Geographies of Care
Arpita Sharma: A Young Architect from Bengaluru Designing for Communities Across Africa and Ukraine
In a profession often measured by scale, speed, and visibility, the decision to pause—and respond—can be just as defining. For Arpita Sharma, a young architect based in Bengaluru, architecture has become a way to engage with the world not only as it is built, but as it is broken.
Known for leading complex, large-scale projects across India, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Sharma’s work typically operates within the demanding frameworks of global practice. Yet, far from the commercial milestones and international commissions, one project stands apart in intent and urgency: a humanitarian-led reconstruction initiative in Ukraine, conceived in response to the devastation left behind by war.
Developed following the widespread destruction of civic and educational infrastructure, the project—titled Silence of the Ashes – is located in Irpin, a city deeply affected by conflict. Designed without a client, budget mandate, or promise of immediate execution, the project emerges from a different place altogether: a sense of responsibility. It asks a difficult question—what role can architecture play when cities are reduced to silence?
Rather than proposing a monument to loss, Sharma’s design imagines a future-facing educational and community campus, one that weaves together learning spaces, social commons, and ecological systems. The architecture is deliberately restrained. Its ambition lies not in form, but in meaning—prioritising safety, adaptability, and psychological recovery. Spaces are layered to encourage reconnection: classrooms alongside community rooms, libraries opening into shared landscapes, and circulation paths that invite movement, pause, and reflection. The ground itself becomes part of the narrative, shaped into gardens and contours that absorb water, soften memory, and symbolically hold what has been lost.
That this work comes from a young architect in India is not incidental. It reflects a broader shift in how global crises are engaged—not through proximity, but through solidarity. Sharma’s practice, Atelier Astil, operates across continents, yet this project strips architecture back to its most essential function: to restore dignity where it has been taken away.
The Ukraine initiative is not an isolated gesture. Alongside this work, Sharma is involved in humanitarian-led projects across regions of Africa, focusing on educational and community infrastructure in underserved contexts. These efforts share a common philosophy: that architecture, when detached from spectacle, can become a quiet instrument of care—responding to climate, culture, and limited resources with clarity and respect.
What unites these projects is not geography, but intent. They are driven by the belief that architecture must remain accountable to the world it inhabits. In choosing to engage with places shaped by conflict and inequality, Sharma’s work expands the definition of leadership in architecture—particularly for a new generation of women-led practices emerging from the Global South.
In a time when images of destruction travel faster than solutions, Silence of the Ashes stands as a reminder that rebuilding begins long before construction. Sometimes, it begins with a drawing—made thousands of kilometres away—guided by empathy, resolve, and the conviction that architecture still matters.