Podcast Interview on Wild Wisdom
There are certain conversations that don’t feel like interviews. They feel like openings or moments where the usual scaffolding falls away and something truer takes its place.
I sat with Anton Chernikov at Selgars for his podcast Wild Wisdom, a space dedicated to exploring what it means to be human and how we might expand and enrich our experience of life. We spoke about architecture, trauma, technology, justice, spirituality, nervous system regulation, and hope. But beneath all of it was a single thread: how do we live and design in a way that replenishes rather than depletes?
What follows is a distillation of that conversation, click below for the full interview on Spotify:
(Below are the afterthoughts)
What Does It Mean to Be Human?
For me, being human is not a static identity. It is a practice or having a belief system that is embodied in daily life. It is consciously reflecting on the primordial questions: Who am I? Where have I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? - not once, but as a discipline.
To be human is to broaden one’s emotional range. To feel deeply, but also to observe those feelings. To engage with experience rather than sleepwalk through it.
And architecture, in many ways, is an extension of that same inquiry.
Architecture Is Not About Buildings. It Is About Behaviour.
Architecture school often focuses on form, light, façade, materiality. But the question I have always asked is different: How does a space shape behaviour? How does it shape the nervous system?
For me, architecture is about proprioception - how we feel in space. It is about the threshold between inside and outside, the ecology of a room and the ecology of the mind. The way a door opens. The way daylight enters. The placement of a chair. The temperature control you do or do not have.
During my PhD research in Masdar City, I saw what happens when buildings are designed as technological experiments rather than lived environments. The thermostats were fixed (the residents had no agency). The original vision was “zero carbon, zero waste.” The reality was “low carbon, low waste.” But the deeper failure was not one of metrics. The city was not designed with the human nervous system in mind. And without agency, without control, without belonging no building can succeed.
The Next Frontier: The Epigenetics of Wellbeing
We now know that physical environments alter biological states. EEG studies show cortisol spikes at specific urban stress points. Colour shifts mood. Temperature affects regulation. Control affects safety. The room changes the brain.
What if architecture moved beyond thermal comfort standards developed from narrow 1970s datasets? What if we designed spaces that supported parasympathetic regulation co-designed with trauma-informed understanding?
You do not need a grand temple to begin this work. It can start with a flower arrangement. A thrifted object that evokes awe. A ritual corner in your bedroom. Moving furniture to create a sense of sanctuary. Some call these altars. Others call them reflection points. I call it designing for nervous system coherence.
Technology: Tool or Weapon?
We also spoke about AI, automation, and the technological acceleration reshaping society. Technology is a double-edged sword. Every tool can become a weapon. And often the story we are sold is not the whole story.
Yet Pandora’s box contained hope.
We cannot reverse what has been created. But we can choose how we engage with it. There is hope in citizen science, in regenerative agriculture, in hyper-local economies, in community-led action, in data democratisation. Climate progress will not be solved by top-down multilateral agreements alone. It will require bottom-up participation. Not net zero, net positive. Not just doing less harm, but actively restoring.
Integrity and Replenishing the Earth
In a life-line exercise years ago, I mapped my most extreme moments, both joy and devastation. From that reflection emerged two core values.
The first is integrity. Growing up in Birmingham, navigating cultural dualities, fairness became foundational. If something is not aligned across relationships, work, self-care, and ethics it is not sustainable. Not in the ecological sense. In the human sense.
The second is Replenish Earth. From travelling with a 35-litre backpack across ninety countries, I discovered that home is portable. Home is where reverence lives. Standing beneath ancient trees, visiting sacred sites, meeting cultures different from my own, I developed a profound humility before nature’s intelligence. Replenish Earth is not a brand. It is a prayer.
Spirituality: Love as Practice
My spirituality is grounded, practical, embodied. It is rooted in Sanatana Dharma, the eternal way in mantra, vibration, the resonance of Om, in gratitude practices, in forgiveness.
Spirituality is not escape. It is hygiene. Just as we cleanse the body, we must cleanse perception. Ikebana in Japanese temples. Sound frequencies. Smell. Touch. These are not decorative they are regulatory.
Spirituality, for me, is awe in action. And forgiveness is one of its highest expressions.
Justice, Collapse, and How We Rise Again
We spoke about injustice. About those moments when life shatters. There are times when hope feels inaccessible. Even hope requires energy.
In my most difficult periods, I learned to begin not with philosophy, but with physiology. Ground through the feet. Slow the breath. Locate the emotion in the body. Name it. Witness it.
Fear lives in my solar plexus. Anger carries a different texture. Grief another. When an emotion takes over the microphone, it feels like it is the whole of you. But it is only a part. Distance creates perspective. Perspective creates power. Anger can become fuel. Grief can become depth. Loss can become meaning.
Hope is like a hot water bottle on a cold night. It does not remove the winter. But it allows you to survive it.
If I Could Speak to My 13-Year-Old Self
I would hand her Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, a stack of audiobooks, a list of sacred sites, and a million pounds to travel. She was always going to walk the path. But I would accelerate her access to wisdom.
The Key to Immortality
We ended with a line that has stayed with me:
“The key to immortality is to live a life worth remembering.”
Not remembered by fame. Not remembered by scale. But remembered through integrity, love, restoration, courage, and meaning.
Architecture will change. Technology will evolve. Empires will rise and fall. But what remains is this: How did we treat one another? How did we treat the Earth? Did we live in fear or in love? And did we design our spaces and our lives in a way that replenished what we touched?
With love.
