Twin architects celebrate double success
Twins Sunil and Nilesh Bakshi have done everything together for the last 25 years—working, teaching and studying side by side until 2am in the morning.
On Tuesday they’ll celebrate the effort when they cross the stage together at a Victoria University graduation ceremony. Both are receiving double degrees in Architectural Studies and Building Science, and Masters of Architecture.
The twins’ knack for detailed drawings was recognised by a family friend who describes them as “born architects”. Their shared passion for drawing buildings and structures became a career choice in their final year of high school when Sunil and Nilesh decided to enrol for a Bachelor of Architectural Studies.
Sunil, the older of the two by five minutes, says by the end of their first year of study they understood the difficulty of being able to design ethical and environmentally friendly architecture without also incorporating building science.
No strangers to hard work, Sunil and Nilesh enrolled for a second qualification adding a Bachelor of Building Science to their workload, studying throughout their summer breaks, in addition to tutoring a number of classes at the University.
Sunil says by the end of second year, they could deconstruct a building in their minds. “We’d sit on the bus looking at buildings and deconstruct them, figuring out what’s wrong and how we could do it better”.
Nilesh says the brothers have always been close, sharing the same interests and tastes.
“We’ve always been in a diplomatic battle—going head to head—but never in a negative way. I want to do better than my brother, but I don’t want to see his failures be my successes,” says Sunil.
Nilesh says he doesn’t think he would have achieved what he has, without Sunil. “I was up for seven days straight when submitting my building science thesis and all I kept thinking was, I couldn’t have ever done that had Sunil not been present, doing the same sort of work.”
Later this month, the twins will separate for the first time in their lives when Sunil moves to Auckland to take up a new role practising architecture. Nilesh is staying in Wellington to embark on PhD studies.
“Nilesh is happy to keep studying, and that’s where his strength comes across. I’m going to be out there working. And when we come back to each other we’ll bring different levels of knowledge,” says Sunil.
“Any distance now is appropriate because of professional development. Right now, this is what we want to be,” says Nilesh.
“Both of us getting into Victoria, both of us doing the double degree, both of us doing the Master’s, and now, together we get to graduate and cross that stage together—that’s momentous for me. It’s been my dream since the first day we stepped through the door,” says Nilesh.
Sunil and Nilesh will graduate on Tuesday 14 May at 6pm.
To see the full article in the Dominion Post see here.