AVID Ideology Roundtable - How Cities Grow ? A Discussion on Design, Growth and Sustainability of Urban Spaces

Sarover Zaidi is currently writing her PhD on religion, architecture and urban spaces of Bombay. Her work, ethnographically traces the manners in which everyday life and architectural practices enmesh to produce a city spaces. She has specifically focused on the old 'native' town of Bombay, namely Mohammad Ali road area, and has explored the manners in which architectural aspirations of people and city planners, concede and contest social and political formations of the city. She also curates a series titled 'Elementary forms and the City' , which brings together interdisciplinary formats of looking at city spaces. She has previously studied philosophy and social anthropology, worked in rural public health, and is currently an INTACH fellow.

Shonan Purie Trehan is the founder and a principal architect at Language Architecture.Body. After completing her Bachelor of Architecture, from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in USA, she worked at Eisenmen Architects in New York City. She went on to work on various institutional and cultural projects at Le Groupe Arcop, Montreal and Arcop Associates, New Delhi. In 2008, she completed her Masters in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Built Environment, London, UK, with a focus in Advanced Architectural Design. In 2010, Shonan established Language.Architecture.Body in Bombay as a design studio that focuses on construction of relationships between narrative, environment and habitation. The practice has been working with great momentum over the last 6 years. The team of 18 architects have built over 57 residential, commercial, healthcare and hospitality projects across India and Africa. The work ranges from the planning of a 1600 bed hospital, Medanta The Medicity to the interiors of Ministry of New. LAB’s work has been widely published and awarded a spot on the AD50 list of 2015. For three years, Shonan was a visiting faculty member for the Bachelor of Architecture program at KRVIA. She has also presented at IDF, DesignxDesign 30under35, Studio X and close encounters

Rajeev Thakker is the curator of Studio X in Mumbai. He holds a BA from Syracuse University and a M.S. in Architecture and Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. He has worked for SOM and The Arnell Group in New York. He has lectured, hosted workshops, and led Architectural Design Studios at institutes like KRVIA and the BSSA in Mumbai. He manages his own practice called ‘a-RT’

Matias Echanove is a founding member of urbz.net, a platform for experimental urban research and action, with collaborators in Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Geneva. He is also co-director of the Institute of Urbanology together with partner Rahul Srivastava. He studied government and economics at the London School of Economics, urban planning at Columbia University in New York, and urban information systems at the University of Tokyo. Matias Echanove authored or co-authored essays and commentaries published by Oxford University Press, Strelka Press (Moscow), Domus (Milan), New Village Press, Tokyo University Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, The Times of India, Time Out Mumbai, Art India and Indian Architect and Builder. His work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the MAK in Vienna, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Sao Paulo Cultural Center, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Arc en Rêve in Bordeaux, and the Maxxi Museum in Rome.

Barak is a founder director at STEMA - studio for Local Architecture, which focuses on sustainable design and planning. The studio concentrates on such activities as architectural design, urban planning,research and consultation for the private and public sector. Barak currently teaches at the Architectural Department of Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem where he academically coordinates the second year. Barak studied architecture at Tel-Aviv University and at Helsinki University of Technology, and attended the AA graduate school’s MSc in Sustainable Environmental Design programme. He worked as an architect at the architectural firm of Dr. Ada Karmi-Melamed in Israel and taught at the Environment and Energy studies Programme, and at the MArch Design & Make, both at the AA Graduate School, London. Barak has trained in traditional and contemporary crafting techniques working with various building materials including iron, wood, concrete and earth. He has won several design awards and has exhibited works at the Helsinki Museum of Architecture and at the International Biennale of Architecture in Bat-Yam.