Architecture is a world in itself, with architects adopting styles distinct to their ideologies and philosophies. A few studios have design practices inclined towards achieving sustainable buildings, focusing solely on designing contextually appropriate structures. Whereas, some have the underlying goal of producing beautiful architecture high on experiential value. Thus, catering to different methods, styles, and interpretations of designing, listed below are 10 Indian architectural firms every architect wants to work for:
1. Architecture Brio
Architecture Brio, based in Mumbai, engages actively in the creation of contextually appropriate, sustainable design solutions within an increasingly changing world. The studio strongly believes that architecture should remain a backdrop to life rather than taking center stage.
The work of the studio approaches new ways of understanding the often conflicting interrelations between the city, architecture, landscape, and the world of interiors. They focus on the growing need for our built environment to re-establish healthy relationships with the natural world, along with the urgency to address the never before seen growth in urban and rural areas in India and globally. Within this context, the work seeks to establish a fragile balance between architecture as the act of disappearance and creating characterful, responsive, and experiential environments.
2. Anupama Kundoo Architects
Anupama Kundoo’s internationally recognized and award-winning architecture practice started in 1990 in Pondicherry, followed by establishing herself as a known architect in Auroville. The firm shows a strong inclination towards material research and experimentation to achieve an architecture that has a low environmental impact and is appropriate to the socio-economic context.
At Anupama Kundoo Architects, they believe that current methods of construction are causing more problems than they can solve. Their innovative approach to architecture, supported by intensive research and experimentation, is environmentally sound and socio-economically beneficial. The studio mainly directs its focus to the development of building technologies and the integration of energy and water-efficient infrastructure solutions in the building prototypes.
3. Biome Environmental Solutions
Biome Environmental Solutions, a Bangalore-based design firm, focusses on ecology, architecture, and water. It endeavors to deliver knowledge services adhering to environmental thinking and helps implement projects in the following areas: real-estate and development planning, architecture and design, water and sanitation, and energy planning.
At Biome, the designs, considered to be a highly personal process, are undertaken by members of the team in constant collaboration with each other through group discussions and exchanges, along with a great emphasis on client interactions. The ecologically and socially sensitive nature of their work and a commitment to spread sustainable living practices has also led to the firm’s involvement in many nonprofit projects to benefit the natural environment and disadvantaged populations.
4. Christopher Charles Benninger Architects
Located in Pune amongst the salubrious surroundings of the Sahyadri Mountains, Christopher Charles Benninger Architects is one of the most awarded design firms in India, bringing timeless architecture to the subcontinent over the past two decades. The practice has gained a reputation of being thinking architects who go beyond the brief and commercials in bringing the most appropriate contextual sustainable solutions to the built environment.
As an internationally known design house, CCBA creates products ranging from capital cities to new towns, educational campuses to corporate headquarters, housing estates to complexes, hotels to resorts, down to the design of individual chairs and artworks. At their studio, the good life exists just a step outside of materiality, in a mystic twilight zone, which we call architecture.
5. Jaisim Fountainhead
Founded in 1970, in Bangalore, Jaisim Fountainhead has undertaken and executed scores of projects in almost every aspect of the building industry over four decades. The firm’s philosophy is committed to the earth and dedicated to the client, with every creation being iconoclastic and eco-friendly. They believe that materials and natural elements in construction are akin to letters in a language.
Prof. K Jaisim has created and recreated countless homes, institutions, and commercial enterprises. He has written over 150 papers and articles, made about 1500 presentations, along with serving on several boards and councils. His views and individualistic endeavors are the hallmarks of the studio’s creativity. The studio’s designs are a result of a focus on nature-friendly features and the advocacy of cost-effective and energy-efficient approaches. A focus on sustainability in architecture allowed them to use rainwater harvesting and cost-effective and energy-efficient approaches in construction long before they became mandatory.
6. Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates
Pradeep Sachdeva Design Associates, based in a bustling urban village in Delhi, is a group of young, enthusiastic, and hard-working architects and designers. With a diverse portfolio encompassing architecture, urban design, landscape, and interior design, along with a focus on public places and the hospitality industry, the studio has been a pioneer in establishing benchmarks for innovative projects.
At PSDA, there is an open and accessible work atmosphere where the value of experience is understood that gives room for both creativity and free discussion. The studio functions in teams formulated around the essence of each project, with emphasis on surrounding context and in-depth research acting as the critical parameters in the development of projects. Their projects aim at balancing traditions of design with the contemporary and creating spaces that are high on experiential factors.
7. Prashant Pradhan Architects
Prashant Pradhan Architects is a design firm based in Gangtok focused on delivering the highest quality multidisciplinary design. Their methods do not distinguish between urban, architecture, interior, and approach each discipline as being seamlessly interrelated. The studio’s design philosophy is rooted in contextual issues, which leads to identity and culture getting as much attention as architecture in the contemporary setting.
At PPA, the projects range from a 1.2 km stretch walkway with allied facilities in the heart of the town to small residential units and the design of individual furniture pieces. They are currently working on several hospitality projects since tourism is a growing industry in the region, with most of their projects situated at the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. The seismically active nature of the steeply inclined topography and its relatively pristine and remote location offers motivation to pursue sustainable, graceful, and culturally relevant structures.
8. rat[LAB] – Research in Architecture and Technology
Rat[LAB], specializing in computational design and similar technology-related domains, is an autonomous research organization and a network of designers and researchers. With a studio in New Delhi, the research cell functions as a global collaborative and multidisciplinary lab that promotes design research leading to unique spatial tectonics and intelligently built environments.
The firm’s research agendas broadly focus on the use of computational design and parametric design in architecture, with intersections between design and technology spread across different scales and disciplines. Rat[LAB] offers collaborations to architecture and design firms to generate prototypes using advanced computational techniques. They provide consultancy services to architecture and design firms to facilitate them on projects by adding a new dimension of computation based research along with carrying out spatial and engineering analysis, as well as aiding in parametric design solutions.
9. Sameep Padora and Associates
Sameep Padora and Associates, based in Mumbai, believe that India’s vast breadth of socio-cultural environments requires multifaceted means of engaging with the country’s varying contexts. Type, program, design, and building processes are ancillary to the immediacy of each project’s unique frame of reference. Hence, the studio’s approach is to look to context as a storehouse of latent resources, appropriating techniques beyond their traditional use while allowing them to evolve and persist not just through preservation but more so through evolution.
At sP+a, the studio actively engages with research, collaborations, and collective models of practice not as separate individual formats but as coherent streams supporting each other. They advocate this hybrid model as an alternative to the traditional architectural practice, believing that this enables their architecture to respond to the specificity of the local by evolving methodologies of extreme subjectivity.
10. Vastu Shilpa Consultants
Established in 1955 in Ahmedabad, Vastu Shilpa Consultants holds a reputation of being one of the worldwide leaders in the fields of architecture, planning, and urban design. They deal with each project in a unique manner and approach, and perhaps that is why most of their projects today stand as benchmarks in the profession and are used as examples in academic institutions, besides being recipients of several national and international awards.
At VSC, they believe that the life of a building is very long, and the setting up of institutions an ongoing process. The firm propagates that architects are best qualified to inform successive owners/users of the potential of their building, to configure it to changing demands and uses over time while still holding the vision of its entirety.
