Amrita Mahindroo

Local to many cultures, Indian born/Australian raised Amrita Mahindroo’s formative years spanned several continents and influenced her way of understanding the built environment empathically through a diverse range of lenses. She founded DROO - Da Costa Mahindroo Architects with Michel Da Costa Goncalves, in London and Paris. Her experience spans both private and public sector projects which span residential schemes to urban regeneration plans delivered Internationally. Amrita has had the opportunity to lecture widely throughout the United States on her research including UCLA and MIT. Amrita’s theoretical and practice work has been focused on ‘growth’ and seeking answers on how to ‘grow’ in a more cyclical way, by building and reinventing through circular economies of material use, addressing typology and spatial organization for inclusive design and diverse demographic uses, and innovative modes of construction which allow us to continue evolving intelligently with our increasingly limited environmental resources. Her work focusses on Innovation around longevity and adaptability. Rooted in the belief that a truly sustainable built environment considers the life spans of several generations; what does it mean to be a child, an elderly person or a disabled person in the buildings we design? How do we build cities which care for us? This sense of deep empathy in her work allows her to think beyond the momentary architectural intervention to a systems thinking which expands beyond any one individual building to a complex series of networked urban criteria which inform all of our projects. Her work is driven by over-arching philosophy to lengthen the life of existing structures by giving them the opportunity to evolve to future uses and audiences. It is liberating to know that our works whilst whole are never complete and remain open to future generations to continue writing them.