Designer & Educator

sudhakar Nadkarni

sudhakar Nadkarni

New Book

by design

Sudhakar Nadkarni (2026)

“by design” chronicles a lifetime of design, distilled through projects about learning, questioning, and transforming practice and design education. Across six decades, each project in this book emerges as a site of inquiry: where a simple shift in an alarm clock redefined usability, where observing everyday routines led to reimagining public systems like milk booths, where constraints of materials and manufacturing shaped form, and where failures were not hidden, but repurposed into new directions.


This book contains product design, exhibition design, urban interventions and educational frameworks. The work reveals a consistent philosophy: design as a way of thinking - rooted in context, refined through experience, and guided by purpose to create meaningful social impact.

“by design” chronicles a lifetime of design, distilled through projects about learning, questioning, and transforming practice and design education. Across six decades, each project in this book emerges as a site of inquiry: where a simple shift in an alarm clock redefined usability, where observing everyday routines led to reimagining public systems like milk booths, where constraints of materials and manufacturing shaped form, and where failures were not hidden, but repurposed into new directions.

This book contains product design, exhibition design, urban interventions and educational frameworks. The work reveals a consistent philosophy: design as a way of thinking - rooted in context, refined through experience, and guided by purpose to create meaningful social impact.

About

Prof. Sudhakar Nadkarni has spent a lifetime shaping how India thinks about design as a way of understanding and improving everyday life. His journey mirrors the evolution of modern Indian design itself.


He founded pioneering institutions, mentored generations, and quietly transformed how products, systems, and public spaces are imagined. His work bridges the local and the universal.

Sudhakar is indeed very very special without a doubt; one of the most versatile designers India has produced in the many decades since independence. It is an honour to be his collaborator and his friend.

Charles Correa

Learn about his influences on

Indian Design History

Indian Design History

Indian Design History

Write to Professor Nadkarni

snadkarni36@gmail.com

Write to Professor Nadkarni

snadkarni36@gmail.com

©Collins Assisi® 2026, All Rights Reserved

Designed with love, by Nishita Nirmal

©Collins Assisi® 2026, All Rights Reserved

Designed with love, by Nishita Nirmal

©Collins Assisi® 2026, All Rights Reserved

Designed with love, by Nishita Nirmal