Prabhjot Kaur

Dr. Prabjoth Kaur, nicknamed Happy in her home, recalls her childhood as one of the younger siblings in her family. She talks about the extensive support her father provided her in her middle school years while she took her first steps toward the study of architecture. She talks about her father’s placement in Jharkhand and has spent her days in Sindri until she was eight years old. Incidentally, the first architect she ever met happened to be her father’s trainee’s wife, a meeting that was arranged by her father. She recalls leaving impressed by their interactions. Moreover, she also adds how she indulged in energetic extra-curricular engagements and her passion for the army. She recollects impressions, interactions, and challenges she faced in the first few years of joining architecture school. Upon graduating, she soon slipped into stressful times of having to multi-manage her role as a new mother and practitioner, along with a stringent work schedule. Stepping into the ‘social-work’ environment as a woman architect, she details the challenges she faced. On taking up a position with Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA), she speaks of her sudden restlessness with having to give up her long-sought-after practice and how she eventually began to enjoy teaching. She soon did her PG dissertation on the drawbacks of architecture education and mentions the flak she drew for it from the higher-ups. She further shares her findings and her struggles with them. Subsequently, she went on to pursue her PhD. and shares her learnings from her class interactions up till that point, along with her findings from her PhD research. The hypothesis of her research states that there exists a yawning gap between education and practice and goes on to present ways to fulfill these gaps. 
Furthermore, she explains the role she has aspired to in order to fulfill responsibilities as a woman architect and an academician. She talks about why women architects find it challenging to go on and settle for teaching, and notes how she has had a satisfying career and is retiring soon. She puts up a case for mid-level exit in education for the Council of Architecture to consider and its relevance to women, along with inculcating design courses early in school. She closes by discussing how architectural education is lacking and requires reform in its system and curriculum.

Continuing the conversation, Dr. Prabjoth Kaur expands on the reasons behind her back and forth with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Council of Architecture (COA) in defending her case for a mid-level exit in education, and she deems that the norms are standardized on an undemocratic base. She goes on to compare and reason the balance between ‘successful practitioners’ and architecture graduates, as well as goes into depth about the current state of architectural education according to her findings about the Council. She delves into her own journey towards success in teaching, starting with undertaking an M.Ed, and the capitalist nature of the abundant educational opportunities available today. About how the postgraduate programs remain unaffected by the Council’s influence, she discusses the prospect of how far one can improve a graduate’s career outcome under a well-guided system. She speaks from her five-year experience of practicing, her learnings from the work performance of young graduates, and the lack of appropriate training in architecture institutions provided as ‘closed silos’. On the prospect of publishing her findings on the drawbacks of higher education in architecture in India, she describes her struggles with language and overcoming them. In her time studying at Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA), she speaks of the instrumental role of the faculty and training she benefited from largely as compared to the state of education currently. She talks about passing on to her students various understandings, such as how to design execution should be given importance over learning design. She closes the session by remarking on the sex ratio in her batch at CCA, their interactions, and engagements that she remembers fondly.

Dr. Prabhjot Kaur recalls her architectural practice Prabjoth Kaur & Associates, her biggest clients, and how she landed them,  taking the firm forth with many designs, and projects, and building a greater base of regular clients. She draws on the shortcomings in her education that left her unprepared for practical work matters, which led to her learning these skills on the job. Discussing her many client interactions, she recollects the industrial, institutional, and home designs she worked on during her practicing years. She goes into describing the small-knit team she collaborated with at her firm over 4-5 years, between 1983-1988. She maps a timeline of the most momentous points in her career and recalls difficult negotiations in her practice and with her clients, stakeholders, and others over her years at the firm. Putting her opinions forth strongly, she explains how gender has an important role to play in the day-to-day dialogues within any profession, and describes the hurdles she faced on-site as a woman practitioner. On her fear of practicing in English, she recalls how she used her stronghold on Punjabi on-site in turning her hurdles around and gaining respect from fellow workers. Furthermore, she remarks on managing her roles as a new wife, mother, practitioner, and then later a professor in 1988. 
 
When she began teaching, she focused her research interests on her experience gained in construction rather than design. She explains her teaching methodology, her academic focus and interests, and her transition to the post. After sixteen years, she details the time she went back to becoming a student to pursue her post-graduation and put forth a conference paper on architectural education. She mentions the special collaborative dynamic she shared with Ms. Ranjit Kaur on co-authoring the paper and delves more into being a woman in the field.

Discussing her postgraduate studies in detail, Dr. Prabhjot Kaur mentions how she received a significant grant opportunity to study in Roorkee, which changed the course of her life for the better. She recalls the reading habit her father inculcated in her and her siblings, and how the habit developed over the years and helped her fight her sleeplessness. After her postgraduate education, she set on a quest to answer many questions she had about the potential and skill gap that architecture students could fulfill. She points out the Supreme Court’s reinforcement of the act protecting an architect’s title rather than their practice and how she recognized its inherent flaw while engaging in a dialogue with eminent Council members and institutions on the discussion. On pursuing an M.Arch at the University of Roorkee, she discusses the reasons behind choosing her research interests, her master’s journey and attaining a scholarship for further education. On pursuing her PhD at IIT Roorkee, she goes into detail about describing her presentation to her PhD committee. On her mother-in-law’s role in helping her manage her home and family as she studied and worked simultaneously, she draws a timeline of the commitments that required her to travel. She then goes on to explain the circumstances in which the family moved to Chandigarh after her transfer, and how observing her husband’s work in machinery manufacture gave her a better insight into her own work. She talks about being the first woman architect to pursue a PhD and the challenging progress she made. She closes by remarking on her experience in the field as a woman researcher and her way forward with her findings in architectural education in India.