Flora interviews Delhi-based architect, urban designer and educator Tapan Chakravarty, to find out more about building with true community impact. Tapan describes how traditional, vernacular housing in rural India mirrors the characteristics of the local environment, climate and natural materials – and how the lifestyle of villagers and their ways of using domestic spaces have been culturally inherited over many generations. Amongst other themes, Flora and Tapan explore how being curious about the past is key to understanding the built environment of today – this is a mindset that Tapan encourages in his students at the Pearl Academy’s School of Design in Delhi.