Design Like Balkrishna Doshi
Architecture can serve everyone.
He spent a lifetime proving it.
Learn from the beloved master who brought dignity to homes at every scale. Absorb his humane vision and design buildings that care as deeply as they impress.
Doshi’s humane pragmatism will seep into your practice.
- Design with empathy — putting human dignity at the center of every plan.
- Adapt modernism locally — rooting global ideas in local soil and life.
- Serve every budget — creating beauty that never requires wealth to be enjoyed.
- Learn from the street — reading how real communities actually use and adapt their spaces.
- Build with humility — letting the people who live there complete what you begin.
- Craft joyful spaces — where ordinary daily life feels quietly and generously celebrated.
Built by one of the most-read architecture platforms in the world.
RTF | Rethinking The Future has spent over a decade publishing the ideas, projects and voices shaping architecture — and now brings that depth to learning. Every course is researched, written and produced by the RTF team.
Design that loves people back. Learn it here.
A clear path. Eight steps.
Everything unlocks instantly with membership · learn at your own pace
If you see yourself here, start today.
A few hours from now, you could already see differently.
I studied Doshi in school as history, not as a living method. Revisiting his housing and institutional work through this course revealed principles I could act on. My low-cost housing studio project borrowed his porosity and earned real praise.
Simple by design.
Watch
Short, focused video lessons — each one a single idea, clearly explained.
Apply
End every lesson with a small task that pushes your real project forward.
Transform
Watch your work develop a point of view that is unmistakably yours.
Answered simply.
What makes Doshi's approach worth a dedicated course?
He fused modernist rigor with Indian climate, craft and social realities better than anyone, and that synthesis is a masterclass for any architect working outside the Western canon's assumptions.
Is this relevant if I don't practice in India?
Yes. Learning how Doshi adapted global ideas to local conditions teaches you to do the same wherever you build.
Does the course cover his housing and institutional work?
It draws on the full range of his thinking, from low-cost housing philosophy to campus design, focusing on the principles that connect them.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Every course starts from where you are and builds up step by step, in plain language.
Is this software training?
No — software changes yearly. The thinking you learn here lasts a career.
How does it work?
Short video lessons with a small practice task after each. Any device, your pace.
What does membership include?
One membership unlocks every course on RTF Academy — all 450+, nothing sold separately. And you stay in control: cancel anytime in one click, and you will never be charged again.
Ready to see your work change?
Your next project could be the one that feels truly yours.
- 8 Sections
- 25 Lessons
- 4 Hours
- Introduction to Balkrishna Doshi3
- Human-Centered Design Thinking3
- Climate and Contextual Design3
- Materiality and Construction3
- Housing and Urban Design3
- Drawing and Design Representation3
- Case Study Exploration3
- Applying Doshi’s Principles Today4
Reviews
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I studied Doshi in school as history, not as a living method. Revisiting his housing and institutional work through this course revealed principles I could act on. My low-cost housing studio project borrowed his porosity and earned real praise.
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