Cheshta Kela

MA Interior Design,  superFUTURES
Royal College of Art

My work is deeply rooted in a fascination with how spaces shape human emotions and experiences.  I find meaning in creating environments that don’t just function but provoke thought, connection, and build a sense of community often focusing on accessibility and transformation. 

My approach is both meticulous and reflective, always seeking to push boundaries and tell meaningful stories through space. I’m especially drawn to projects that challenge me to think both critically and empathetically.

My process is about curiosity and exploration: constantly learning, experimenting, and finding extraordinary ways to express ideas. I’m passionate about understanding the bounds of space in its many dimensions, weaving together my love for interiors and writing, and using these tools to inspire others and create environments that feel deeply human.




kelacheshta@gmail.com
/cheshta-kela

Architecture as a Disruptor of the Passage of Time: Brutalism, Memory, and the Counter-Archive of Robin Hood Gardens


Abstract: Architecture has often been perceived as a medium for capturing time, a physical archive that captures history, memory and cultural identity in built form. Nevertheless, this dissertation seeks to challenge conventional understandings of memory and architecture by examining how demolition, fragmentation, and representation function as mechanisms that disrupt linear notions of time. Rather than simply preserving memory, architecture is reimagined as a malfunctioning repository that misremembers, distorts, and complicates recollection. 

Robin Hood Gardens (RHG), the Brutalist council estate in East London designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, is a site for exploring these disruptions. Its demolition not only marked the loss of a physical structure but also the disintegration of a social and ideological vision. What remains are fractured recollections: a preserved section in the Victoria & Albert Museum, drawings by artists like Jessie Brennan, and evocative reconstructions that challenge the stability of architectural memory. These become counter-archives, defined as forms of remembering that resist closure, permanence, or linear time. Memory is understood as fragmented, fluid, and emotionally charged in this context, resisting containment within fixed architectural forms. While architecture often strives to stabilise memory through material permanence, memory's unstable and performative nature defies such containment, demanding a more responsive and dynamic mode of engagement. (Whitehead, 2009) 

This study seeks to navigate the ruins of RHG, not in search of recovery but to dwell on the absences it leaves behind: grief, displacement, erasure, and the politics of forgetting. It positions architecture as both a material practice and an emotional terrain, one where the collapse of the building mirrors the collapse of narratives, identities, and social contracts. By embracing ephemerality and disruption, this dissertation contends that architecture can invite users to confront the instability of memory and the fluidity of time, challenging the discipline’s historical role as a guardian of permanence and preservation. 


Research, Writing, Critical Thinking

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