KAZI KHALEED ASHRAF
Architect, Professor, Urbanist, Architectural Historian, Director-General of the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.
AMIT SRIVASTAVA
Director (India) for the Centre of Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA), Adelaide
PETER SCRIVER
Founding Director for the Centre of Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA), Adelaide
As one of the notable architectural critics of South Asia, Kazi Khaleed Ashraf works at the intersection of architecture, landscape and the city. He has authored books and essays on architecture in Bangladesh and India, the work of Louis Kahn, and on the city of Dhaka.
Ashraf has taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Pratt Institute in the USA, and lectured internationally. He is the author of numerous publications including The Hermit’s Hut: Architecture and Asceticism in India (2012), An Architect in Bangladesh: Conversations with Muzharul Islam (2014), Designing Dhaka: A Manifesto for a Better City (2012), and The Great Padma: The Epic River that made the Bengal Delta (2023). His essays and articles have appeared in the Architectural Review, Architectural Design, Topos, Economic and Political Weekly, and many other periodicals. Ashraf and his contributing team received the Pierre Vago Journalism Award from the International Committee of Architectural Critics for the architectural design publication “Made in India” (2007).
At the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, Ashraf directs a unique program involving academic, research and public activities around the topic of habitats in a hydrological milieu.
Amit Srivastava is the Director (India) for the Centre of Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) based at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Having trained and practiced as an architect in India, his primary research focuses on the architectural and construction histories of colonial and postcolonial India. His 2009 publication, Encountering Materials in Architectural Production: The Case of Kahn and Brick at IIM explored the context of Louis Kahn’s work in India with special focus on the socio-political conditions generated by the intersection of de- colonizing and nationalist policies. His subsequent book publication, India: Modern Architectures in History with co-author Peter Scriver, published by Reaktion Books and University of Chicago Press in 2015, offers the long history of architectural modernity in India, from its beginnings in the colonial modern enterprise of the British PWD to the late twentieth century struggles with post-colonial identities. His other work on Analytical Drawings and Global Architecture History titled The Elements of Modern Architecture: Understanding Contemporary Buildings, has been translated into nine languages across the world since 2014, with a second edition published in 2020. Srivastava’s work has also been presented in international exhibitions including SOS Brutalism at DAM, Frankfurt in 2017 and The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947–1985 at MoMA, New York in 2022.
Peter Scriver is a founding director of the Centre for Asian and Middle-Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) at the University of Adelaide, Australia, where he has taught Architectural History, Theory and Design and directed postgraduate research since 1996. He is a critical authority on the architecture, construction and planning histories of colonial and contemporary India publishing After the Masters: Contemporary Indian Architecture (1990) and India: Modern Architectures in History (2015). Scriver’s work has been pioneering in its theoretical exploration of relationships between cultural and cognitive practices in the design, operation and reproduction of colonial built environments, and the institutional frameworks and professional networks in which the architectural and engineering disciplines have typically operated in contexts of colonial and post- colonial development. His extensive early research and publication on the built legacy of the British Indian Department of Public Works and its archives, Rationalization, Standardization, and Control (1994), examined the instrumental role of the technocratic agency in the propagation and institutionalization of modern architectural and engineering knowledge in colonial South Asia. Subsequent work on Colonial Modernities (2007) and The Scaffolding of Empire (2007) have been seminal in spearheading the broader and fast-growing body of critical historical and theoretical research on the material and cognitive construction of the Global South and its colonial- modern underpinnings.
ROHAN SHIVKUMAR
Architect, urban designer and filmmaker
Rohan Shivkumar is an architect, urban designer and filmmaker practicing in Mumbai. He is the Dean of the Architecture course at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies. He also a principal of the architectural and urban practice the ‘Collaborative Design Studio’ and is a member of CRIT- an urban research collective based in Mumbai. His work ranges from architecture, urban research and consultancy projects to works in film and visual art. He is interested in issues concerning housing, public space and in exploring the many ways of reading and representing the city.
He has worked on many research and consultancy projects in the city of Mumbai in collaboration with governmental and non governmental organisations including projects like the Churchgate Revival Project and the Tourist District Project. Through the school, he has worked on research projects in Dharavi and the spaces of Dr Ambedkar in Mumbai. Rohan is the co-editor of the publication on an interdisciplinary research and art collaboration- ‘Project Cinema City’. He also curates film programmes and writes on cinema, architecture and urban issues. He has also made films on art, architecture and urbanism including ’Nostalgia for the future’, ‘Lovely Villa’, and ‘Squeeze Lime in Your Eye’.
Brinda Somaya is an architect and urban conservationist. Upon completion of her Bachelor of Architecture from Mumbai University and her Master of Arts from Smith College in Northampton, MA, USA, she started her firm Somaya and Kalappa Consultants in 1978 in Mumbai, India. In May 2012 she was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from her alma mater, Smith College. In 2014 she was awarded the Indian Institute of Architects – Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement. In 2015 she was honoured as Distinguished Professor by the Indian Education Society’s College of Architecture (IES), Mumbai. From 2016-2021 she was the Chairperson of the Board of Governors, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, an Institute of National Importance. In 2017 she joined the Board of the Lafargeholcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, Zurich, Switzerland and was also elected as the A.D. White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University, U.S.A.
Over four decades she has merged architecture, conservation and social equity in projects ranging from institutional campuses and rehabilitation of an earthquake-torn village to the restoration of an 18th century Cathedral, showing that progress and history need not be at odds. Her philosophy: 'The Architect's role is that of guardian – hers is the conscience of the built and un-built environment.' This belief underlines her work that spans large corporate, industrial and institutional campuses and extends to public spaces, which she has rebuilt and sometimes reinvented as pavements, parks and plazas.
She is the Founder Trustee of the HECAR Foundation which has brought out several publications on Heritage and Architecture, chaired a conference and organized a seminal exhibition on the Work of Women Architects with a focus on South Asia. In 2018, with MAPIN Publishing and the HECAR Foundation, she brought out a book 'Brinda Somaya – Works & Continuities' covering her diverse practice.
Brinda Somaya was on the IAWA board of Advisors (International Archives of Women in Architecture), U.S.A. She has delivered analytical and critical talks as well as presented papers in India and abroad on her work. She has lectured extensively in the U.S.A, U.K., Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & India and her work has been exhibited in the USA, UK, Japan and Japan.
Alpa Sheth has been the Managing Director of VMS Consultants Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai for the last 25 years. During her career, she has lead the design team on over 300 projects including eighty-story buildings and large industrial projects. From 2001 to 2015, Sheth worked in an advisory role to the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority. She has been on Post-Earthquake Reconnaissance and Reconstruction Teams for the Great West Japan Earthquake (Tohoku Earthquake 2011) and the Great Sumatra Earthquake (2004). She lead the team for the World Bank Building Regulatory Capacity Assessment Project in Jammu and Kashmir. Sheth is a member of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Committee for Earthquake Codes (CED 39), the Cyclone Committee (CED 57), and is the Chairperson for the Special Structures Committee (CED 38). She has co-drafted many earthquake codes of India and has jointly developed the first Tall Building Code for India (IS 16700). Sheth has been Chairperson for the Academic Council at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture (KRVIA), a premier architecture college in Mumbai for 15 years. She is Founding Trustee of Structural Engineering Forum of India (sefindia.org) and is Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. She is currently Associate Editor of the journal “Civil Engineering” published by the Institution of Civil Engineers, UK. Alpa Sheth holds a Masters of Engineering degree from University of California, Berkeley.