The new Aranyani Pavilion opens in New Delhi

The Aranyani Pavilion seen in its green setting that highlights its natural materials and organic construction

(Image credit: Lokesh Dang, Courtesy of Aranyani)

An image speaks a thousand words – and in this spirit, architecture makes the perfect vehicle to embody a position, make a statement or raise awareness. It is no surprise, therefore, that an ecological restoration and creative arts initiative, Aranyani in India, chose an architectural pavilion to illustrate its efforts and ambition, and 'deepen public connection to nature' in a bid to encourage more discussion – and action – around ecology. The result, the Aranyani Pavilion, is the inaugural structure of its kind, and it has just launched in New Delhi's Sunder Nursery gardens.

Explore the new Aranyani Pavilion in New Delhi

Aranyani is an initiative founded in 2024 by conservation scientist and creative director Tara Lal, with a mandate to bring nature and humans closer together. Heritage and ancient wisdom are also key pillars for the organisation, which is named after the forest deity of the Rigveda (the sacred Vedic text that shaped early Indian ideas of nature). Bridging past and present, natural and human-made, Lal and her team decided to bring their ecological concerns to the built environment in the form of the Aranuani Pavilion – an annual commission.

'The idea emerged from time spent in sacred groves in Jaisalmer and Mawphlang, where I witnessed how conservation once lived inside ritual and community rather than policy. Those landscapes made me realise that restoration is not only a scientific act but a cultural and spatial one,' says Lal.

'When I founded Aranyani as an ecological restoration and creative arts initiative rooted in community, I always imagined that its work would eventually move beyond field sites and into shared public space. Architecture felt like a natural extension of that intention. It allows restoration science to become something you can physically enter. With the pavilion, Aranyani steps into the built environment for the first time, translating ecological research into a walk-through experience shaped by sacred geometry, material memory, and the dialogue between invasive and native species.'

The inaugural pavilion is titled Sacred Nature, and was conceived and speerheaded by Lal and designed in collaboration with emerging architecture studio T__M.space. Using sacred geometry and movement notions from the Indian culture, as well as drawing on the foundation's goals and the site's leafy setting, the new pavilion references the spatial logic of India’s sacred groves – rich, bio-diverse sanctuaries of local ecologies.

Lal elaborates on her choice of architects: 'For the first edition, I was looking for architects whose work could hold ecological thinking and material sensitivity together without becoming overly formal or detached from place. T__M.space’s practice merges digital craft with natural materials and sculptural form, and that felt aligned with the spirit of the pavilion.

'The collaboration grew from a conversation around sacred groves, spiral geometry, and the transformation of lantana into structure. The pavilion is conceived as an annual commission, and future editions will continue to be research-led, inviting architects who are willing to engage deeply with ecological context, local material intelligence, and the idea of architecture as a gathering space rather than a standalone object.'

The design was brought to life by makers The Works, led by Guillaume Lecacheux, and is complemented aurally by sound design from Gaurav Raina and Komorebi. Meanwhile, its physical manifestation is a spiral structure (think, a Fibonacci sequence floorplan), built using upcycled invasive Lantana camara, an invasive shrub brought to India by Portuguese and British colonial trade in the 18th century. Its latticed form is crafted by Ekarth Studio, and it is topped by a living, green canopy of some 40 native plant species.

The symbolic layering of the invasive Lantana beneath and the indigenous species above brings important conversations on India's colonial past to the foreground. 'The brief begins with ecology. Each pavilion must respond to a specific environmental question and be materially responsible in how it is realised. In this edition, that meant working with upcycled lantana camara, an invasive species introduced during colonial trade, and placing it in dialogue with a living canopy of native and naturalised plants,' says Lal.

'The structure had to be walkable, immersive, and able to host a public programme of talks, workshops, and performances so that it functions as a contemporary sacred grove. Continuity is also essential: the pavilion is not temporary in intention. After its presentation, it will be relocated to serve as a living classroom, and its plants redistributed into community-led environmental initiatives, ensuring that the project continues beyond its initial site.'

The structure has just opened its doors to the public and will remain on its site until 20 February 2026, brought to life not only by the visitors who will cross its threshold; a public programme of events and activations is also in the works, spanning performances, talks, workshops and guided tours that draw on both ecological and decolonial themes.

Lal says of her hopes for the venture: 'I hope visitors leave with a renewed sense of relationship to land. The spiral path slows the body, and the material contrast between invasive and native species makes visible the tensions within India’s landscapes today. At its centre, the shrine space recalls the monoliths of sacred groves, inviting pause and reflection. The pavilion is conceived to deepen public connection to nature and to open conversations around ecology, not as abstraction, but as something we move through and belong to. If it becomes a place where artists, scientists, architects, and neighbours gather and think differently about care and restoration, then it has done its work.'

The architects add: 'Our aim was to create a cohesive experience in which architectural geometry and materiality guide and immerse the visitor along a trajectory comparable to that of India’s sacred groves. We hope visitors take away the idea that architecture rooted in soft geometries and materials drawn directly from nature offers a powerful, and entirely achievable, alternative to conventional approaches.'

Following its closure at the Sunder Nursery, the Aranyani Pavilion is set to be transported and permanently installed at the Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls’ School in Jaisalmer, which was designed using local materials and sensibility by New York-based Diana Kellogg Architects in 2022.

'Sacred Nature,' Aranyani Pavilion, 4 - 20 February 2026, Sunder Nursery, New Delhi, India
t--m.space
aranyanilife.com

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).