Praveen Bavadekar chose to return to his roots in small town India, after completing his undergraduate studies from Bangalore University and his postgraduate studies at the Architectural Association, London’s Design Research lab. Hailing from the City of Belagavi In Karnataka, Praveen is the great grandson of the freedom fighter and intellectual giant Gangadharrao Deshpande also known as ‘The Lion of Karnataka’.

Belagavi is a city of contrasts, being neither a small town nor a mega city, fully belonging to no one language or community, and being situated neither along the coast nor truly in the Deccan Plateau but straddling the blur between the two, neither in the north nor truly in the south.

This ‘in-betweenness’ has also come to define Praveen’s architecture where the works of the studio he has founded, Thirdspace Architecture Studio (TAS), explores the interstices between binaries – landscape and architecture, object and ground, rural and urban, furniture and architecture, old and new and so on. The name, ‘Thirdspace’ also refers to this in-betweeness that exists in the work of the studio as well as the geography it operates in.

Praveen founded Thirdspace Architecture Studio (TAS) in 2003 after returning to India from London. The studio was envisaged as an experimental space of explorations into architecture and urbanism, where he helped synthesise a new approach of doing design that relied less on intuition and inspiration and more on investigation and inquiry.

In the past two decades, he has immersed himself into the work of the studio which is a unique concoction of professional projects, academics and research.

TAS is now a partnership where Praveen has joined hands with Namrata Betigiri, an architect who studied in Mumbai and the US, and has an extensive experience of working in multinational architectural practices worldwide. The studio is home to talented professionals from all across India, and operates from Belagavi as well as Pune.

Besides his professional engagements in the studio, Praveen has extensively taught in architecture schools in various parts of the country including Mumbai and Bengaluru. He has also showcased the work of the studio in various forums including architecture summits and art festivals.

Praveen’s passion for engagement with the built space of the city has also led him to mentor a design based real estate company that is successfully synthesising a new way of doing speculative architecture.

Besides architecture, he is also a prolific writer and a lifelong student of philosophy and art. He also dabbles in agriculture and is passionate about cooking and food.

The works of TAS have consistently been recognised over the years, starting right from the second year of its inception in 2003.