About Us

UrbanArch, founded in 2017 is a collaborative of young professionals who are passionate about the identification as well as preservation of India's tangible as well as Intangible heritage.

Street Section: Udupi, Karnataka

Urbanarch, founded in 2017 is a collaborative of professionals motivated to preserve and promote India's incredible heritage. To achieve its goal, the foundation undertakes activities like Documentation of Built and Unbuilt heritage, Historical Research, Workshops for students and professionals and field trips to places of importance.

Since 2017, the foundation on its own and in collaboration with schools of architecture (in Surat & Ahmedabad) has undertaken various heritage documentation projects, workshops and seminars. 'Travel Studio' is a field trip program of the foundation. These field trips are carefully curated and are a mix of workshops/seminars, heritage talks and storytelling sessions. These activities help participants in making sense of the place they are visiting.

About the Foundation

Founder

Ar Shaunak Desai founded UrbanArch in the year 2017 as an initiative to bring together individuals who are passionate about our collective history. He is an Architect and an Urbanist by profession, He has over 10 years of experience in the field of Architecture and Urbanism. Being a perennial student of history, he has a keen interest in the historical places with our shared heritage. He has completed his B.Arch from SCET, Surat and his M.Arch in Urban Design from a prestigious School of Planning and Architecture, SPA - Bhopal. He leads a design practice in Surat, Gujarat. He has been associated with academia for over 7 years. His major research focus is on the interpretation of heritage and Indian Urbanism.

He has a keen interest in the uniqueness of Indian cities and the complex network through which the cities function. His long-term research in the field of History & Heritage interpretation has given him a perspective and a level of expertise in the field. He has been invited to give lectures at various conventions of the National Association of Students of Architecture - NASA, Amity University, ITM University, Uka Tarsadia University, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, and Anant University to name a few. He has conducted a series of design workshops, a Travel Studio, Documentation Projects and Heritage Exploration.

He has guided over 35 Design theses and mentored over 200 architecture students from various institutions and he continues to do the same in the capacity of Associate Professor at Indus University, Ahmedabad.