“Architects are very fundamental to our living, especially urban living.” – This was Late Munishwar Nath Ashish Ganju’s response to the query about the profession’s relevance. Ashish Ganju seemed to be agreeing with Sanjay Prakash’s response, which mentions “Architecture remains one of the most social-minded of our professions in the country.“

It was in 2016 when ArchitectureLive! approached some architects requesting their views on the relevance of the profession. While many shared their concerns about the precarious state of the profession, and its growing disconnect with people at large, Prof. Manoj Mathur opined that there was hardly any evidence that architecture ever served ordinary people.

Swati Janu and Suprio Bhattacharjee shared the common concern that the architecture profession was increasingly becoming elitist. Even with some disagreements on the issue, everyone seemed to be agreeing that architecture affects almost every aspect of human life, and there was an urgent need to think of ways to make the profession accessible to people.

Further, the recent pandemic that resulted in several strict lockdowns across the country, loss of many lives, long time effects on health, loss of employment, and economic recession has caused more anxiety and has added to the preexisting challenges the profession was facing.

Several architects we spoke to recently, talked about threats that the pandemic has posed to their practice and the new strategies they were working on to mitigate the challenges. These challenges were not just limited to finances, but also coordination, processes and most importantly, trust – not just within the office or among the team, but also on the profession and the practice. READ THE VIEWS HERE.

In these uncertain times, what we seek is hope.

It is time we ask – Which future trajectories can we imagine for the architectural practices and the built environment in India?

Future Trajectories: Promising Architectural Practices of India is an initiative to recognise young practices which are committed to creating a better living environment. For the first list (to be announced at 7:00 p.m. February 4, 2022), we reached out to some architects in India having established and revered practices with a request for them to share a few names of the architectural practices (preferably less than 15 years old, or younger than theirs), which they considered to be promising, and have the potential to contribute positively to the future built environment.

The respondents shared several names of the architectural practices from India, which according to them, are committed to challenging the conventions, setting better benchmarks, and are invested in improving human lives and living conditions.

We are hopeful that this list will continue to grow with newer names.

(This activity shouldn’t be considered a competition among architectural practices, the list of top architects, or best architectural practices from India. If you would like us to consider any name/s to the future lists, CLICK HERE.