Preamble

Built environment in India were developed by master carpenters and guilds of craftsmen till the advent of the modern era. The modern discipline of architecture in India is, therefore, relatively young, and emerging. Despite there being three wings of a discipline: practice, teaching and research, practitioners dominate the field of architecture while the crucial research component is relatively neglected in India. There is a lacuna in several areas of study and it is not easy to find well-researched and documented publications or analytical studies on the Indian design sensibilities that are historical, regional, or critical in nature. This limitation is acutely felt in the areas of teaching where a heavy reliance on western publications still exists, especially in courses on theory, history, and technology. With the information revolution and growing globalization, there are going to be tremendous changes in the future in the discipline of architecture and we require sustained research and other activities to keep up with it. Over the past 45 years, our area of research and documentation is around developing a focus on vernacular, colonial and modern architecture as well as gender and the built environment in India.

Our goals are to
  • research in architecture in the context of India and South Asia in general.
  • create documentation archives of photographs, drawings, and other materials specifically Indian architecture.
  • establish a link between the community and the discipline of architecture while developing a focus on women and the non-binary genders.

We organize local, national, and international exhibitions with drawings and photographs on the above-mentioned subjects

Profiles of Principals
Prof. Miki Desai retired from CEPT University, Ahmedabad in 2014 as the head of the Master’s Program in Sustainable Architecture. He has had the EARTHWATCH grant, the Senior Fulbright Fellowship, the Graham Grant, and the Getty Collaborative Grant. is the co-author of Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity, India 1880 to 1980, Oxford University Press (1997, 2022), Architectural Heritage of Gujarat: Interpretation, Appreciation, Values, Gujarat Government (2012) and The Bungalow in Twentieth Century India: The Cultural Expression of Changing Ways of Life and Aspirations in the Domestic Architecture of Colonial and Post-colonial Society, Ashgate (2012). He is the author of Teaching Basic Design in Architecture: Exercises, Illustrations, Examples, D C Books, Kerala, (2022), Wooden Architecture of Kerala, MAPIN Publishing, Ahmedabad (2018), and Architekture in Gujarat, Indien: Bauernhof, Stadthaus, Palast (translated in German), an Exhibition Catalogue, The Rietberg Museum, Zurich (1990). He has also held exhibitions of his research and documentation work on Indian architecture at the Sanskar Kendra, Ahmedabad (2012), CEPT University, Ahmedabad (2015), the University of Moratuwa, Colombo (2016), Aga Khan University, London (2018), the India International Centre, New Delhi (2020) and the Bengal Institute, Dhaka (2023). He was a visiting Studio Critic at ETH, Zurich, MIT, USA and U C Berkeley, USA in 1988. More recently, he was a visiting scholar in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley in 2014. He is a Board Member of the International Seminar on Vernacular Settlements since 2008. He was the keynote speaker at the seventh and tenth international conference on Vernacular Settlements (ISVS), Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014 and Bhopal, India, 2021 respectively, and at the 4th International Conference on Cities, People and Places, Colombo, 2016.
Madhavi Desai is an architect, researcher, writer, and a teacher. She was an adjunct faculty at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India (1986-2018). She has had Research Fellowships from ICSSR, Delhi, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT, USA, Sarai, Delhi and the Getty Foundation, USA. She is a founder member of Women Architects Forum and more recently, the Feminist Collective in Architecture in India. She is the co-author of Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity, India 1880 to 1980, Oxford University Press (1997, 2022), Architectural Heritage of Gujarat: Interpretation, Appreciation, Values, Gujarat Government (2012) and The Bungalow in Twentieth Century India: The Cultural Expression of Changing Ways of Life and Aspirations in the Domestic Architecture of Colonial and Post-colonial Society, Ashgate (2012). She the editor of Gender and the Built Environment in India, Zubaan (2007, 2023) and Gender and the Indian City: Re-visioning Design and Planning South Asia Press, New Delhi (2022). She is also the author of Traditional Architecture: House Form of the Islamic Community of the Bohras in Gujarat, Council of Architecture (2007) and Women Architects and Modernism in India: Narratives and Contemporary Practices, Routledge (2017). Madhavi was a co-founder of the Women Architects Forum (1991 to 1996) and is also the founding member of the Feminist Collective in Architecture that was established in 2021. She is part of the nominating committee of the Berkeley-Rupp Professorship and Prize at the University of California at Berkeley, USA since 2012 till now. She was also a visiting scholar in Gender and Women's Studies at the same university in 2014. She also conducts workshops on Gender and Architecture/ Indian Citites. She has made presentations at several national and international conferences.