Shivani Pinapotu is a spatial thinker and designer interested in how space intersects with story, society and our sense of self.


My earliest memory of a space was a pillowfort that my aunt had built when I was young. The experience of having a space that fit me and a place to call my own fascinated me beyond measure. I have since then been driven by the impact of empathy, wonder and a story well-told, and always find myself reaching for these virtues to position myself within a project. My practice is, therefore, an attempt to humanise the built environment.

I hold an MDes. in Interior Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design, where I concentrated in Exhibition and Narrative Environments, and have extensive experience in architecture, interiors, exhibitions and theatre design across India and the States.

I am presently working at Home Studios, Brooklyn.

Reach out to spinapot@gmail.com or find me on Linkedin, if you have anything in mind!

WORK ︎︎︎

Poreless (2025) premiered at the Aspens ShortFest, and the Tribeca Film Festival, among others.



WHITE BOX, Brown Arts Institute
A poetic and impressionistic distortion of the story of the 1897 Polarex expedition, unraveling the dramatic journey of the three scientists and blending it with a bizarre parallel tale of the life of the lost photographs since their emergence.

making pla(y)ces

Softening the city by learning from the way children make places in play (She even built a play parklet as a prototype!)


Soul Tapes, Trinity Repertory, Providence

Set in the year 2105, the story of Soul Tapes takes us through the journey of two creatives’ relationship when it is challenged by a higher celestial force. 




Omakase, Boston
Pop-Up Dining as a program model to support the retail business for interior design products. 

Macbeth, Trinity Repertory, Providence

The story of Macbeth is reimagined by situating it from the point of view of Lady Macbeth.




The Road Not Taken, Umea, Sweden
 An investigation of the relationship between infrastructure, landscape and the community of Teg, Umea.



Streets For People, Bangalore
The public life on 4th Street, Bangalore is reimagined in collaboration with Studio Sorted as part of a competition proposal.

She previously dabbled in design journalism and wrote for several online publications, bringing together critical inquiry and her experience in material craft to explore how environments shape, and are shaped by, collective narratives.


Most recently, she edited the preface for Lost in Transit by Anubha Verma, a photographic study of Mumbai’s taxis and the subculture of the city’s taximen.


She also illustrated and wrote Echoes of the Kitchen: A synesthetic portrait of two worlds for dhoop*, a series of synesthetic diptychs of two kitchens in tandem, her mother's in Delhi and hers in Providence, in an attempt to remember the sounds in her kitchen as she frantically tries and make sense of her own.





As part of her wintersession course, she conceptualised, directed and enacted a synesthetic performance to evoke the memory of childhood, which became the foundation of her thesis, making pla(y)ces.



She tried her hands at intaglio printmaking two years back and fell in love.


Dorothy takes cues from the Wizard of Oz in this longform visual narrative.

She narrates a story between the sea, the body and the sky in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part I, with close references from Coleridge’s poem.






Inspired by Kensuke Koike, she used the process of kirigrami to introduce multi-lateral readings of the text of Marshmallow Worlds as a conceptual translation of the pillowfort.

Dusk reveals the glory before the fall of the sun.


She enjoys communicating in digital collages! This concept collage was made as part of her design for an exhibition on Frida Kahlo.





She sketches a lot. These became postcards to her friend.




Rooting, KMC Greens, Manipal

Kiosk design for the Graduation Ceremony of the Class of 2018.









A Central Spirit of Unity, CR Park, New Delhi

Inspired by Rabinadranath’s essay, “City and Village” (1924), CR Park is revitalised though place-making strategies.
Running on Cargo