‘Golden Dialogues’ is a series of panel discussions on the topic central to the changing urbanscapes in India, organised to mark Golden Jubilee Year of VK Group. The third session on Golden Dialogues was held on the topic ‘Architectural Design Competitions – Pushing the Edge in Architecture Profession’. Organized by Sustainability Initiatives (SI), NGO Founded by VK Group, this thought provoking discussion was held at Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, MCCIA Trade Tower, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune, on 23rd June 2023 in between 5pm to 7pm. Winners of various national and international competition – Sunil Patil (Director, Sunil Patil and associates), Kalpak Bhandari (Director, Veekas Studio) and Vijay Sane (Partner, VK:u urban) – were the panelists and Moderated by Ar Hrishikesh Kulkarni . Through the presentation of some of their competition winning works, they shared their experiences and thoughts and Ms Apoorva Kulkarni explained details about Golden Dialogues.
Kalpak Bhandari presented the design of Iconic Satara, a project under construction as the Administrative Office Building for the Satara Municipal Council. Sunil Patil elaborated the process of design, implementation and post-occupancy challenges for their design of their celebrated project, Pune Collector Office. While both the guests spoke about competition projects whose objective was to be built, Vijay Sane elaborated an example of Ideas Competitions. Through a detailed explanation of the design journey of the Intermodal Station at Katra, Vijay brought out how the ideas were assimilated.
The session ended with a Q&A with the panelists. Architects, students and various stakeholders related to topic participated in this discussion. The event was honored by a video message by Atul Chavan, Chief Engineer of Public Works Department(PWD).