Inner Worlds | Architect Khushnu Panthaki Hoof

Why It Matters

The work highlights a contemporary, human-centered design ethos that blends modernist legacy with experiential, site-responsive architecture, underscoring how cultural continuity and sensory-led design can expand a practice’s international reach and influence.

Summary

Architect Kushno Panthakihoof describes an approach to architecture that treats darkness as a tool to shape light and atmosphere, prioritizing relationships between solid and void, people and place. Working from SAT, a studio founded and designed by his grandfather in Ahmedabad, Panthakihoof emphasizes daily reinvention and a tactile, sensory-driven practice. His DSHI retreat on the Vitra campus — a joint, deeply personal project with his grandfather and their first building outside India — is conceived as an open, ambiguous sequence of spaces that uses light, shadow and slight disorientation to invite calm and reflection. He frames architecture not as a fixed philosophy but as an evolving practice of nurturing bonds between users, materials and environment.

Original Description

From her work at Studio Sangath in India to the Vitra Campus near Basel, where she recently completed the Doshi Retreat, Khushnu Panthaki Hoof carries forward lessons from her grandfather, Pritzker Prize-winner B.V. Doshi

_Art Basel’s ‘Inner Worlds’ series presents leading voices shaping today’s cultural landscape_

‘Always remember that every morning you’re born in the skin of a donkey.’ This unexpected piece of advice was given by Le Corbusier to the Indian architect B. V. Doshi, who worked closely with the modernist pioneer in Paris in the 1950s. For Doshi’s granddaughter, Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, the phrase has become a compass – a reminder to approach each day without attachment to past achievements.

Based in Ahmedabad, India, Panthaki Hoof leads Studio Sangath together with her husband, architect Sönke Hoof. The practice was founded by B. V. Doshi, whose architecture helped redefine modernism in India.

In this episode of ‘Inner Worlds,’ we visit Studio Sangath in Ahmedabad where Panthaki Hoof continues the practice’s architectural legacy. In her work, she focuses on carefully chosen materials, light, and texture to create spaces that foster a sense of human connection.

This sensibility also shapes the Doshi Retreat at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany – a contemplative pavilion completed in 2025 by Studio Sangath from one of B.V. Doshi’s final concepts. Just minutes from Basel, the structure offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience the architect’s only realized project outside India and the final major work of his career.

Visitors to Art Basel can visit the Doshi Retreat at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein during Art Basel in June.

Director and DOP Himanshu Lakhwani

DOP and Location Sound Mixer Anshul Keswani

Producer Shreyansh Rajpal

Editor Atulya Srinivasan

Colorist and Sound Mixer Gerrit Piechowski

Nowness

Managing Director Gavin Humphries

Commissioning Director Katie Metcalfe

Director, Arts & Editorial Ananda Pellerin

Producer Vanessa Lewis Jones

Junior Video Editor Cayetano Garcia

Art Basel

Senior Editor Alicia Reuter

Creative Producer Akiel Gallina

Editorial Assistant Lama Yaghi

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