Our Team
We are a committed group of people bringing in perspectives and skills from varied disciplines and cultures in order to create better built environments.
Friends of Critical Places
Astrid Tsz Wai Wong
Skanda Upadhyay
Arunraj vr
Rahul Sahu
Liga Brammanis
Caroline Craddock
Carolyn Angius
Zhenfang Chen
Alysoun Wright
Pragati Golchha
Danni Jin
Camila Huber Horta Barbosa
Leslie Johnson
Parmeshwar Kumar
Team Tidbits
Saurabh talks about conducting public participation workshops throughout Maharashtra.
Alpa and Gaurav's son, Kabir, talks about his experience at Critical Places.
Thoughts About the Role of Designers
"The bigger social problems are hard to cope with as an outsider within only one trip. As a designer, we need to be a visionary leader with long-term goals, but also can learn fast and grasp current opportunities to propose small-scale, low-cost, tangible intervention as a catalyst to spur imagination, discussions, motivations. These efforts can start changing perception and attitude of people through inspiring or educating people with new ideas, demonstrating possibilities, empowering people through planning and design engagement. These social, perceptive, psychological changes that we can be able to make even for just a short trip like this one are critical for sowing the seeds for something bigger to happen in the future."
Taken from the blog of Astrid Tsz Zai Wong, Dhamori Village Development Plan, 2017
Leslie and Saurabh stand atop Chikhaldhara in Amravati.
Notes from Dhamori
"We met with a lot of different kinds of people – several hundred villagers, a few dozen officers and a dozen funders – and talked, discussed, presented, inspired, encouraged, persuaded, requested and invited so many people – it is incredible to bring people along with you to the future you see - - sometimes discouraging, or exhausting too, but mostly incredible. And critical.."
Taken from the blog of Alpa Nawre, Dhamori Village Development Plan, 2017
Danni discusses the rendering graphics she made for the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Community Halls.
Visiting Roha
"We drove to the village of Roha to assist the contractor and engineer in the building layout of the community hall. Many villagers also helped us in the layout, and there was a general excitement in the air due to the newcomers in town and the breaking ground of an anticipated structure. I conducted interviews with different villagers, including the sarpanch of the village, Smt. Anita Chakole ji. She was particularly pleased with the fact that her community's suggestions for the community hall generated in the public participation workshops were actually being incorporated in the project."
Caroline Craddock, PAH Community Hall, 2019