Natasha Iyer: From Mumbai to Tāmaki Makaurau
Landscape architect Natasha Iyer - pronounced eye-ear - is no stranger to taking big decisions, stepping on to less trodden paths and defining where they can lead her.
Born and raised in Mumbai, India, the life-changing decision Natasha took in 2008/9 after finishing her secondary school years at St Xavier's College was to independently travel more than 12,000 kilometres to study at Unitec in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Having done her homework on Google, Natasha formed an instinctual desire to learn more about this far-off country of Aotearoa New Zealand and to pursue a passion-led career pathway.
"Being a doer by nature and a creative person with a deep love of plants I firstly completed a Diploma in Landscape Design at Unitec, followed by a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree," says Natasha.
"By the time I graduated I was already fortunate to have made a connection with Xanthe White Design. I then worked in Xanthe's team from 2014-2021, which was a truly foundational time that I would definitely call career-defining".
Xanthe White Design project, Riverhead Garden. This play garden is planted completely with edibles, winding through an orchard bringing through bursts of colourful blossoms through the seasons with lots of colourful surprise bulbs so the garden is sometimes yellow or purple or red, constantly changing, playing with light and time.
Xanthe White Design project, The Last Kauri – this installation of a piece of living kauri ecology was part of the Silo Moonlight Exhibition in 2019. It helped raise awareness of the threat posed by kauri die-back.
In the brief time since 2021, Natasha has been on a further journey to grow and test her expertise in different settings and on larger scale projects with Bespoke and Jasmax - extending her skills and expanding her portfolio.
Along the way she's also participated remotely in international events such as the 2015 Gardening World Cup staged in Nagasaki, Japan and the 2022 Shenzen Flower Show (collecting a gold award; photo above).
On top of all this, Natasha has become a mum with engineer husband Anirudh Guda to young daughter Nysha, continues her dedicated contributions as an Accredited member of the Garden Design Society of New Zealand (GDSNZ), is heavily involved with the Prayas Theatre (Aotearoa’s largest South Asian Theatre group) and, in an exciting new chapter to her career, has recently joined forces with Richard Neville's design studio.
The duality of landscape design and garden design
"My involvement with the GDSNZ keeps me close to the vital duality of landscape design and garden design and keeps me grounded in the aspects of landscape that I appreciate the most. Things like working directly with the earth and soil, and always being open to learning as much as I can about plants and planting - after all that's what underpins what we as landscape architects bring to the party. They are our arsenal".
The GDSNZ has also provided speaking opportunities for Natasha at the popular 20x20 events she has spoken at: Evocatively in 2021 about growing up in Mumbai and the visceral "fervour" of waiting for the annual monsoon rains; insightfully in 2023 about the fundamental need to respect our relationship with water (citing the outstanding work of SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary); and in July this year on the profound assertion that "a garden is where we negotiate our place within the natural world".
Natasha has been part of the Prayas Theatre whānau since 2017, starting as an actor in Swabhoomi before moving into set design. She has designed sets for Dara (2018), First World Problems 2.0 (2019), YĀTRĀ (2020), and First World Problems 3.0 (2021). Initially this was an activity she joined in with her sister Alisha, who like Natasha, left Mumbai to forge a future in Auckland (and having worked at AUT is now a Communications and Engagement manager at the University of the Arts in London).
"Prayas has been a part of filling a need for me to find my community, my people," says Natasha.
She also finds a complementarity between her day job and the theatre. "Theatre is a black box that gets lit and brought to life. It transports people to a place. There's a parallel I think to working with materials and sites that have an element of impermanence and then act or exist as a purposeful kind of installation.
"All of those types of connection and storytelling appeal to me. When I design I try to think what is the experience, the feeling, that I'm trying to arrive at? It's another way to inform my design language and decisions on what needs to be stripped back, to be given a spotlight, or to deliver a cacophony of emotion".
Richard Neville and Natahsa Iyer
Natasha first met Richard Neville nine years ago at Xanthe White Design and still recalls the timely confidence-building support he offered to her as an early-career landscape architect.
The timing for their teaming up began with conversations about the current job market before moving into a realisation of the strong value they mutually place on working autonomously and on an alignment of philosophies.
Natasha: "I'm excited by what feels like a return to my roots - all made possible by remarkable people like Xanthe and Zoe Carafice, along with Lee Brazier at Bespoke and Claire O'Shaugnessy at Jasmax, all of whom have mentored or nurtured my progress in the profession".
Of course Natasha's ultimate roots will always attach to the city of Mumbai. Or to put it more colloquially, you can take the Natasha out of Mumbai but you can't take the Mumbai out of Natasha.
Left: ‘Home balcony, Ghansoli – monsoon’; Right: ‘Sector 4, Vashi – childhood neighbourhood’
The lifelong influence of what Natasha calls her "maximum city childhood" and her liberal upbringing by business-focused parents Shivaramakrishnan and Pushpa will always abide. A childhood of growing up amongst oceans of garden pots and mass plantings that burst through the nooks and crannies of apartment walls, now translated to her adopted land and home.
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Further links
The GDSNZ 20x20 series on YouTube
2021 - Natasha speaks at 25:55 minutes
2023 - scrub to 24:57 minutes
2026 - scrub to 43:10 minutes
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