Speakers 2016
View All See Less
Amit Syngle
Managing Director & CEO, Asian Paints Ltd
As Asian Paints' Chief Operating Officer, Amit Syngle is the man behind India’s only research based colour trend prediction system. Amit has been re...Read Moresponsible for propelling the brand into a league of its own and has heralded several business initiatives over the last decade. In a first for the brand, Nilaya by Asian Paints collaborated with celebrated couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee to launch a new line of handcrafted wallpapers that highlight authentic craftsmanship with contemporary flair.
Instagram: @asianpaints
Ashiesh Shah
Principal Architect, Atelier Ashiesh Shah
One of the most recognisable names in the design and architecture industry today, Ashiesh Shah weaves creations that take cues from world cultures and...Read More history. He is an award winning architect and interior designer, who has many renowned accolades and an impressive roster of projects that includes several homes, and high-end restaurants and stores under his belt. Famed one among the more astute collectors of contemporary art from the Indian Sub-continent, the creative considers himself an eclectic collector, whose taste spans centuries and continents. His passion and persistence for all things design is matched with his love for art is reflected in the spaces he imagines that display a strong aesthetic balanced by his dexterity at reinventing tradition in a modern context.
Ayaz Basrai
Co-founder of The Busride Studio, Ayaz Basrai studied Industrial Design at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. Known for his innovative...Read More design approach and out-of-the-box solutions, Ayaz specialises in hospitality, commerical and institutional projects. The Goa-based design studio prides itself in creating a set of longer iterative experiments in larger ideas and this approach has been extensively appreciated across all their projects.
When it comes to desgining spaces, Ayaz does not have a distinct signature style and his projects don’t stem from a theme, a choice of colour, flooring or material. His USP lies in doing things the unusual way. Most restaurateurs don’t even give him briefs, only a starting point – and patiently wait until he brings a new innovative idea to life. In a short span of time, Ayaz has completed more than 100 hospitality projects and some of them include a boutique hotel in Goa, the Toit brewery, a hotel in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Khyber restaurant in Dubai amongst many others.
Instagram: @thebusride
Bijoy Jain
The founder of Studio Mumbai, this award winning architect seamlessly blends the borders between indoor and outdoor to embrace nature and create sustainable structures. He consciously drives projects based on location and considers materials, techniques and styles accordingly.
Dominique Jean-Lavabre
After pursing archaeology in prehistory for 10 years, Domnique studied to be a lawyer specialising in company acquisitions. He is now in charge of all...Read More acquisition processes, concepts and interior designing with the support of other architects and interior designers for all 9Hotel Collection properties across Paris, Brussels, Lisbon and Madrid. He plans to open more boutique hotels in Germany, Netherlands and other East European countries.
Fernando Menis
Award winning Spanish architect Fernando Menis’ designs are characterised and celebrated for their sustainable and adaptable nature. He is also a pr...Read Moreofessor at the European University of Canarias and Chairman of the Laboratory for Innovation in Architecture, Design and Advanced Tourism of Tenerife and a lecturer at several renowned universities including Harvard and Columbia. He is responsible for projects like Insular Athletics Stadium Magma Art & Congress, Swimming Pool in the River Spree in Berlin, Presidency of the Canary Islands, Fuerteventura Congress Center and Taipei Residential Tower others. The model of his famous Holy Redeemer Church in La Laguna was introduced to MoMA’s permanent collection.
Greg Reaves
He joined Safdie Architects as a Principal in 2010 and is currently principal-in-charge for residential and mixed use projects in New York, India, Chi...Read Morena, Sri Lanka and Singapore, as well as the new National Medal of Honor Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. In addition, he is an expert in museum planning, design and operations and is a frequent contributor to technical and industry forums, besides being an active member of the Urban Land Institute, the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and the Society for College and University Planning.
India Mahdavi
This internationally revered interior designer, furniture designer and scenographer’s creations meander into a place where the sensual, joyful, itin...Read Moreerant and minimal coexist harmoniously. The multi-hyphenate studied architecture in Paris, and graphic, furniture and industrial design in New York, before setting up her firm in 1999 in the French capital. Design to her is “giving form to function”.
Manish Gulati
Founding Partner & Architect, M:OFA Studio
Manish Gulati started Manifestation of Fluid Architecture or MOFA as it's popularly known. MOFA, under his leadership has won close to 50 Internationa...Read Morel, National Design awards, special mentions and competitions. The designs from the firm have been published in more than 120 leading design journals and the firm is counted amongst the top firms of India.
Each project undertaken by the firm goes through exhaustive research and interactions to eventually derive intuitive spaces. Manish believes that a sustainable ideology can never be an isolated entity and should be a part of an all-inclusive process of design. His forte and driving passion till date remains design & innovation. He believes, through design we can provide solutions to any problem in the world.
www.mofastudio.com
Follow him here:
Facebook- @bubblegumgod
Mario Bellini
From architecture and urban planning to product and furniture design, the legendary Italian polymath is an eight time Compasso d’Oro winner. About 25 of his works are in the permanent design collection of New York’s MoMA, which even dedicated a personal retrospective to him in 1987.
Nipa Doshi
The Mumbai born Londoner is one half of the acclaimed design studio Doshi L...Read Moreevien. They hold the honour of being International EDIDA Designers of the Year 2015. Doshi’s passion for Indian handicraft reflects in all of the duo’s unique creations.
Peter D’Ascoli
Artist and designer, Peter D’Ascoli is the creative director of Talianna Studio that specialises in textile design. A New Yorker of Italian descent ...Read Morewho has made India his adopted homeland, Peter believes design is the application of aesthetics to build a product within technical limitations. Fascinated by India’s rich and diverse culture and history, his textile collections are a celebration of native heritage.
Sanjay Puri
Principal Architect, Sanjay Puri Architects
Sanjay Puri, the principal architect of Sanjay Puri Architects, India has been a speaker and a judge at numerous international architecture events inc...Read Moreluding the Leading European Architects Forum, The World Architecture Festival & The Perspective PLAN events held in London, Amsterdam, Bologna, Milan, Venice, Barcelona, Singapore, Berlin & Belgrade. His firm founded in 1992, has won 100 international architecture awards including 4 Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture & Design’s International Architecture Awards, 8 World Architecture Festival Awards, 12 World Architecture Community U.K Awards, the Leading European Architects Forum Award, 5 Architizer New York Awards, 3 Hospitality Design New York Awards, 14 MIPIM Architecture Review Awards and several more. He has been consecutively been awarded Construction World’s India’s Top Ten architects awards for the last 11 years. The company has successfully completed over 600 projects totaling over 60 million square feet. With ongoing and completed projects in over 40 Indian cities, they have won projects in the U.S, Spain, Montenegro, Mauritius and the UAE. Today, the firm comprises 72 architects, who continue their quest for creating sustainable design, charting new territories of spatial perception simultaneously imbibing the intrinsic values of Indian heritage and culture within their design solutions.
Sonali Purewal
Sonali Purewal is a self-taught designer specialising in chic cottage living interiors. Her design sensibility blends modern Indian style with elements of Wabi Sabi. Originally a student of literature, she has been working in interior design, product development and luxury cottage design for the last ten years.
Theron Carmine de Sousa
Partner, FWC LLP
Theron Carmine de Sousa (TC) is Consulting Director, Business and Brand Strategy at Ferry Wharf Communications LLP, with a presence in Mumbai and Sant...Read Morea Clara CA, USA.
FWC is a strategy and design firm that offers strategic solutions in the Design Thinking space and has a unique model for business and restructuring strategy for product related start-ups. It is essentially a consulting and advocacy firm that combines multi-vertical expertise, where recent work has delivered exceptional results. He has worked as an Independent Creative Strategist and Advisor to a series of international companies as well as The Brand Advisory Council.
His degree in Communication and Philosophy from Denison University, and post-graduate work in Media Strategy, along with his 17 years of experience working with over 40 luxury, finance and hospitality brands have equipped him to be a part of the Advisory Board of JBL Enterprise and Ballard Pier Associates.
Tom Dixon
A multi-award winning self-taught designer, Tom Dixon first received promin...Read Moreence in mid 1980s as a talented untrained designer with a collection of salvaged welded furniture. In 2002, he launched his own eponymous brand responsible for the creation of iconic products such as Mirror Ball, Copper Shade, Wingback chair and Beat light. Five years later, he set up Design Research Studio that deals with interior and architectural projects. His marvelous works have been acquired by museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Toyo Ito
The Pritzker Prize winning Japanese architect is renowned for creating conceptual structures world over. An admirer of Le Corbusier’s architecture, he admits he became an architect after failing to be a professional baseball player.
Verendra Wakhloo
The Kashmir born, New Delhi based architect’s main focus of work is on context sensitive architecture that integrates material and logic of construction, in search of archetypal form. The award winning creative is a Member of the Council of Architecture (COA) and the Indian Institute of Architects (IIA).
