Ar. Shirish Beri, Shirish Beri & Associates

For Shirish Beri, it is difficult to imagine any activity as unrelated or cut off from the totality of life. Architecture too, in its greater vision, is life itself, thereby communicating, responding, and belonging to this fascinatingly interrelated web of life. Thus, any serious architect's approach to his architectural design would evolve from his understanding of life...an understanding of life that creates and nurtures his/her values and attitudes. A value based architecture can contribute to a better society and a better quality of life by positively addressing our concerns in life.

Given below are some of the concerns that Shirish Beri tries to address through his designs. He asks...

• With man moving further away from Nature, can my work act as a catalyst in bringing man closer to Nature?
• With man missing the meaningful interaction with fellow human beings, can our architecture help in bringing man closer to man?
• With over commercialization and deterioration of human values and overconsumption resulting from greed, can we shift our emphasis from saleability to sanctity, from glossy wrappings to inner content, from superimposed architectural gimmicks to function and climate related forms, from overindulgence to restraint? Can a value based architecture act as an agent of social change?
• With a sudden break in the traditional socio cultural continuum and too much dependence on technology, can our designs be modern and still keep continuity with tradition, history, and social cultural values?
• Can our designs be geared towards true sustainability to counter the destruction of natural resources and disturbing of the ecological balance?

Shirish Beri's work that is based on the above design philosophy, has won a number of national and international recognitions. He has been invited to act as jury and also to speak at many important seminars here and abroad.

"Our architecture, in its deeper layers is many a times the reflection of our socio-cultural values. Thus the current architectural trends are expressive of the rampant commercialization and commodification of our society."

Though he respects and likes the work of many masters, colleagues and even younger architects, his work is inspired by life, his experiences therein and by some old complexes and the vernacular designs.


He says "My architecture would not like to be in the form of invulnerable contained enclosures but would try to find a kind of vulnerable expression in the meaningful interface between the enclosed space and the open space. It seeks joy, a sense of wonder and a special spatial beauty by befriending the simple, the mundane and the ordinary. I have started realizing the full meaning of what Samuel Mockbee says – 'as architects our goodness is more important than our greatness and our compassion more eventful than our passion.' My works are not designed to create iconic, grand, exhibitionist forms that attract the eye, but to create more humane, socially relevant, more natural and sustainable spaces that nurture the human spirit."