Crafting a new vocabulary for Kashmiri architecture

“My academic path, from Srinagar to CEPT, and later to Oxford gave me both international exposure and the critical distance to see Kashmir’s architectural questions with fresh eyes," says Zoya when asked about the beginnings of her journey. Yet what stands out is how she returned not with a desire to impose global ideas on Kashmir, but with a refined commitment to the region’s own complexities. She approaches the vernacular not as a museum piece, but as a living system capable of adaptation and reinvention.

“I try to work in the space where conservation can become contemporary, where vernacular techniques aren’t just preserved but used as tools for new ideas. Architecture, for me, is a way of imagining futures for a city that urgently needs forms of care rooted in its own sensibilities,”Zoya explains.
 

Craft, Materiality, and the Work of Continuity

At the heart of her independent practice lies a decisive intention: to reintegrate endangered vernacular building traditions into contemporary architectural expression. Among these, three obsessions animate her work, the luminous khanyari tiles, the green-roofed Burzé pash and a maximalist aesthetic deeply rooted in Kashmiri sensory culture.

Similarly, her interest in reintroducing Burzé pash or green roofs, the traditional multilayered roofing made of birch bark, challenges contemporary construction norms. The system, once widespread for its excellent insulation and ecological logic, has nearly vanished. Zoya’s experiments explore how this ancient technology could be adapted within modern compositions, bringing ecological wisdom back into the mainstream discourse of Kashmiri architecture.

Zoongash: A Space for Making and Thinking

Zoya’s architectural work is closely linked to her broader cultural engagement. Her studio, Zoongash, located in Srinagar, is a space of her own. An embryo and an experimental hub for her investigations at a deeper level as a cultural practitioner. In a city where creative infrastructure is limited, the studio functions as both a workspace and a site for experimentation—part research hub, part design laboratory.

“I don’t think we can wait for the city to be ‘ready’ for new ideas. My generation has to build the platforms, conversations, and design languages through which a new architectural imagination for Kashmir can actually take shape.” she says.

In the end, her work circles back to a quiet but insistent conviction: that architecture is not merely built form, but an ethic of attention. It is the discipline of noticing what the world overlooks; how a threshold choreographs humility, how a courtyard gathers memory, how a shrine becomes a vessel for both rupture and repair.

Her design ideology celebrates spectacle; it leans toward the tactile, the human. In a time when cities grow louder and faster, she calls for an architecture that shields tenderness, honours nuance, and protects the fragile rituals that make communities whole. If there is a message she offers to the world, it is that spaces can heal but only when designers listen first, intervene last, and honour the delicate negotiations that unfold between body, belief, and place.

In a region where architecture has long mirrored rupture, Zoya Khan represents continuity and hope.

For example, wherever glass was replaced, I used transparent glass instead of coloured glass, so the original coloured pieces remain. The new materials are not pretending to be old. I think that contrast between old and new is beautiful.

Take a Pashmina shawl, for instance—there are more than twenty-four major steps involved in creating one. The same is true for building crafts. Karigars possess extraordinary knowledge of geometry, proportion, and execution. Different regions in Kashmir even have their own visual vocabulary.

One of the most fascinating building crafts here is carpentry. The geometry and motifs in Pinjarakari work are incredible, yet much of it is now being replaced by CNC machines and laser-cut replicas because they are cheaper and easier to produce. But when people build only to follow trends, those things do not last.

When I enter this studio, I enter a completely different mental space. I feel deeply connected to it. In Kashmir, if you look at old karkhanas where artisans embroider shawls or make papier-mâché objects, the workspace plays a huge role in the creative process.

The moment I cross this threshold, I disconnect from the world. It becomes a space where I can think, contemplate, and create — not only about architecture or art, but about life itself.

Light has a huge impact on the creative process, especially in Kashmir where the seasons change so dramatically. In winter, everything hibernates, and in spring there is a rebirth. I wanted that connection between interior and exterior space to exist within the studio.

This space is very private. From outside it is modest, but once inside there is a strong relationship between the indoors and outdoors.

I spend evenings drawing, painting, and thinking here. Earlier, when I worked in my room, I always had to pack things away at the end of the day. Here, I can leave everything exactly as it is. That continuity allows thoughts to continue evolving naturally.

The materials also influence the atmosphere. The ceramic floor tiles are cold, but they are balanced by warm wooden elements like walnut and Deodar wood. I’ve tried to use natural materials in their original form.

Since creating this space, I’ve increasingly worked with my hands—painting, drawing, writing ideas down physically. There is a strong physicality to the thoughts that emerge here.

The knowledge systems these karigars possess are immense. Architecture education often distances us from materials and making. But when you understand how things are built, you begin to understand why old Kashmiri houses have survived earthquakes and floods. They are testimonies to craftsmanship. A house is one of the most aspirational things a person creates in a lifetime. If we fail to build with meaning and memory, our cities will eventually look like every other city in the world. They will no longer carry stories.

I think architecture is deeply tied to identity. The younger generation shaping Kashmir’s future must think about this seriously. We have abundant natural materials and extraordinary craft traditions. These should continue to exist in our homes.

Images by Rayees Rumi