Aditi Sontakke – NPTEL STAR
As every architect knows, a great structure doesn’t start with a dramatic gesture. It starts with a foundation that is quiet, planned, and often hidden from people who walk through the finished door. Aditi Sontakke, an Associate Professor at Thakur School of Architecture and Planning in Mumbai, added another layer to that work in 2018 when she took her first NPTEL course, ‘Housing Policies and Planning’ by IIT Roorkee. She recalls the moment her first certificate arrived, “It was really very encouraging and motivating,” she says. And so she registered again the next semester, and the cycle continued.
What has been built since then is quite remarkable. Forty NPTEL courses over eight years – and behind that number, the range is what matters the most. She has moved through Architecture and Planning, yes, but also Management, Humanities and Social Sciences, and even Civil Engineering. “Don’t limit yourself to one field,” she advises, because a designer who only speaks architecture cannot truly understand the world they are building for. Multidisciplinary thinking, in her view, is the core of effective design rather than a supplement to it.
And then, in the middle of a semester, an IIT Kharagpur course, ‘Introduction to Urban Ecological Heritage’ by Professor Jenia Mukherjee, pivoted her plan. It left her with a question strong enough to redraw her blueprint – what happens to the lakes our cities are slowly forgetting? That question turned into her PhD thesis. She is now pursuing her PhD on lake conservation at P.P. Savani University, Surat.
The whole arc, from question to thesis, began in a four-week course. It is, perhaps, the most structurally sound gift NPTEL has given her.
The impact doesn’t stop at the research desk. It follows her into every lecture she delivers. The ‘Sustainable Architecture’ course she has taken has changed not only what she teaches but also how she thinks. She now believes that sustainable thinking is a personal responsibility rather than a policy checkbox. Her sessions have grown more confident, more conversational. The classroom, it turns out, is also a place you can renovate.
Behind all of it is a belief she holds firmly. “I am a teacher,” she says, “but I am a student first.” It acts as the cornerstone for everything else she has constructed – nearly twelve star certificates across disciplines, two discipline stars in Architecture and Planning, one in Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as NPTEL mentor certificates that recognise not only her own learning but also her involvement in the learning of others. This semester, she is working toward a domain certification in Sustainable Architecture, with the NPTEL Superstar not far behind on her list.
Every building owes something to the ground it stands on, and Aditi has never forgotten what held her up.
Last year, when her abstract was selected for a conference at IIT Roorkee, in addition to her paper, she carried a presentation she had designed specifically to thank the NPTEL professors. IIT Roorkee is listed on fifteen of her forty certificates, and she wanted them to know. Standing before the professors who had guided her from afar, she expressed her gratitude. “It was a great moment,” she reflects, “A memorable one.”
Some buildings, once they are up, quietly tell you everything you need to know about the person who designed them. Aditi Sontakke’s learning life is one of them – layered, deliberate, and still very much under construction. And for Aditi, that is entirely by design.
– written by Nehansh Kesharwani