A design visionary, strategic planner, and hands-on craftsperson, Prairna’s passion for socially impactful design has always pushed her to go beyond the ordinary. To her, a successful design is meaningful and inspiring—one that feels right—and lies at the intersection of culture and community, economics and ecology, art and engineering.
With over 14 years of experience working in both India and the United States, Prairna has contributed her talents to various project types, including residential, hospitality, higher education, urban mixed-use, workplace, interiors, and high-rise design. Her experience across a diverse range of scales and typologies is threaded together by a design process that is equal parts exploratory and analytical, data-driven, and iterative—with the goal of creating timeless and memorable places. The results are perhaps best exemplified by her recent work on two landmark WRNS Studio projects: A High Tech Client’s workplace campus and the Orchard Workspace—award-winning and high-performing projects that strike a harmonious balance between the natural and built environments while fostering a symbiosis between people, place, and planet.
Prairna earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Architecture degree from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago where she graduated summa cum laude and received the AIA Henry Adams Gold Medal for exemplary performance. Guided by her curiosity for parametric design and strategic design thinking she later earned her second Master’s in Advanced Architectural Design from California College of the Arts, San Francisco. When she is not at her desk, you can find her tinkering in her cook lab (or kitchen), workshop (or garage), or planning her next adventure.