It’s been a very busy week, beginning with two photo shoots: one involving, in addition to videos and stills, a drone camera brought in to capture the sweeping scope of our iconic ramp; the second focusing on 6 students making their first visit to the site since ground-breaking over a year ago.

The drone shoot, conducted by a team from Delhi, had only to cope with architecture. The second had all that plus six children who were so excited, seven adults had difficulty keeping up with them. Seriously, what were we thinking? It was like opening a sack full of puppies and watching helplessly as they emerged and ran madly in all directions.

Manik got some amazing pictures, though. Here’s one:

It was our second Summit. The first was in March at the Windmill Studio in Gurgaon – our architects’ home base. We called it the Universal Design Summit – the grand title felt right. In addition to our own team (we all drove down from Dehradun early the same morning), our architects, and consultants for accessibility, sensory integration and project management also attended.

This time we were in Dehradun and the meeting began excitingly at the site with a careful and meticulous walk around every inch of the building. As the architect Christopher Alexander says, quoted in a wonderful essay by Elisa Gabbert,  “It is essential to work on the site. Work on the site, stay on the site, let the site tell you its secrets.” As we all trooped around that morning, seeing edges, doorways, brickwork and frames through each other’s eyes, new ideas kept springing to life. The atmosphere felt electric.

But there was nothing whimsical about the way we observed and took notes. The plans were constantly checked, the inchy-tapes were ever at the ready and every secret revealed was then reviewed by the experts.

For us, whose expertise is in disability, therapy and education, it was a master class in lines, angles, spaces and openings. New worlds keep opening in front of our very eyes. Our dream building is now 70% complete, but we still feel like newborn babies within it.