Are you an urban designer, a young architect, or a student who aspires to be an urbanist in the future? Have you ever thought about how important urban design is? Urban planning is a difficult idea to grasp. The foundation of urban design and planning is large-scale creation by urban designers of a complete city or town, taking into account people, infrastructure, and essential green pockets to encourage harmonic interaction of all of these factors. The following is a listing of our 10 leading choices for some of the greatest urban design firms from India and across the globe that are pushing the industry forward with creative and interesting ideas. Who knows, maybe they’re on the lookout for new employees.
(Disclaimer: This list is not curated in the order of ranking of these firms or companies.)
1. HCP Design, Planning, and Management
Location: Ahmedabad + Delhi + Pune, India
Hasmukh C. Patel started HCP in 1960, and it is a multidisciplinary firm with offices in Ahmedabad, Delhi, and Pune that offers professional services in design and architecture, interior design, engineering, urban design, and urban planning. Their design ethos and collaborative approach make it possible for them to provide an expansive array of non-traditional design services and facilitate them to successfully handle difficult and large-scale projects.
Central Vista Masterplan New Delhi, Sabarmati Riverfront Development, and Mumbai Port Complex Masterplan are a few of their well-known projects.
2. Shilpa Architects
Location: Chennai, India
Shilpa Architects Planners Designers, headquartered in India, is a multi-award-winning architectural design firm. The firm, which was created in 1979, is known for its groundbreaking work in environmental and socio-economic sustainability design.
Shilpa has always been interested in green and sustainable building and is a member of the Indian Green Building Council’s steering committee (IGBC). Shilpa is in a privileged situation to design while also supporting the LEED Certification process and has its own LEED Certified specialist on staff.
Several of their projects, such as Dubai’s New Town Master Plan & Urban Design, Cethar Vessels, and the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple, have received national and worldwide acclaim.
3. Oasis Design
Location: New Delhi, India
Oasis Designs Inc. is an urban planning, architectural, and landscape design business that specializes in bringing nature into urban public spaces. The team consists of urban designers, architects, and landscape architects active with numerous projects around India, and was founded in 2001 by founding partners Akash and Sujata Hingorami. With important policy initiatives in the fields of stormwater management, open-space management, transit-oriented development, multi-modal integration at transit stations, and all of this informs the project design for all-out alignments, the firm has set a goal of pioneering and mainstreaming sustainability concepts into practice.
The team is proud to have delivered many award-winning destination projects like the Starman Riverfront Park and the Flower Park in Ahmedabad, the iconic streetscape for 33 Road and FC Road Pune.
4. RMA Architects
Location: Mumbai + Boston
Rahul Mehrotra is the Founder and Principal Architect of RMA Architects, which now has studios in Mumbai and Boston. They specialize in urban land recycling initiatives as well as master planning. Across India, they have completed diverse design projects such as art galleries, boutiques, weekend homes, factories, social institutes, and office buildings.
For each particular setting, RMA strives to establish and evolve culturally tailored design solutions. Hathigaon in Jaipur, Visitor’s Centre at CSMVS in Mumbai, Taj Mahal Visitor Centre (TMCC) are some of their notable projects.
5. Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates, New Delhi, India
Location: New Delhi, India
Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates (PSDA) is a multi-disciplinary design group established by Pradeep Sachdeva in New Delhi, India. PSDA is one of the country’s most prominent design firms, with a diverse portfolio of projects mostly focused on public space and hospitality design. Urban Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interior Design, and Furniture Design are all areas where the studio excels. PSDA has created projects in over thirty places across India, including twenty states and union territories, as well as in London, Washington, DC, and Shanghai.
Some of their famous projects include Dilli Haat INA, the Redevelopment of Chandni Chowk, and the frequented Garden of Five Senses.
6. West8
Location: Rotterdam + North America + Belgium
West 8 is an award-winning multinational urban design and landscape architectural firm created in 1987 with studios in Rotterdam, North America, and Belgium. West 8 has vast expertise in large-scale urban master planning and design, landscape interventions, waterfront projects, parks, squares, and gardens, as well as a multi-disciplinary approach to complicated design challenges. In addition, they provide concepts and visions for large-scale planning challenges such as global warming, urbanization, and infrastructure.
Working on an international level from its start, West 8 developed projects all over the world. Some of them are STRIJP S, Rotterdam Centraal station, Freiham North.
7. ADEPT Architects
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Anders Lonka, Martin Krogh, Martin Laursen, and associate partner Simon Poulsen lead the creative team at ADEPT, which is situated in Copenhagen. They collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of architects, landscape architects, engineers, and urban planners to develop architecture, public space, and large-scale urban planning. They see generosity as the fundamental driver of creativity and invention. Generous structures, public spaces, landscapes, and urban planning have the potential to alter the world. Not as solitary iconic gestures, but as a group effort to create more sustainable settings.
Some of their noteworthy projects are Woodhood Kreusfeld, The Healing City at Shenzhen, Budapest at Budapest.
8. SWA
Location: Sausalito, CA, United States
SWA is a global landscape architectural, planning, and urban design firm known for its work’s originality, reactivity, and durability. “Designing for a livable world” is their slogan. SWA builds attractive, high-performing environments ranging from urban parks to city districts, university campuses to commercial complexes, premium resorts to new communities. They collaborate with clients to develop thriving environments that are both ecologically robust and visually appealing, as well as socially useful.
Buji River Urban Development Plan, Houston Green Loop, Beijing Finance Street are some of their notable projects that acclaimed international recognition.
9. Gehl studio
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Helle Soholt and Professor Jan Gehl started Gehl in 2000 as an urban design and research firm, offering expertise in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, and city planning. The studio approaches global trends from a people-centered perspective, employing empirical research to better understand how the built environment may promote well-being. People’s well-being research serves as the foundation for strategic planning and design. Their iterative and comprehensive approach begins with life – activities, user groups, and behavior patterns – before shaping public space and streets to encourage this public life to grow.
Some of their works include Spin Mobility Equity, San Francisco-India Basin Waterfront Development, Lövholmen Masterplan & Structural Plan.
10. HASSELL
Location: Australia + China + South East Asia + the United Kingdom
HASSELL was created in 1938 by a small group of architects with a huge goal in Australia. They are a multi-disciplinary design firm with a brilliant team of designers working on projects all around the world. Hassell’s team believes that good design is for everyone. The locations they build, the ideas they investigate, and the industry they like should represent the many different voices they hear daily. The firm is dedicated to designing environments that are both environmentally friendly and allow people to thrive. Sustainability is ingrained in their design process and studio operations, and the design teams aim for sustainability innovation on every project they work on.
Some of their famous works include Embarcadero and Public Piers Plan, Tokyo Railyards Redevelopment, Darwin waterfront.
References:
- 2022. [online] Available at: <https://hcp.co.in/about/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- Shilpa Architects. 2022. Profile | Services | Clients – Shilpa Architects. [online] Available at: <http://shilpaarchitects.com/profile/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- Oasisdesigns.org. 2022. OASIS. [online] Available at: <https://oasisdesigns.org/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- RMA Architects. 2022. Homepage. [online] Available at: <http://rmaarchitects.com/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.linkedin.com/company/pradeep-sachdeva-design-associates/?originalSubdomain=in> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- Gehl. 2022. Projects – Gehl. [online] Available at: <https://gehlpeople.com/work/projects/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- Adept.dk. 2022. Projects – ADEPT. [online] Available at: <https://www.adept.dk/projects> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- Hassell. 2022. Hassell | We design places people love. Award-winning architecture, urban design, interior design, and landscape architecture.. [online] Available at: <https://www.hassellstudio.com/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- SWA Group. 2022. Home – SWA Group. [online] Available at: <https://www.swagroup.com/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
- West 8. 2022. Home – West 8. [online] Available at: <https://www.west8.com/> [Accessed 20 February 2022].
