Indo-German Seminar: Bauhaus @ 100 at IIT Roorkee

Associate professor, IIT Roorkee

Dr. Raheja is an architect with social thinking outlooks and a well-known expert of accessibility and universal design from India. He is an Associate Professor as well as Co-Cordinator of Design Innovation Center at IIT Roorkee. Dr. Raheja has been an expert member and has played key advisory roles to the Department of Disabilities in Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India. He has been awarded the Mphasis Universal Design Award, 2010 for his professional and research contributions in the field of universal design. He received the Guest Research Fellowship at T U Berlin in 2017, DAAD IIT Faculty Exchange Fellowship 2016 and DAAD Science Tour Fellowship 2016 amongst others. With a vision of researching urban futures of human inclusion in built and mobility environments, he has set up Laboratory of Inclusive Design at the Department of Architecture & Planning, IIT Roorkee. Dr. Raheja has delivered several invited talks at national and international platforms including DLR, Berlin, WHO, New Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, TISS Mumbai, Accenture, Bangalore and several others.

Former President, Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, Germany

Dr Zimmerman studied architecture in Weimar (Germany), got his doctoral degree (Dr.-Ing.) in architectural theory, worked from 1973 to 1980 as research fellow in the Department of Theory and History of Architecture of the Building Academy in Berlin with contributions in architectural psychology, semiotics of architecture and empirical investigations in the cognitive impact of architecture. In 1980, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Architecture and Building in Weimar and in 1992, as university professor for “Design and Theory of Architecture.” He was elected vice-president of the university in the same year. In 1996 when the university became Bauhaus-University Weimar, he was re-elected as vice-president of the university. He served as the Dean of the Department of Architecture at Bauhaus University as vice-president of the university with a six year term, beginning 2004. Since 2016, he has been President of the Architecture Foundation Thüringen. Member of numerous boards, he has been conferred with The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Head, Department of Architecture and Planning, IIT Roorkee

Dr. Chani completed his undergraduate and postgraduate programme in architecture from IIT Roorkee (erstwhile University of Roorkee). He then completed his doctorate in embodied energy in buildings in 2002 from IIT Roorkee and joined as a faculty in this institute. His core area of research is energy in buildings, particularly low carbon construction and his research team is now venturing into the domain of life cycle energy in buildings. He has supervised more than 25 postgraduate dissertations and 4 Ph.D. thesis. He is currently supervising 9 Ph.D. thesis. He is also a member of the Project Source Committeee of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) on energy efficient building materials in India and an advisory member to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) on the design of the upcoming Dehradun airport. His teaching interests are in the area of modern architecture and he teaches the history and evolution of modern world and specifically modern Indian architecture in the undergraduate programme, besides being involved in undergraduate and postgraduate design studios.

Principal, Sir J J College of Architecture, Mumbai

In June 2000, he completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Management of Education with reference to Art &Architecture Institutions from Department of Education, University of Mumbai. He has taught for 27 years (Five years at Academy of Architecture & Twenty two years at Sir J.J.College of Architecture) and has been involved in conducting seminars and workshops on subjects of Architecture Design, City Planning, History and Theory of Architecture as well as on development of Urban Management. He was appointed as Chairman- All India Board for Architecture Education by AICTE Term 2010-13 and Term 2013-16, Chairperson – NBA for Architecture Education 2011-13 Elected Executive Committee Member at Council of Architecture (Term 2012-2015). As on date, he is an Elected Member in Council of Architecture-Delhi for the term 2016-19, Senate member on SPA Bhopal and Vijayawada, Member – Mumbai Heritage Conservation committee since a decade, Planning Committee Member MCGM, MMRDA, MHADA. As a Member -State Environment Impact Assessment Authority Maharashtra, he is currently engaged in reviewing Environment Policy. He had completed his Doctoral work on the topic “Alternative model for Squatter Up gradation in Mumbai” at the Department of Housing, School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi which he intends to complete soon. His Special Interests are issues dealing with Urbanism, Community Architecture, Heritage Conservation, and Technology in Building Management, Classical Arts and Education of Architects and Planners in a changing society.

Former Director, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad

Prof Vyas acquired a Masters in Industrial Design from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has more than 36 years of professional and teaching experience in different spheres of design. For the last 30 years, he has been associated with the National Institute of Design (NID) as a faculty in the Industrial Design discipline. In April 2009, he was appointed as the Director of the National Institute of Design.

In 2011, Vyas was given the award for his outstanding contribution to design education at Asia’s Best School Award that was held at Singapore. He was invited as the jury member for the special awards screening panel at Good Design Award (GMark) by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion, Japan consequently in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016.

He has been at the helm of design promotion events in India and has represented NID in various international and national events. He was elected as an ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) now WDO [World Design Organisation] Executive Board Member for 2009–11.

The World Education Congress, 2015 conferred the award for Outstanding Contribution to Education to Mr. Vyas. In March 2016, he was honoured with the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award – Design, 2016’ at the first ‘India UX Design Awards’ for the contribution towards the designing community and his pioneering efforts in the field of design education and design promotion.

He has also been felicitated with ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ by Times Education Icons 2017, for his immense contribution towards design education and design promotion. Held the role of Officiating Director for NID Kurukshetra and NID Vijayawada from setting up of both the Institutes since its inception stage till December 2018.

Chair, Knowledge Architecture, T U Dresden
Professor, City Science Lab, Hafencity University, Hamburg

From 1992 to 1998, Prof Noennig studied architecture at Bauhaus Universität Weimar, Polytech Krakow and Waseda University Tokyo. Between 1998 and 2001 he practiced as architect in Tokyo, among others at Ishiyama Experimental Underground Architecture Factory, at Arata Isozaki & Associates, and as a freelance architect. From 2001 he was Research Associate at TU Dresden, where he was appointed Junior Professor for Knowledge Architecture (2009-2015). In 2007 he received his doctoral degree from Bauhaus Universität Weimar. He taught at different universities in Japan, USA, China, Italy, Switzerland and Angola, and was Visiting Professor at Universit degli Studi dell l´Aquila, ISEN Toulon and Voronezh State Technical University. He has published several books and more than 100 scientific papers and essays. He has won several prizes, scholarships and awards, incl. the Grand Prize of the European Association for Architecture Education (EAAE). Since 2007 he is married to Yoco Fukuda-Noennig; they have two children.

Head, Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, IIT Kharagpur

Dr. Joy Sen is former Head of Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure and Design, IIT Kharagpur (2014 – 2017) and currently Head of the Department of Architecture and Regional planning, IIT Kharagpur (2017 – 2020). His areas of research are Community and Regional Planning Analyses & Programming and Architecture and Planning related Heritage Studies and Documentation. He has a long working experience with the various Environmental Design programs under DFID Government of the United Kingdom (1995-96) and ISU-UNDP program (1987-89) and IR3S (2011-12) in the University of Tokyo, Japan. He is the recipient of the NCERT/ AISSE Gold Medal for highest marks in SOCIAL SCIENCES in All-India level.

He is currently involved in two mega projects sponsored by MHRD Govt. of India, i.e., the SandHI – Science and Heritage mega initiative (acronym Sandhi) and the Future of Cities. In SandHI, he is the Principal Investigator (PI) and with Future of Cities as one of the two PIs.

He has been associated with Asia Pacific Network of Housing Research (APNHR), Hong Kong as Associate Member, Reviewer (Editorial Board) Journal of Architecture and with CSVTU Research Journal as Associate Editor. He is member, Advisory Council Board, SPA Bhopal, ViswaBharati and Aurora Design Academy, Hyderabad (2015- 17). He has authored seven books on Indian Heritage, Iconographic Documentation and a Text book on Sustainable Planning in India by TERI, India Habitat Center, Delhi.

Principal, Chandigarh College of Architecture

Dr. Sangeeta Bagga Mehta is Professor at Chandigarh College of Architecture, Chandigarh, and also the first woman Principal of the CCA. An alumina of CCA, she is an urban designer from SPA New Delhi and a PhD from Panjab University, Chandigarh with a special interest in the conservation of modern heritage ensembles. She has conducted multiple collaborative student workshops with universities including the Bezalel University of Art & Design (Israel), the Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA and the Technical University at Delft (Netherlands), University of Brisbane, Queensland. Her work and these collaborations are centered on the examination of urban landscapes, environmental design and social issues within Chandigarh. She is Coordinator, National Scientific Committee on 20c Heritage, ICOMOS, INDIA

In April 2015 she was invited as an international Jury Member and panellist for the Urban Edge Prize seminar, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and thereafter co-curated the Urban Edge Exhibition on the Urban Villages within and around Chandigarh, exhibited at the Alliance Francaise, Chandigarh. An outcome of the exercise is the book ‘Chandigarh Rethink’ launched on January 5, 2018 at the CCA on the city’s natural and manmade edges. She is also a juror to the Berkeley Student Essay Prize, University of Berkeley, USA, since 2012. She recently curated a student exhibition, generously supported by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada, ‘Commemorating the legacy of Pierre Jeanneret — the Foot Architect of Chandigarh’, (on view) at the Chandigarh College of Architecture with a symposium to mark the 50th death anniversary of Pierre Jeanneret.

Head, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati & Indian Rupee Symbol Designer

Prof Uday Kumar completed his PhD (Design) from IIT Bombay in 2010 and in the same year began serving as Assistant Professor, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati. Since 2016, he holds the position of Associate Professor in the department. His areas of interest include Visual Communication, Graphic Design and Architecture among others.

The man behind the design of the Indian Rupee Symbol, he has been awarded Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal at IIT Bombay, the Young Indian Leader Award by CNN – IBN, Network 18 and Designer of the Year 2012 by India Design Forum. He has been involved in many design projects, including the design of IIT Hyderabad Logo and Logo Design for Integrated Guwahati Flood Management Project, DDMA, Guwahati. Some of his noteworthy publications are detailed as follows:

1. Kumar, Udaya. D, 2009, “Traditional writing system in Southern India – Palm leaf manuscript”, Design Thoughts (IDC, IIT Bombay), Vol. 2, Pg 2-7
2. ‘Black and White in Indian Typography’, Between Black and White, Association Typographique Internationale HongKong 2012, HongKong, 9 –13 October 2012

University of Moratuwa, Srilanka

Janaka Wijesundara is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture of the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka. He is the founding director of the Master’s program in Urban Design and currently leads this program in the same department. He is also the founding director of the research centre; “Centre for Cities’ established at the University of Moratuwa in 2017. He has obtained a PhD from the University of Aachen in Germany with a specialization on renewal of inner cities focusing on urban design and urban heritage conservation. He has obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Architectural Conservation, a Master of Science Degree in Architecture and a Bachelors Degree in Built Environment from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

He is also currently a practicing architect, urban planner, urban designer and heritage conservator. He is having more than 30 years of practice experience in Sri Lanka, Germany and Canada as an architect, heritage expertise, urban planner and urban designer. He has won the Sri Lanka Institute of Architect’s Architect Award (2013) and Sri Lanka Institute of Architect’s Architectural Research Publication Award (2013).

He has professional affiliations as a:

• Fellow member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (FIA-SL)
• Corporate Member of Town Planners Institute of Sri Lanka (MITP-SL)
• Full member of the Canadian Institute of Planners (MCIP)
• Member of International Council of Monuments and Sites

Director, Echostream, Sikkim, India

Sikkim and is trained as a product designer from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He along with fellow NIDians set up a design consultancy called Echostream in the year 2008 in Gangtok.

Echostream

Echostream is an evolving community of designers, dreamers, doers with professional expertise in industrial and communication design. It consists of a team of designers (industrial designers and communication designers), trained at the National Institute of Design who are equipped with design and management skills. It also collaborates under a multi- disciplinary approach at problem solving with ethnographers, conservators, architects and community of craftsperson in Sikkim. It started as an collective initiative to provide design services to the Government of Sikkim and village communities with the prime focus on larger development agendas in Sikkim. Since the year 2009, the year of inception, Echostream has worked in almost 20 different sectors in Sikkim.

Sonam founded La in 2016, as Echostream’s own product/ social enterprise which is focused in developing the creative industry capacity and capabilities in the Indian Himalayan Region starting with Sikkim. In 2016, it started building capacities in the bamboo and cane sector through product development workshops with selected master artisans from 23 villages in Sikkim.

Anagram Architects, New Delhi, India

Vaibhav is an architect and urbanist. He co-founded an architectural practice in partnership with Madhav Raman after they graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture Delhi in 2001. Formally established in 2004, Anagram Architects is internationally recognised as amongst the top emerging practices in the world with commitment towards delivering deeply contextual designs that encourage sustainable lifestyles.

Over the years the practice has garnered much international acclaim including a nomination for the Aga Khan Award 2010 and inclusion in the Wallpaper* Magazine’s “Architects Directory 2009”. Its work has been premiered at the Architectural Review’s World Emerging Architecture Awards 2007, the Cityscape Architectural Awards 2008, 2010 & 2016, the Wienerberger Brick Awards 2010, the SAIE Bologna 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction2011, the Asia Pacific Design Awards 2012, the International Design and Architecture Awards 2013, the Institute of Indian Interior Designers Awards National Winner 2017 and the Indipool India’s Best Design Studio Award 2017.

Anagram Architects has also featured in the International Architecture Biennale 2010 in Rotterdam and Biennial of Design (BIO23) 2012 held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. For five years in a row, they have been included in the Architectural Digest’s list of the most influential South Asian designers for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

In 2009, Anagram Architects established Studio Insitu in partnership with the internationally renowned artist Asim Waqif as a foray into the realm of high-value design build, installation art design and public art. The studio undertakes turn-key projects related to scenography, exhibitions and installations.

Founder and Creative Principal, Tree Mouse, New Delhi, India

Nishita is the founder of the product and marketing strategy firm, Treemouse. A trained designer from NID & NIFT, she strongly advocates the role of enquiry-backed design in shaping today’s society. After gaining significant hands-on experience to carve a niche for design in corporate and social ventures, Nishita founded Treemouse as an entrepreneurial experiment to delve deeper into the finer nuances of design and its ability to transform businesses. Today, Treemouse has a strong client base spanning Indian businesses, development organisations & MNC’s where she and her team have spearheaded efforts towards making design an integral part of product and business strategy. In 2018, Treemouse laid the foundation for Culture Lab that undertakes independent and funded research towards building a deeper understanding of socio-cultural nuances of our society. Nishita also moonlights as a visiting faculty at NID

More information at: www.treemouse.com & www.culture-lab.in

Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture & Planning, IIT Roorkee

Smriti Saraswat is trained as an Architect & Interior-Designer. She has been awarded with a Letter of Merit from the CEPT University, Ahmedabad. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture and Planning at IIT Roorkee (Uttarakhand, India). She is passionate about Interior-Architecture; Design Research and Writing; Craft and Technology; Traditional Building Practices; Indigenous Communities; Skill Development; Creative and Cultural Industries; Cultural and Architectural Heritage; Narratives; anthropological quests and ethnographic approaches in architecture; and Pedagogy.

She has worked on – prestigious projects focusing on conservation while working with Development and Research Organisation on Nature, Arts and Heritage (DRONAH), Gurgaon; projects and events discussing craft & technology, design innovation and interior-architecture during her tenure as a senior researcher at Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre (DICRC), CEPT University, Ahmedabad, with a focus on conducting workshops, prototyping, developing monographs based on these, and creating material inventories; projects and events focusing on art-craft-interior-architecture traditions of Uttarakhand with IIT Roorkee and Ministry of Culture; and, a joint project on Model Village Development for the Juang Tribe of Odisha, funded by HUDCO. Recently, she has got a Research Grant of “A New Passage to INDIA”, sponsored by DAAD, Germany, in collaboration with Prof. Axel Sowa, RWTH University, Aachen.