AH113, Minerva University, 2022. Solo. I designed and deployed a cultural probe to understand how a person relates to their physical environment and sense of wellbeing.

This project was my take on an assignment for my "Dynamics of Design" class where we were broadly requested to develop a cultural probe for a fellow classmate as our user. The motivating question leading my cultural probe was how external environment relates to, and affects an internal sense of self and wellbeing. I started with a qualitative interview, then built a physical probe kit. This was a set of activities my participant could complete on their own over a few days. Things like: photograph what feels like an obstacle, photograph what you're grateful for, map your emotional experience of your space with color. The probe went through two prototyping rounds before I deployed it. With each prototype and iteration, I focused on making the activities engaging for someone in their early twenties; I self-tested the second to understand how someone my age would approach the activities.

The interview told me she was analytically minded, future-anxious, motivated by progress. The probe told me something more specific: their sense of wellbeing was largely social. Her academic obligations were their "obstacle." Their flatmates were their "gratitude." The one activity they didn't enjoy was the only one they did alone. They texted me unprompted after the final activity — a social card game — to say they'd really liked it.

The findings pointed toward two possible directions: a gamified social check-in tool (something like We're Not Really Strangers) or a platform where friends share wellbeing and struggles.

Spring 2023, Minerva University semester in Hyderabad, India. Collaboration between 6 international students and The Open Box Project, a local architecture collective. We made a three-day tourist guide to Hyderabad's historical core. I was involved in field research, routing decisions, the mapping workshop, and content. Anoushka Shome, an architect at Open Box, did the final visual design.

When people think about visiting India, often a few cities come to mind: Goa, Kerala, New Delhi. Seldom is Hyderabad mentioned. This is a shame, as Hyderabad is filled with 1,000-year-old structures and culture that would fit the interests of any tourist. Until the start of this project, there was no practical guide for an English-speaking tourist to actually navigate it. The ones that existed were either overwhelming (too many sites, no logic) or shallow (nice photos, no logistics). The geographic problem made it worse: the major sites fall into two distinct clusters, Charminar and Golconda, several kilometres apart. Any guide that ignored that would send tourists into exhausting, inefficient days.

We walked every route before committing anything to paper. That meant actually visiting 12+ sites, checking whether listed opening hours were real, timing how long each site would realistically take, and scouting nearby food and coffee along the way.

We ran a mapping workshop to work through the information architecture problem. Two geographic clusters meant any single route would involve backtracking. We prototyped different approaches — grouping by geography, by theme, by walking distance — and eventually landed on three color-coded day routes. The color system meant tourists could orient in the guide without having to read all of it first.

Food recommendations are embedded in each day's itinerary at the point where you'd actually be hungry, not listed in a separate appendix. Nimrah Cafe is a one-minute walk from Charminar, so it appears right after Charminar. That required actually walking the route, not just knowing the city's "good restaurants."

The Open Box architects brought local depth we didn't have. We brought the outsider tourist perspective: what's confusing, what requires context, what's genuinely worth it versus just frequently listed. The final routing reflects both.

A printed physical map and a companion Google Site. The QR code on the print links to the digital version, which has fuller context on each location and the making-of process. My contribution was the research, routing, and content.

AH113, Minerva University, April 2022. Solo, 2.5-week sprint. Urban pedestrian mobility in Whitefields, Hitech City, Hyderabad.

Of Hyderabad's 9,100 km of roads, only 500 km had usable footpaths as of 2018. What I actually saw on the ground was thin painted lines, sandy margins, and informal walking space constantly blocked by parked cars, wires, puddles, and vendors. Everyone walked in the road anyway. The infrastructure that existed was too hostile to use.

The deeper problem: there was no articulation of what a sidewalk in Hyderabad was supposed to do — no values framework. So even where construction happened, it was incomplete. Shade, disability access, seating, social space were consistently absent.

I walked two routes with specific observation goals: the Kothaguda-Kondapur Flyover (arterial) and White Field Rd. (residential). I photographed and mapped what I found. Then I spoke with local architect Saagar Tulshan to understand why pedestrianization had stalled despite stated political will and budget allocations.

I ran a co-creation workshop with locals recruited from a nearby coffee shop and some Minerva students. Two exercises: map what currently exists and what you wish existed. What came back: people valued trees, food stalls, and culture. What they wanted: shade, outdoor seating, quiet, water, lighting.

I generated 100 AI sidewalk renderings using getimg.ai, iterating on prompts to explore design directions I couldn't sketch by hand quickly enough. Then I shared those with Anoushka Shome, a Mumbai architect, for critique. Her response was direct: the images showed what a sidewalk might look like, not how to actually build one inclusively. So I pivoted — turned the deliverable into a written proposal for engineers and designers instead.

A design proposal structured around three values: Disability Inclusion, Physical and Mental Wellbeing, and Social/Cultural Health. Each section has specific design recommendations with photo illustration. It was aimed at people making built decisions, not general audiences.

Caveats worth naming: the disability inclusion section draws from ADA and UN standards, not from conversations with disabled Hyderabadis — that's a real gap. The workshop sample was one coffee shop and some students, not a cross-section of who actually uses those streets. And the proposal was never reviewed by the engineers it was written for. 2.5 weeks is a sprint, not a study.