Whispers of Prana

Abstract

This practice-led research thesis explores the choreography of space. A quiet unfolding between body, memory, and spatial design. It listens to the echo of footsteps long after the music fades, tracing how movement leaves imprints not only on the floors but on the very spirit of space itself. Rooted in dance and guided by Vaastu Shastra, the ancient Hindu spatial system, it asks how architecture might learn to breathe, how built form can soften, respond, and evolve with the rhythms of the bodies it holds.

Dance by nature is ephemeral, lived moment by moment, never quite the same twice. Architecture, by contrast, is often conceived as permanent, fixed, and enduring. This work lingers in the space between them, questioning what becomes of built space when it begins to listen to motion, when it bends to rhythm and pauses for breath without losing its grounding.

As a South African-born, Aotearoa-raised, Hindu designer, my project is a return. An inward turning toward something I in perpetuum carried but hadn’t yet claimed. Born into Hinduism but only sincerely meeting its philosophies through this work, I began to see space not as a container, but as a being. Through Vaastu Shasta, space reintroduced itself as alive, not merely shaped by us but shaping us in return.

The result is a speculative design: The Nātyāloka Dance Complex, imagined within the layered heart of Auckland’s urban rhythm. More than a building, it's a vessel of breath, a keeper of rhythm, and a spatial partner to choreography. Nātyāloka repositions spatial design not as a backdrop for dance but as its collaborator. A place where the city’s energy gathers, where culture pulses through every surface, and where movement becomes a language used to sculpt space.