Launch of the Aranyani Pavilion

Aranyani launches one of South Asia’s most ambitious ecological art and architecture pavilions at Sunder Nursery in New Delhi, opening in February 2026. Founded by conservation scientist and creative director Tara Lal, Aranyani is a conservation and creative arts initiative dedicated to renewing human connection with the natural world.

Named after the forest deity of the Rigveda, the sacred Vedic text composed over 3,000 years ago that shaped early Indian ideas of nature, Aranyani enters the built environment for the first time. With this new annual commission, the organisation extends its ecological research into the physical world, using architecture to translate restoration science into grounded expression and to create space for urgent ecological conversations in the urban realm.

The inaugural edition of the Aranyani Pavilion, titled Sacred Nature, is conceptualised by Aranyani founder Tara Lal and designed in collaboration with TM Space, the architectural studio led by Tanil Raif and Mario Serrano Puche, known for creating lightweight, digitally crafted structures shaped by ecological thinking and local materials.

Set within the gardens of Sunder Nursery in the heart of New Delhi, and conceived as a spiral walkthrough installation, the Pavilion draws from the spatial logic of India’s sacred groves, ancient, community-protected forest sanctuaries that functioned as early bio-reserves long before modern conservation law. Preserved through spiritual belief and social custom, these groves safeguarded biodiversity, water sources, and local ecologies, and are now recognised as key biodiversity hotspots as well as among the earliest models of community-led conservation in the subcontinent.

Guided by principles of sacred geometry and movement, the Pavilion leads visitors along a continuous path of shifting light, shadow, texture, and sound. Its architecture choreographs an inward journey that echoes the rhythm of a living forest. The procession culminates in a central shrine anchored by a large stone monolith, recalling the ritual cores of sacred groves, where stone markers traditionally signify the symbolic meeting of earth and sky.

The Pavilion’s intricate technical realisation was executed by The Works, led by Guillaume Lecacheux, and complemented by sound design from Gaurav Raina and Komorebi.