ARCHITECT INDIAI take my role as an architect seriously because my thoughts and actions are bound to have a lasting impact on people, society, and the planet.
—SHEILA SRI PRAKASH
Sheila sat waiting in the principal’s office. He was reading her application, glancing up at her every few minutes. When will the interview begin? she wondered.
She rubbed her hands nervously up and down her sari. It was her nicest one—she wanted to make a good impression. She was applying to Anna University School of Architecture and Planning in southern India, and she knew they didn’t have any girls at the school. Not yet.
Sheila had wanted to be an architect for many years now. She felt drawn to it and saw it as a way to improve people’s lives. Her years as a dancer had given her an idea of how a space could influence your performance; she wanted to design spaces that would help people to be their best.
A sound interrupted her thoughts. The principal had dropped her paperwork on the desk and was staring at her. Sheila stilled her trembling hands. She was ready—she could answer anything he threw at her about design, favorite buildings, influential architects. She wasn’t prepared, however, for the question he asked.
“Don’t you think you would be wasting a seat?”
What? Sheila didn’t understand. She had excellent grades and was considered a child prodigy in several performing arts. What is he talking about?
Before she could compose an answer, he continued, “If a boy got this seat, don’t you think he could pursue a career better?”
She couldn’t believe it! This man didn’t think she could do it. Just because she was a girl. Sheila gathered her thoughts and her nerve, and then she sat up straight and looked right into his eyes.
“No,” she answered. “I am a woman, but I’m quite serious.”1
Months later, Sheila sat in her first design class. She looked around at her classmates—all boys. They and the teachers seemed a bit baffled to see a girl sitting there. She would show them, and the principal too, that she wasn’t wasting a seat. She would use architecture to make the world a better place.
Today, Sheila is one of the top architects in the world. A respected, award-winning innovator known for her sustainable, environmentally friendly designs. But Sheila’s path wasn’t always clear. As a child, her passion wasn’t architecture, but dance.
Sheila was born in 1955 in Bhopal, India. Her parents tried to have a baby for fifteen years before she was born, and Sheila was their one and only child, becoming the center of their lives. At that time, Indian women were not expected to have careers outside the home. But Sheila’s father told her over and over again that she could do whatever she wanted. “You just have to dream, and that is enough . . . It will get you there,” he told her.2
Sheila was smart and loved to learn. She explored everything but was especially drawn to the arts. She learned to sing, play instruments, paint, and sculpt, but it was dance that she fell in love with. At age four, she began training in the classical Indian dance Bharatanatyam. It turned out that she had a gift for it; by age six, she was performing to amazed crowds. People began calling her a child prodigy (someone under the age of ten who achieves to the same level as an adult expert in their field), and child prodigies are rare.
Bharatanatyam is a solo dance performed by women wearing bright costumes. It began in Hindu temples in India to express spiritual ideas and stories. Performers must keep their upper torso completely still and legs bent. They move only their feet and arms, conveying story and emotion through complicated hand gestures and eye and face movements. This dance has been performed for over a thousand years. Although it was banned during the British colonial period (1612–1947), it has since enjoyed a rebirth.
After more than a decade as a celebrated dancer, Sheila switched gears. In 1973, at age eighteen, she went to college to study architecture. Sheila explained the connection between her passions:
Even as an eight-year-old I was extremely intrigued and fascinated by architecture and design. As a trained dancer, we create an ambiance and then we perform. We don’t have the props and sets behind us, so we say that a river is flowing, there is a tree here . . . And then you set the scene for what is to come.3
There were very few female architects in India at that time, and none at her university. But Sheila knew what she wanted. She thought if people lived in a positive environment, they could be empowered more easily, could perform better. Once out of school, she had to fight hard for her beliefs—and for work. She had to prove herself over and over again; she got threatening phone calls. Some clients thought they didn’t have to pay her because she was a woman. Contractors and laborers who were supposed to construct her designs didn’t believe a woman could know about building things. She had to work harder than her male colleagues to earn respect.
Sheila is considered the founder of “spaciology,” the science of environment and behavior, which studies the impact of the built environment on the behavior of society and individuals.5
As Sheila’s buildings grew, so did her reputation. In 1979, she was the first woman to start and run her own architecture firm, Shilpa Architects, which is still in business today. During her career that spans more than thirty-five years, Sheila has designed more than 1,200 projects—everything from low-cost housing to energy-efficient office buildings; residential communities, art museums, and sports stadiums to schools and luxury hotels.4
Today, Sheila is the most famous, award-winning architect in India and a world leader in environmentally friendly, sustainable design. She believes that the only way forward in her industry is with design and construction that cares for the earth and the environment. Another passion is well-designed housing for low-income groups. She also incorporates Indian art and culture into her projects, drawing inspiration from the classical dance and temples of her childhood.
In 1993, Sheila designed a home in Chennai, India, using recycled materials and incorporating a system for gathering rainwater. It was an effective, low-cost solution for the lack of freshwater in India.
Fulfilling her childhood dream, Sheila is indeed making the world a better place through architecture. In 2011, she became the first Indian architect chosen by the World Economic Forum for their Council on Design Innovation. The mission of her sixteen-member team? To brainstorm ways to improve the world. In 2015, Architectural Digest named her one of the fifty most influential architects in the world.
Sheila has been called a pioneer and a living legend in architecture. Good thing she didn’t give up her university seat to a boy!
When I look back as a dancer, what I learned was wherever your hands go, your eyes must go, and wherever your eye goes, your mind must go. This taught me how to focus. When you have a passion to achieve something that you really desire, and when you have the focus and the tenacity to work hard . . . you will get what you want.”
—SHEILA SRI PRAKASH
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I’m gonna rock the world by becoming an environmental architect/designer. I am going to design houses and cities that will help prevent global warming by saving water, gas, fuel, etc., using up as little resources as possible. I will also make designs that are accessible to people whether they have money or not. It’s not just rich people who should have good design; everyone should.
IVA BORRELLO 
AGE 13