Charged Voids’ journey of
18 years, and what lies ahead
“I visited the Capitol Complex everyday as a child,” says Ar. Aman Aggarwal, as he talks about how the decision to choose architecture was an instinctive progression of his childhood as he grew up in Chandigarh. Another such instinctive and conscious decision was basing his practice in the same city. The City Beautiful has influenced his ideals and practice such that the ideas of Western modernism juxtaposed with elements of Indian architecture became a core element of Charged Voids.
Far from the city of Chandigarh, his practice was further shaped amidst conversations with master architect BV Doshi and the inspiring team at Ahmedabad. The dialogues around modernism and it being a representative of independent India made a major part of the learnings at Vastu Shilp Consultants too.
Here, as an inquisitive young apprentice, he often struck up conversations with Mr. Doshi on topics of fame, recognition, built forms and their meanings, perceptions, and more. This experience best contributed to Aman’s unwavering enthusiasm for creating spaces that hold meaning.
Charged Voids has come a long way since its inception in 2008. What guides Charged Voids after 15 years of our establishment is this relentless search for spaces that one can explore, experience, and evolve with. Our quest to manifest architecture that is rooted in purposeful dialogue is the true essence of Charged Voids.
Charged Voids’ approach continues to into account the Indian influence that every site context has to offer. For instance, one of the ongoing projects on a hilltop in Naldehra, Himachal Pradesh, actively refrains from using any concrete in its construction. Instead, a traditional technique of building like Dhajji has been explored. This approach allows architectural forms to permeate the landscape of time.
Within the past 15 years, we have transitioned from working on mid-scale residential and commercial architecture to large-scale developments — all of which have taught us lessons on sustainability, spatial optimisation, resource-saving, and much more. Charged Voids looks forward to utilising and deepening this knowledge with our ongoing ventures. Next in line for us are a few university campuses with a footprint of upto 500 acres.
As we look to our journey ahead, Charged Voids aims to illustrate that architecture, when backed by context-awareness, could seamlessly demonstrate the core, intangible values of timelessness, sensibility and simplicity.