vaishnavi chandra kumar

 Vaishnavi Chandra Kumar is an Indian architect and researcher based between New York and Bengaluru. Her work investigates memory, multiplicity, and contested geographies in architecture through the lens of boundary-making. 

At Columbia GSAPP, she developed the concept of Spatial Alter Egos—spaces understood not as singular entities but as repositories of overlapping personalities. Alongside this theoretical inquiry, her work is deeply invested in the material life of architecture and its climate impact, exploring how construction practices, material innovation, and design decisions shape collective futures.

Her research extends across writing, drawing, and teaching. In spring 2025, she co-taught a design studio at GSAPP with Markus Miessen, exploring social and spatial assembly through urban micro-infrastructures. She was a co-creator of rAADio Season 4:  a speculative audio project that explores
post-colonial fictions, the perception of time, queer temporalities, and mind-expanding futures as ways of reimagining architecture’s role in shaping collective imaginaries. 

 Her undergraduate thesis, Set in Stone, was exhibited at the Kurula Varkey Design Forum 2021, hosted by the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from R V College of Architecture in Bangalore, India, and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia GSAPP.
Her practice remains deliberately in flux, open to new negotiations, as she continues to refine a body of work attentive to cultural memory, material with a core focus on addressing the carbon crisis through material innovation and frame-working sustainable practices. EDUCATION

 Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning & Preservation, New York, USMaster of Science in Advanced Architectural Design | May 2023 - May 2024

R.V. College of Architecture, Bangalore, IndiaBachelor of Architecture | August 2015 - August 2020 GET IN TOUCH
Email cvaishnavi.work@gmail.com
Instagram @vaishnaviccc
 LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/vaishnavi-chandra-kumar PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

CANY Architecture & Engineering DPC, New York, USAssistant Project Manager | April 2025 - Present
Studio A+M Architects, New Jersey, USArchitectural Designer | October 2024 - April 2025

Columbia GSAPP, New York, USAdjunct Assistant Professor | Jan 2025 - May 2025

Columbia GSAPP, New York, USAssociate Faculty II | June 2024 - August 2024

CollectiveProject, Bangalore, IndiaProject Architect | March 2021 - April 2023

LA, Bangalore, IndiaGraphic Designer | September 2020 - February 2021

Mindspace Architects, Bangalore, IndiaArchitectural Intern | July 2019 - December 2019 ACADEMIC DISTINCTIONS

GSAPP Merit Based Scholarship, August 2023Highest level of academic achievements in the summer semester

Kurula Varkey Design Forum Panelist,  July 2021Student panelist for the final dissertation discussion at CEPT University.