she was transferred by her office to Scottsdale. We began our new life in Arizona, a paradigm cultural shift and from tropical to hot and arid climate.
For about a decade I worked with very good architects such as Marwan Al-Sayed, Architekton, The Construction Zone, Jones Studio, etc. This gave me the confidence to start my own studio in 2007 in Scottsdale. Things were looking up at the beginning and two of my projects were selected by AIA for home tours in 2010 and 2011, however, the massive recession started looming in and swept my business away. I got bank notices about my account dropping below the low threshold and wanted me to close my business account. For 2.5 years I had no work at my office, nor could I get a job with my previous employers or elsewhere in the country. My saintly wife was supporting me all the while and then Jones Studio hired me for freelance work for about 9 months on the Nogales Border Station FF&E package. Finally, I decided to move back to Singapore in October of 2010 for a second stint. I moved alone as our daughter was in high school. I used to visit the family every 3-4 months just for a week or two. Later in 2013 Morphosis interviewed me in Singapore and brought me to their Los Angeles office for their project in Singapore. Los Angeles was a bit closer to the family, yet I was away for another few years working on very high-profile projects in Singapore and China. All of this may sound precarious, but it taught me a lot and sharpened my pencil to resurrect my studio once again in 2017. Life is what it is but I see it as glass is always full either with water or with air.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.architecture.yoga
- Instagram: amit_upadhye_architect
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmitUpadhyeArchitect/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-upadhye-aia-2a052312/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/amit-upadhye-architects-scottsdale
Image Credits
Photographer: Matt Winquist