Sustainability NOW: Architecture + Urbanism

Dean D’Cruz, a graduate in architecture is actively involved in professional practice as well as in academics. He has conducted numerous workshops and seminars on architecture, planning and the environment across India as well as abroad. His works and articles have been published in leading magazines in India and abroad. Supported the Royal Art and Architecture Academy Stockholm, Oxford Brookes University UK, and PRATT University New York for their architectural and planning programs in Goa. He is a Partner and Principal Architect in MOZAIC DESIGN COMBINE’, a leading design firm based in Goa, involved in Urban Intervention, Architecture, Conservation, Product and Graphic Design. Mozaic strives to provide holistic solutions to its patrons. We explore prospects of symbiotic growth of our clients with nature, encourage sustainable practices in our design.

Matias Echanove co-created Urbz with Rahul Srivastava. He spends most of his time in Mumbai and Geneva, and always likes to discover new places and people. Currently obsessed with new models of participatory governance and institution building, Matias has developed an expertise in the organization of participatory design workshops over years of work at Urbz. He is particularly interested in urban and economic development, mobility and culture. His work with Urbz has been exhibited around the world in biennials and museums such as the MoMA (NY), the MAXXI (Rome), the MAK (Vienna), the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Sao Paulo Cultural Center. He is currently working on a new exhibition at the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. Matias and Rahul have been invited to present their work at institutions such as the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, Columbia University, NYU, Princeton, Berkeley, Strelka Institute, the Max Planck Institute and the World Bank, as well as forums such as TEDx, Urban Age. Matias 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. He is a regular contributor to publications such as The Hindu, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Domus, Art India and has published a number of essays with Oxford University Press, Strelka Press, Domus (Milan), Tokyo University Press, The Hindu, The Times of India, Time Out Mumbai, and Indian Architect and Builder among others.

Eco-Architect Trupti Doshi has 20+ years of experience in ecological architecture and sustainable engineering including climate responsive architecture, appropriate materials & building technologies, rainwater harvesting, waste management, energy efficiency, thermal comfort and use of renewables. She has been India’s youngest woman architect whose work has been featured by the United Nations Environment Program as a model for Sustainable Development in India. Her TEDx talk in India titled “Making Smart Buildings before Making Buildings Smart” received rave reviews. She then represented India at the first ever Women TEDx in Greece, where she received a standing ovation for her talk “Can a building be a Person?” Trupti has represented India at the Professional Fellows Congress / World Youth Congress in Washington D.C and has been awarded 'Woman of Pondicherry' by Lt. Governor Dr. Kiran Bedi for exemplary contribution to ecological and social entrepreneurship. Trupti has lectured widely in India, Europe & USA - including several Indian universities, University of Oklahoma in USA and Technical University of Crete in Greece - on a variety of subjects ranging from hidden geometry in nature, sustainability, smart cities, role of technology, social development, Indian architecture and entrepreneurship. She was the speaker from Asia for the Bio-Architecture conference in Portugal. Her audience ranges from architects, civil engineers, environmentalists & planners to entrepreneurs, start-ups and students. Trupti has addressed over 200 groups and personally interacted with over 1000 highly prestigious consultants and personalities of national and international repute from academia and industry including top management at The World Bank, UBS - Union Bank of Switzerland, MNRE - Ministry of New and Renewable Energy - Govt. of India, Stanford University, TERI - The Energy and Resources Institute, Cadbury, Forbes, Mckinsey, Bridge Partnership, The Taj group, University of Oregon among several others, all of whom have been greatly inspired by her systemic approach and the synthesis of so many diverse disciplines into an integrated whole. She has been an eminent jury member for NASA’s most prestigious ANDC awards as well as Indian Council of Architecture’s Best Undergraduate Thesis Awards. She represented India at the International Green Summit in Rome in 2019 where her research (soon to be published by Springer) as co-author on the positive effect of green buildings on human well-being was greatly appreciated. She has been the Chief Co-Architect of Sri Aurobindo Society, an international NGO, where she played a key role in master planning numerous large institutional projects spanning several hundred acres. When she is not on a building site, you can find her bird watching atop a mountain in Ladakh, capturing the diversity of the world through her lens, meeting inspiring people innovating in Entrepreneurship, learning a new language - currently on her 7th - or simply enjoying the fresh air and writing poetry.

Ar. Apurva Bose Dutta (www.apurvabose.com) is a Bengaluru-based author, award-winning architectural journalist, curator, and editor. Her professional journey of fourteen years has seen global collaborations with multimedia publication houses, firms, organisations and educational institutions affiliated with architecture, design, and building. Her academic background of architecture and journalism are further explored in her additional roles, of a professional speaker, conducting and curating architecture and design content, discourses for the print and digital media, training workshops, and consulting for academic and professional industry initiatives. Through her various initiatives, Apurva has persistently been working towards increasing the visibility of architectural writing in India. Apurva has also been invited by the Australian and Finland Governments to represent the Indian delegation in International Media Visits of Architectural Writers in Melbourne (2016) and Helsinki (2018) respectively. Her book, ARCHITECTURAL VOICES OF INDIA: A Blend of Contemporary and Traditional Ethos (published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, 2017) is a discourse on architecture-design by architects.