Book Launch: (de)Coding Mumbai | Sameep Padora

April 21, 2023

Authored by Sameep Padora and Shreyank Khemalapure as a co-author, (de)Coding Mumbai documents the evolution of Mumbai's housing fabric and its regulations.

SHARE THIS

On Saturday, April 15th, 2023, CEPT, Ahmedabad, launched the (de)Coding Mumbai Exhibition. Based on a documented study, the Exhibition shares its title with the book it is based on, authored by Sameep Padora of sP+a (Sameep Padora and Associates).

Through 18 case studies, the book attempts to document and analyze the trajectories of Mumbai’s building codes. Tracing its interrelationships with socio-political and economic currents both domestic and international, (de)Coding attempts to make explicit the making of Mumbai’s physical form.
sP+a

Book Launch: (de)Coding Mumbai | Sameep Padora 1

Book Launch: (de)Coding Mumbai | Sameep Padora 3

(de)Coding Mumbai is available in hard-copy format and explores the evolution of Mumbai’s housing fabric and the building regulations that guide them. It is an in-depth study of the demographic shaping the regulations, which in turn have shaped the city’s urban form.

The book is published by CEPT University Press, and authored by Mumbai-based Architect Sameep Padora, with Architect Shreyank Khemalapure as a co-author and architects Aayushi Joshi and Tanushree Agrawal as the editors.

(de)Coding Mumbai is now available on Amazon.

Like what we publish?

AUTHOR

Rajesh Advani

Profile and Contributions

AUTHOR

Rajesh Advani

Profile and Contributions

Follow us on WhatsAPP

Recent Posts

View showing the cylindrical mass below with overhanging cuboid supported by coffered ceiling and ribbed columns. © Prashansa Sachdeva

Brutalist India | Shri Ram Centre, New Delhi

May 9, 2026

As part of Brutalist India series Bhawna Dandona writes about Shri Ram Centre, New Delhi, consructed in 1968, sponsored by the Shri Ram family, designed by Shiv Nath Prasad, along with guidance from Ebrahim Alkazi and the structural expertise of Mahendra Raj.

Book Announcement | NUDES: Architecture of Regeneration, by Nuru Karim

May 8, 2026

Altrim Publishers announces the release of NUDES, a compelling new monograph by architect Nuru Karim, founder of Nudes, a Mumbai-based interdisciplinary design studio at the forefront of computational and sustainable architecture.

CoA's Centre of Excellence, Bengaluru, by architectureRED.© architectureRED (1)

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE | What is happening to CoA’s Centre of Excellence, Bengaluru?

May 5, 2026

The Council of Architecture announced a design competition in 2022 for a Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, drawing nearly 1,500 teams. Chennai-based firm, architectureRED, won with their proposal, and yet four years later, nothing has been built. ArchitectureLive! team goes into this rabbit hole to understand the reality of.

Wall As a Public Space
“To read public space only as a spatial condition, as a matter of square footage, zoning, or physical access, is to miss half the picture.”
—Reshma Esther Thomas

April 29, 2026

Reshma Esther Thomas examines how Hyderabad’s flyover pillars, painted with Cheriyal-style murals under the GHMC’s ‘City Art Scape’ initiative, reveal the paradox of managed public space. What appears to be beautification is actually cultural assertion in the wake of the 2014 bifurcation, bureaucratising a surface that once belonged to those without institutional power.

Khazans in Slavador du Mundo, Bardez, Goa. © Kusum Priya (1)

The Map That Was Never Yours
“If publicness is reduced to what is legally accessible, then these landscapes were never public to begin with.”
—V.V. Kusum Priya

April 28, 2026

As part of our editorial: What makes a space public?, V.V. Kusum Priya argues that Section 39A of Goa’s 2024 Town and Country Planning Act this isn’t just a legal issue, and that it’s the erosion of an unrecognised but collectively sustained commons, and a question of what “public” really means and who benefits from the legislations surrounding this.

Life on the public spaces in downtown Calcutta. Source - Wikimedia

“Appropriation of public spaces is the genesis of political movements, of ideological apparatus, and of endangering the city’s multi-dimensional fabric.”
—Dr. Seema Khanwalkar

April 27, 2026

Dr. Seema Khanwalkar, explores how the public spaces in India are dynamic, contested areas shaped by informal economies, migration, and social negotiation. She reveals how the transactional activities democratise ownership of these spaces, while the political and religious appropriation increasingly displaces this organic vitality, creating exclusion and anxiety. This shrinking of inclusive public space threatens urban social fabric, yet remains largely absent from city planning conversations, making it a far deeper crisis than mere encroachment.

Book Launch: (de)Coding Mumbai | Sameep Padora