ACEDGE

Anuj Kale is an Architect/ Urban Designer from CEPT based out of Nashik. He has been working as a web comic artist for the past 2.5 years and has been making Web-Comics about Architecture, Sustainability and Urban Design to create awareness about the particular field. Apart from making comics, his forum Leewardists’ is trying to impart parallel education in architecture through workshops, online videos and webinars. An urban designer and a storyteller, Anuj Kale started Leewardists to bring change and awareness to the dark side of the profession through narration and stories. The thought of architecture being a profession for the common man but still not practiced in a form that is understood by them, compelled him to find a formula and a methodology which reaches out to the masses. A Ted talk speaker, he has talked about how his way of conceiving anything be it about architecture or the design fraternity always has an outlook of being simple and funny, because it’s a method which envelopes a larger demographic. He applies the same ideology while imparting education as well. Having conducted almost 40 workshops across India, each workshop stays true to the methodology of simple storytelling and narratives. His larger vision and goals for Leewardists is for it to become an entity or a brand for the architecture fraternity, be it a student or a professional. He wants to keep talking about serious issues of the fraternity the non-serious way!

Vinita is a graduate from Academy of Architecture, Mumbai. She is one of the founding members of Studio Design Jatra. Being a practicing architect working in the villages of Palghar, Thane and Raigad districts, she is interested in humanitarian work approach, relevant technologies and natural materials at the heart of her practice. A HUDCO Award for Affordable and Disaster resilient rural housing in the year 2015-16 for one of her projects proves her liking to be on site rather than behind the desk. Working in the rural sector on projects ranging from tribal houses to second homes, her love for getting the best out of natural materials with happy rural artisans is what drives her to work.

Joy Mondal works at the intersection of design, computation and education. He is the design computation head of WEsearch lab which offers parametric design services to architecture practices. He has been involved in award winning masterplans and hospitality projects. He has taught at SPA, Delhi, and CEPT University, Ahmedabad as a visiting faculty. He is a TEDx fellow, presenting ways of democratizing architecture for everyone by using artificial intelligence to generate Residential Floor Plans for free. He graduated from Jadavpur University, during which he won multiple design competitions and a grant to investigate Climate Responsive optimization of geometries.