MCHI's top Design Ideas award for 4 architects

• Architects Shreshth Nagpal, Shivani Shah, Ekta Idnany, Sahil Latif’s design wins first prize of Rs 5 lakh
• Architects Jude D’Souza, Suprio Bhattacharjee and Vittal Sridharan’s design wins second prize of Rs 3 lakh
• Architect Vinit J Nikukmb’s design bags third place – wins prize of Rs 2 lakh

Architects Shreshth Nagpal, Shivani Shah, Ekta Idnany and Sahil Latif’s design drawing inspiration from existing Indian urban context and its various social elements and reflecting a fresh and innovative approach towards affordable housing won the prestigious state level Architectural Design Competition 2010, organised by the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI) held here recently.

Architectural Design Competition 2010 targeted at the affordable designs, was the part of MCHI’s unique initiative ‘Homes For all’, to facilitate creation of five lakh homes for the economically underprivileged people in Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The jury panel was led by noted Architect Uttam C Jain, Architect Sen Kapadia, Prof Shireesh Deshpande, Architect Pushkar Kanvinde and Prof Akhtar Chauhan. They had gone through 33 entries received from architects from across Maharashtra in the competition.

Commenting on the success of the competition, MCHI President Pravin Doshi said, “We are glad to witness such an excellent response from the leading architects from entire state. There was great enthusiasm and sincerity among all the participants to focus on innovative construction techniques to save the cost and provide maximum avenues in affordable homes segment. We are sure the designs conceptualised by the architects in the competition, would supplement MCHI’s efforts towards affordable housing”.

Noted architects Shreshth Nagpal, Shivani Shah, Ekta Idnany and Sahil Latif won the first prize in the competition for its design amenable to mass housing using prefab construction to develop sustainable neighbourhood while Jude D’Souza, Suprio Bhattacharjee and Vittal Sridharan’s entry showcasing green and natural aspects won the second prize. Architect Vinit J Nikumbh’s design, highlighting burning issues such as energy generation and sustainable technologies placed third in the competition.

The jury also selected two entries for honourable mention submitted by Architects Nidhi K Gupta, Milind N Shidunkar, Prashant M Hodawardekar and Sandhya J Patil and Architect Shashank Tharthare for the well worked design that brings in interesting variation within existing typology of housing design and systematic and sensitive analysis leads to innovative variation of urban typology respectively.

The panellists appreciated the all round efforts by MCHI in organising its first state level architectural design ideas competition on the issue of affordable housing. “We hope that this will become an important annual event promoting excellence in architectural design. We recommend that MCHI publishes a document on the theme and organises a travelling exhibition to various towns and cities of Maharashtra to create awareness on the issue of affordable housing and sustainable development”, the jury opined.

The winners were honoured with the awards and certificates at the ‘Homes For All’ Convention held at the Y B Chavan auditorium in Mumbai recently.