This text is a part of our Women and Leadership special report that profiles ladies main the way in which on local weather, politics, enterprise and extra.
Diana Kellogg is the founder and principal of Diana Kellogg Architects, a agency that focuses on high-end residential tasks in New York. Most lately, she has shifted her focus extra towards nonprofit work, conceptualizing and designing the GYAAN Heart within the Indian state of Rajasthan, residence to the Rajkumari Ratnavati Ladies College. Approaching the primary anniversary of its opening in June, the varsity serves about 120 ladies in a area of northern India the place their literacy charge is barely 36 p.c.
Ms. Kellogg is now designing the GYAAN Heart’s subsequent two parts: a ladies’s neighborhood middle and a cultural exhibition house. She spoke by telephone from Jaisalmer, the town in Rajasthan the place the middle is situated. The interview has been edited and condensed.
How did your work evolve from high-end residential to nonprofit tasks?
The primary 20 years of my apply have been spent working within the high-end house for celebrities and rich New Yorkers, however I did some neighborhood work, as properly. Finally, luxurious tasks grew to become unrewarding, and I used to be compelled to look deeper into nonprofit work.
I wished to make use of the architectural and design data I had acquired to assist communities in want, and commenced with a venture designing a youngsters’s library within the Bronx at St. Ann’s Church of Morrisania.
As soon as I began, I spotted that I wished to middle my apply round design that was centered on social change. The tasks I work on now are a mirrored image of the facility structure holds to affect the individuals who expertise it.
What led to you engaged on a venture in India?
The GYAAN Heart was commissioned by the Citta Basis, a nonprofit engaged on tasks in India. They’d constructed a faculty in Orissa [now Odisha], one other impoverished a part of India, and requested me if I’d design one in Jaisalmer. I used to be drawn to their dedication to serving to underserved communities.
How was Jaisalmer chosen as the situation for the GYAAN Heart?
The positioning was chosen by the Citta Basis as a manner to assist enhance the literacy charges for ladies within the area which might be so low because of financial disparities, gender and caste discrimination, and technological obstacles.
Are you able to speak concerning the design of the GYAAN Heart?
I wished to create an area the place ladies felt protected, snug and embraced.
Sustainability was key. We labored completely with native craftspeople — typically the fathers of the women — to construct the varsity utilizing hand-carved native sandstone, a climate-resilient materials that’s lengthy been used for buildings within the space. Conventional architectural particulars and constructing strategies have been mixed with Indigenous heritage particulars in order that the construction felt genuine to the area.
Sustainable design parts embrace recycled ceramic tile for the roof, lime plaster for the classroom interiors and 95 p.c native supplies. We additionally constructed a photo voltaic panel cover on the roof, which serves a number of functions: offering all of the electrical energy, creating shade over the courtyard, and serving as a play construction for the women. I additionally used native historic water harvesting strategies to maximise the rainwater and recycled grey water within the college.
One other sustainability effort comes from strategies we used to chill the varsity, rather than air-conditioning. As a result of temperatures peak near 120 levels within the area, we knew that we needed to maintain the interiors cooler, and utilized each the photo voltaic cover and jallis wall to assist create shade and a cooling panel of airflow. Elevated home windows additionally assist enable scorching air to flee as soon as it rises.
How have been the women who attend the varsity chosen?
Enrollment within the college was open to all households who dwell under the poverty line within the Thar Desert area. At the moment, round 120 ladies are enrolled. Citta performed neighborhood outreach to attraction to households in neighboring communities to enroll their ladies, and invited them to go to the varsity.
Are you able to speak concerning the roadblocks you might be encountering in engaged on a nonprofit architectural venture in India? Are there components particular to the nation which have made building or anything significantly troublesome?
One of many largest hurdles was executing the venture by way of the pandemic, particularly since India has been vastly affected by Covid-19. The timing of the pandemic additionally got here at a really unlucky second, as a result of we needed to design essentially the most sophisticated a part of the design, the photo voltaic panel system, remotely.
Moreover, a few of the hardest moments for me are experiencing sexism and misogyny from a few of the males I work with exterior of my workforce. This fully blindsided me. I used to be shocked {that a} venture meant to empower ladies would current this impediment, however it additional highlights the necessity for areas such because the GYAAN Heart.
When the ladies’s co-op opens on the GYAAN Heart, the plan is to have artisans train ladies native weaving strategies. What takeaway would you like them to have with these abilities?
The purpose is to boost gender parity and encourage the preservation of native tradition and strategies. Sadly, many of those ideas are on the verge of being misplaced. These classes will even assist give ladies financial independence; our hope is to pair them with up to date designers who’re producing garments and equipment to promote around the globe.
Have you ever visited the varsity? How does it maintain as much as your intent and expectations?
I’ve traveled to Jaisalmer upward of 18 instances all through the method, each pre- and post-completion. The hands-on expertise was important to the imaginative and prescient of the varsity, as I labored with a gaggle of regionally primarily based craftspeople and contractors, and have become associates with many individuals in Jaisalmer. It was immensely useful to grasp the area from the angle of academics, textile retailers, and entrepreneurs.
Each time I go to, I see the change within the ladies, from being shy to turning into these shiny lights who’re devouring no matter type of info you set in entrance of them.
How can different feminine architects like your self discover a stability between tasks that assist their backside line and ones that give again?
Virtually talking, we want cash to dwell, and my purpose is to have as many for-profit tasks within the works as doable in order that I can maintain doing nonprofit work. It may be exhausting to discover a stability and the time to do each. Nonetheless, my purpose is to tackle one no less than each two years. Different ladies can do the identical. As well as, I’ve a nonnegotiable that each for-profit venture that I’m doing has some ingredient of giving again. It could possibly be a high-end lodge, for instance, that has a faculty for the underprivileged in the neighborhood or supplies assist to households of staff. The methods to present again are countless, even for those who’re being profitable.
