Deeksha Somaiya
Assistant Professor
About
Deeksha Somaiya is an educator, researcher, and designer whose work sits at the intersection of interior architecture, speculative design, and emerging technology. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Design at Karnavati University, Gandhinagar, under Dr. Promil Pande, focused on worldbuilding in speculative spatial design – research examining how imaginary futures can inform present-day design practice. She holds an International Masters in Interior Architecture from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, with exchange and collaborative studies at Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart and the University of Cincinnati, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Balwant Sheth School of Architecture, Mumbai, where she graduated on the merit list.
Before moving into academia, Deeksha practiced as an architect on hospitality, residential, and institutional projects, including key projects such as landscape and interiors of the MP High Court ,ICICI Bank, Tanishq retail stores and so on. She is a Registered Architect with the Council of Architecture.
As a design educator, she leads design studios spanning speculative futures, parametric design, phygital retail, public space, and furniture design, alongside key theory and skill courses. Her teaching philosophy treats space as poetic experience, the studio as a collaborative lab, and tools — hand or digital — as equally valid paths to a design idea.
Her research, explores speculative futures, generative AI, and machine imagination, presented at venues including IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, and international conferences in South Asia. She has also curated AI-driven art installations exhibited at design biennales in Delhi.
Co-authored with Kriti Malkani. Published as a book chapter in Futuring Design Education, Volume 1 (Springer Nature, Design Science and Innovation series), from a paper presented at FDE 2024, IIT Delhi. Reports on a design pedagogy experiment that paired two contrasting concepts — biomimicry and dynamic mechanisms — as design generators for a studio brief. Analysing student outcomes qualitatively, it found that juxtaposing disparate disciplines helped students identify unexpected similarities that strengthened their designs, while the differences between the fields offered a method for catalysing genuinely new design directions.
Link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-9206-1_5
Co-authored with Dr. Kishori Dalwadi. Published as a book chapter in Responsible and Resilient Design for Society, Volume 7 (Springer Nature, Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering), from ICoRD 2025, IIT Hyderabad. Examines the gap between top-down urban policymaking and residents' lived sense of community, arguing for participatory design that positions designers as community members rather than outside experts, and focusing on engaging younger generations in reshaping their cities.
Link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-96-5507-6_35
Co-authored with Dr. Kishori Dalwadi. Presented at ICETDA 2025, and published in the book "Emerging trends in Design and Arts" published by Taylor and Francis. The research positions joinery — traditionally a technical afterthought in furniture design — as a starting point for design exploration instead, incorporating ergonomics, modular and 3D-printed joinery, cultural considerations, and sustainability.
Co-authored with Aakanksha Batra and Freny Khatri. Published in the International Journal of Design and Allied Sciences (DRCI), in a special issue on "Gen-AI Enabled Futures." Investigates how the "imaginative" output of generative AI tools can be assessed and measured against human creative processes, contributing to the emerging discourse on evaluating machine creativity in design.
Link: https://explore.openaire.eu/search/result?pid=10.5281%2Fzenodo.15776474
Co-authored with Vindhya Napanda (first author). Published in Clareus Scientific Science and Engineering, Vol. 2, Issue 4 (2025). Examines how spatial design elements — lighting, interactive features, set arrangement — work alongside visual storytelling to shape audience experience at live performances, from theatre and concerts to runway shows, using case studies of designers like Es Devlin and Studio Drift.
Co-authored with Madhuvanty B. Published in the Journal of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Explores how sensory design — touch, scent, visual texture — shapes customer experience and perceived wellness in skincare retail environments.
Co-authored with Aakanksha Batra and Freny Khatri. Presented at ICOAH 2023 (10th International Conference on Arts and Humanities), Bangkok, Thailand, where it won the Overall Best Presentation award. Proposes a framework for assessing the aesthetic value of AI-generated art in comparison with traditionally, humanly imagined work.
Co-authored with Dr. Promil Pande. Presented at ICSRI 2025, Villa College, Malé, Maldives. Part of Deeksha's PhD research on worldbuilding in speculative spatial design, this paper proposes a set of "imaginary metrics" for assessing the value, coherence, and usefulness of speculative and fictional futures within design research.
Co-authored with Dr. Promil Pande. Presented at Transformations 2025, jointly organised by the Council of Architecture and D.Y. Patil College of Architecture. Argues for spatial design as an active agent of social change, exploring how designers can use disruptive, narrative-led strategies to shape more progressive, preferable futures.
Worldbuilding & speculative spatial design (PhD focus)
Evaluating speculative/fictional futures as design method
Spatial design as an agent of progressive social change
Generative AI and machine creativity/imagination
AI-generated art aesthetics and evaluation frameworks
Design pedagogy — cross-disciplinary studio methodologies
Participatory, community-centred urban design
Public space, green space, and human rights
Post-pandemic access to urban public space
Sensorial and experiential retail design
Furniture joinery as a design-generation tool
Co-working and multifunctional workspace planning
Preschool and learning-space design
Narrative and storytelling in spatial/performance design
Published in Springer Nature, international journals, and conferences (IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, Maldives, Bangkok, Jaipur)
Research Interests
Speculative Design & Worldbuilding
Spatial Design for Progressive Futures
Artificial Intelligence in Design
Design Pedagogy & Studio Methodology
Interdisciplinary Design Education
KU Eagle Award for academic contribution
Overall Best Presentation Award — ICOAH 2023, Bangkok (for "Artificial Intelligence Vs Accumulated Imaginations")
Selected Artist — India's First Architecture & Design Biennale, Red Fort, Delhi (inaugurated by the Prime Minister)
Merit List Student — Bachelor of Architecture, Balwant Sheth School of Architecture
Deeksha Somaiya
Assistant Professor
M.Des Interior Architecture, Bachelors of ArchitectureSchool of Design and Innovation
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deekshasomaiya@rvu.edu.in -
Bengaluru
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