Student Awards Category Jury
Sidhartha Talwar
Partner & Design Principal
Sidhartha is an Architect with a domain experience of 15 years. Over the years he has worked on & headed diverse projects including Exhibitions, Retail and Corporate Interiors, & Thematic events, taking them from concept to execution. His core strengths and passion lies in Articulating space, Project detailing & Implementation. At Lotus he has worked on various architectural, interiors and master planning projects largely in the fields of hospitality/resorts, public buildings and residences. He also won the National Architectural Design Competition for the National Police Memorial, Shanti Path, New Delhi in October 2011.
An Architect from TVB School of Habitat Studies, Delhi; Sidhartha started his career with the architect, Gautam Bhatia in 1996. He gained interest in exploring other mediums of spatial expression that led him to work with Exhibition Design firm Oriole in 1998 and two years later moved on to Design Habit as a Senior Design Associate. He has been a Visiting faculty to the TVB School of Habitat Studies and has been a part of the visiting jury at Sushant School of Architecture and other colleges.
Sonal Sancheti
Principal – OPOLIS Architecture and Urban Design
OPOLIS is a multidisciplinary design practice, started by Sonal Sancheti and her partner Rahul Gore in January 2001. The firm prides itself in having stayed away from a signature style but believes that most complex and beautiful solutions are often the simplest. OPOLIS is a young firm of qualified, commit ted and sensitive professionals offering innovative design solutions. They do a wide range of architectural, interior and urban projects and have offices in Mumbai and Pune. OPOLIS has won several awards in the Young Architects category of the IIA Awards and the IIID Awards for the past years. They have recently won the “A+D Young Enthused Architect Award” in addition to the IIA, JK Cement and Archidesign Awards. Their work has been widely published in leading national and international Architectural and Interior magazines.
Sonal Sancheti has studied architecture at Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad and her Masters Program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles (SCI-Arc). She has worked with Fumihiko Maki in Tokyo and Jerde Partnership in Los Angeles. Sonal has done a short course in Film making and Art Direction and that has been another area of her interest besides traveling and photography. She has recently co-authored a book “Scripting Destiny”. She is the Associate Member of the Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) and a member of the Indian Institute of Interior Designers (IIID) and is a visiting faculty at the Kamla Raheja School of Architecture, Mumbai.
Soumitro Ghosh
Educated at CEPT Ahmedabad, Soumitro Ghosh is a partner in Mathew and Ghosh Architects since 1995.
The practice bridges the real world of projects and the practice flows into the realm of teaching as an extended space of learning & exploration of ideas.
The firm specializes in a plethora of projects varying from urban parks, public space, urban design, and memorials, corporate offices, religious, industrial, residential buildings, conservation, furniture & product design etc.
The firm has been a recipient of many national and international awards such as the World Architect Network Award 2013, Nomination for Iakov Chernikhov International Foundation Award Moscow 2012, the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award USA 2007, AISAA Award winner for Stone in architecture 2013, A+D & Cera Architecture Award INDIA 2013 and JK Architect of the year award – 2013 – to name a few.
In addition, the firm has been a part of International exhibitions such as What makes India urban – Aedes am Pfefferberg, Berlin 2009 and Brick by Brick – Art Asia Pacific (New York) – 9 International Architects exhibition @ Shanghai, China.
Ar. Partha Ranjan Das
Having secured a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 1979 and a Master of Urban Design from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi in 1984 Partha Ranjan Das went on to an advanced training programme on Conservation & Management of Historic Buildings from Lund University, Sweden in 2008.
He served as a Principal Consultant to West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (WBHIDCO) in 2011-12 & 2012-13 and as a Member and Chairman, Projects Committee of the West Bengal Heritage Commission. He was also a Member of the Executive Council, Centre for Archaeological Studies and Training, Eastern India
He began his private practice in 1987 and won the Fulbright – Hayes Scholarship awarded by the Govt. of U.S. in 1991 for study of contemporary American Architecture. He won the first prize in a limited competition for the design of JBS Haldane Bhavan for the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and received the Archi Design best design award for hospitality sector for 2009 for IORA Resort at Kaziranga, Assam.
He has also been an illustrator for Sandesh, a Bengali Vernacular monthly for children from 1982. His paintings and drawings were exhibited in a joint show in The India Habitat Centre in February 2001. He has been an external Examiner for UG & PG programs at SPA, CEPT & ETH Basel, Switzerland
He is an avid reader and has written many articles for different newspapers and magazines.
