After working with world renowned architect BV Doshi for a period of four years, Ajit, following his parallel passion for the art of cartooning, found himself studying Traditional Animation Film Making at Sheridan College, Canada. Since then, the need to explore diverse forms of expression and communication has led Ajit to pick up various additional skills in sculpture, painting, folk art design and set design. At the same time he began travelling and researching India’s great wealth of traditional art and architecture. Ajit has headed various animation training programmes at top animation studios in India, and has been a visiting faculty at premier design and architecture institutes of the country. Ajit is currently on a self-imposed sabbatical exploring ways of expressing India’s glorious heritage through contemporary forms.
Design Philosophy: For any innovative design to be truly universal, it has to have its roots in the ever-enriching soil of tradition.

For New York based interior designer Andrew Galuppi, ‘design’ is a passion. Having been in the field for almost a decade now, Andrew worked with fashion design magnate Oscar de la Renta before opening his own interior decorating business. Andrew would move the furniture around in friends’ homes, before he finally realised that interior design is what he wanted to do. His talent lies in updating existing design and creating new environments for clients with limited time and budget. His passion for design is second only to his love of travel.
Design Philosophy: A space should support you. Everything you choose to surround yourself with, carries a vibration that affects you daily. Balance and harmony in your home will mirror itself in an abundant life.

Internationally recognised interior designer Dean D’Cruz is the Partner and Principal Architect in Mozaic Design, a leading design fi rm based in Goa, involved in Planning, Architecture, Conservation, Product Design, and Graphic Design amongst various other activities. Dean has conducted numerous workshops and seminars all over the country, his works and articles published in leading magazines in India and abroad. Dean has been the recipient of the ‘Architect of the Year Award’ (state award) and ‘Designer of one of the 10 Best Spas in Asia Award’. Currently, Dean is attempting to address the issues of a sustainable design by being ecological responsive in his solutions.
Design Philosophy: To create an architecture that responds to today’s lifestyle, yet weaves the spirit of tradition into it, consequently supporting the building crafts.

Feroze has her fingers dipped in several creative art forms. Starting her career as a top fashion model, she has for many years now, successfully run a Table Top and accessories business. Feroze is also involved in ceramic designing and creation, and has founded, BroadcastIndia.com. Given Feroze’s illustrious fashion background, she is a visiting professor at NIFT. She is currently in the process of writing screenplays for television, and has also started work on her own television shows.
Design Philosophy: Design is really the culmination of all consciousness that results out of a melange of culture, heritage, nature, arts, crafts, education, intellect and even technology. Sometimes simple, sometimes complicated, but at all times perfectly tuned.

Initially starting her professional career with a stint in advertising and subsequently in the hotel industry, Lipika Sud in 1989 realised that her real calling was interior design. Following her heart, she joined the Rhodec School of Design, U.K in order to understand the technical aspects of design. Soon, she started her own fi rm, Dimension Designers, which is today considered one of the leading interior design fi rms in the country, handling a huge portfolio of very prestigious works ranging from residential to corporate interiors. Lipika also holds the prestigious post of the Honorable Secretary of the Institute of Indian Interior Designers, Delhi Chapter, and has organised several knowledge based programs on interior design. She is often a jury member for several interior design competitions in the country and around the world.
Design Philosophy: To draw inspiration of design from nature as there is a system of aesthetic judgment rooted in nature’s simple system of order, and to achieve the same sense of ordered placement and balance within the interior space.

Gurjit received his diploma in architecture at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad, and then worked for a year in the offices of Michele Arnaboldi and Giorgio Guschetti in Ticino, Switzerland. In 1991, he established his architectural consultancy firm Matharoo Associates in Ahmedabad. He is a visiting faculty and a thesis guide at his alma mater, and also at Post Graduate Programme of Transportation Design at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Gurjits’s firm has received the ‘Young Architect of the Year’ national award by JK Cement twice consecutively, an ‘Editor’s Choice’ and an ‘Honorable Mention’, both in Emerging International Architecture Awards by Architectural Review, UK.
Design Philosophy: To pursue a sense of discovery through innovation and utmost restraint.

For Shabbir Unwala, designing and architecture has been a journey of 20 years, where he has used residences as a crucible of ideas, and recognised institutional buildings like schools, to not just be a structure, but a place where the journey of learning is embarked upon by students and teachers. The training centers for corporate sectors that have been designed by him are a place of sharing, receiving and giving. Hotels are where nature plays a predominant part, and architecture, the subservient. His interiors are done with an eye on designing and not on decoration.
Design Philosophy: Architecture resides in the relationship between man and nature. It is sought in the process rather than the product, and it is always located in time and place