MEET THE SPEAKER
How do you create a learning space that responds to the future without losing its connection to where it comes from?
A school must support changing ways of learning, while still feeling rooted in its people, culture and place. Finding that balance is where design becomes more than architecture.
This leads naturally into Meena’s perspective and the “Where Culture Meets Learning” theme.
Ar. Meena Murthy Kakkar
Design Head & Partner · Envisage
Architect · Design Educator · SPA Delhi
19 Years of Design Experience
Meena works at the intersection of people, place, culture and contemporary design, with a particular sensitivity to context and human experience.
Alongside her practice at Envisage, she has been teaching Design at SPA Delhi since 2008, bringing together professional practice and design education to explore how thoughtfully designed environments can shape the way people experience, interact and learn.
Design Rooted in People & Place
With 19 years of design experience and a parallel journey in design education at SPA Delhi since 2008, Meena brings a perspective shaped by both practice and teaching.
Her work—from The Mann School, Delhi, and The Tagore School, Faridabad, to Kaivinai, Bengaluru—explores how architecture can respond to people, place and cultural identity while remaining relevant to contemporary needs.
What Can Her Perspective Add to the Conversation?
Meena invites us to look beyond the visual language of a school and consider how context can influence the way a learning environment feels, functions and connects with its community.
Her approach also offers a valuable reminder: good learning spaces do not have to choose between cultural identity and contemporary needs—they can allow both to shape the experience.
For anyone designing or transforming learning environments, these ideas can offer a fresh lens on belonging, identity, usability and the everyday experience of learning.
And perhaps, it raises an even bigger question:
Can the places where we learn become part of how we learn?
Why Hear Meena at PULSE?
If you are designing a new school, transforming an existing campus, shaping learning environments or questioning what makes a school truly meaningful, Meena’s perspective offers a valuable lens.
At PULSE, you’ll encounter ideas that can challenge familiar approaches, broaden your thinking and help you look at learning spaces through culture, context and human experience.
Because sometimes, the next breakthrough in design begins with a better question.
PULSE 2026 | Where Culture Meets Learning
5–7 October 2026 | Sheraton Grand Palace, Indore
Come curious. Leave with new perspectives.
Ar. Meena Murthy Kakkar, welcome to PULSE 2026.