Forget the League Tables - This Is India’s Real Architecture Elite

NASA India’s Top 21 Are Drawing the Future, One Radical Idea at a Time

Each year, across the architectural institutions of India, a quiet revolution takes place. In college studios, on makeshift workshop floors, across community sites, and deep within research labs, students question, draw, build, break, and rebuild ideas that respond to the evolving architectural needs of the country. They are not merely learning architecture, they are shaping the way it will be practiced. This collective energy finds its most vivid expression in the year-long journey of NASA India..

Founded in 1957, the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA India) has grown to become the largest architectural student body in Asia, representing over 300 colleges across India and impacting tens of thousands of students each year. What began as a platform to encourage dialogue among architecture students has evolved into a national ecosystem of workshops, design challenges, documentation projects, cultural events, and academic trophies each designed to challenge, inspire, and celebrate student voices.

At the heart of this dynamic ecosystem lies the Le Corbusier Trophy, NASA India’s highest honor. Named after one of modern architecture’s most influential figures, the trophy represents not a stylistic allegiance to modernism, but a continued commitment to critical thinking, experimentation, and integrity in design practice. Awarded annually to the unit that demonstrates excellence across all verticals - design, documentation, sustainability, writing, and performance. The Le Corbusier Trophy is  not just a measure of one project, but of a year-long consistent commitment to architectural culture.

In its 67th year, the coveted Le Corbusier Trophy was clinched by Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal, a unit that didn’t just rise to the challenge, but reshaped it. Their body of work cut across academic depth and cultural expression, marked by striking clarity, regional sensitivity, and an unmistakable spirit of collaboration. Every submission felt intentional, grounded, and urgent, rooted in complex realities yet bold in imagination. This victory wasn’t a finish line; it was a statement. A statement that architecture, when wielded with conscience and conviction, becomes more than design, it becomes resistance, responsibility, and radical hope.

Architecture, as one knows, is never solitary. Alongside the winning unit, 20 other institutions from across the country made it to the prestigious Top 21 Le Corbusier list, a ranking that recognizes holistic excellence in architecture schools. These institutions brought to the forefront ideas as diverse as the landscapes they belong to.

In many ways, the Top 21 list this year served as a microcosm of the larger architectural discourse in India: decentralized, experimental, and courageously interdisciplinary. While the spotlight was on winners, the larger narrative was about participation of hundreds of units contributing thousands of ideas over the course of a single year. The Le Corbusier Trophy thus became not just a symbol of excellence, but a canvas of shared futures.

The full list of Top 21 units for the 67th Year is as follows:

1. Z205 – Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal

2. Z214 – Faculty of Architecture, IDPT-SCET, Surat

3. Z301 – Department of Architecture, VNIT, Nagpur

4. Z101 – School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

5. Z220 – L.S. Raheja School of Architecture, Mumbai

6. Z211 – IES College of Architecture, Mumbai

7. Z603 – National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

8. Z504 – BMS College of Architecture, Bengaluru

9. Z612 – Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai

10. Z602 – College of Engineering, Trivandrum

11. Z690 – School of Architecture, VIT Vellore

12. Z212 – IPS Academy, Indore

13. Z601 – SAP, Anna University, Chennai

14. Z241 – Thakur School of Architecture and Planning, Mumbai

15. Z524 – School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada

16. Z103 – Chandigarh College of Architecture

17. Z112 – Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur

18. Z639 – SAN Academy of Architecture, Coimbatore

19. Z620 – McGan’s Ooty School of Architecture

20. Z641 – Government Engineering College, Thrissur

21. Z643 – RIT School of Architecture, Kottayam

Each of these institutions brought with them a different perspective, responding to their own regional climates, community concerns, and pedagogical legacies. Yet, all were united by a shared belief: that architecture is not static. It moves. It heals. It provokes. It performs. It documents. It remembers.

Looking at the work produced this year, one is reminded that architecture education in India is not merely surviving , it is thriving. In a world that demands urgent rethinking of our spatial, environmental, and social relationships, student architects across India are stepping up not as passive learners, but as active contributors to public discourse.

As we look toward NASA India’s 68th year, one thing is certain: the work that emerges from these institutions will not just shape cities or buildings. It will shape consciousness.