Manayan Architects was founded by Manu Desai in 1984. The Studio is a multidisciplinary practice which provides professional services in Architecture, Interior, Urban Design and Product Design. The studio’s approach to the built environment is grounded in the search for contextually appropriate designs. Response to local condition, climate and culture have driven the design process of the studio over the past thirty years since its inception. We believe that efficient and minimum is a better way to design. Recognition of what exists leads to a more sensitive design than what can be.

The practice indulges into designs that are process-based than concepts. Each design starts from the most basic diagram of shelter and evolves into modern typologies of what it requires to be, keeping the sense of the core principal of design being a Shelter; Shelter from Sun and rain. Manayan Architects has worked on various scales of projects like Institution, housing, offices, factories & residences. 

 

 

 

Manu Desai (b.1959) studied at School of Architecture, CEPT Ahmedabad. He founded the studio in 1983. In initial years, he collaborated on selected projects with other graduates of the same school. His keen interest is social housing and institutions since the formative years of his learnings of Architecture at CEPT. His research interest has been the development of housing typologies in the city of Ahmedabad and its response to the collective and individual house from the student years.

WORK
Christopher Benninger 1979/ Jitendra Mistry 1983 / Anant D. Raje 1984 / A.V.Joshi 1986

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION
Council Of Architecture, India / Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation / Indian Institute of Architects


Harsh Desai
 completed his education at School of Architecture-CEPT Ahmedabad and ETH Zurich-Switzerland. Further, He did Post Graduate Diploma from Building Beauty,Italy sharpening his thinking and making skills in regional, people centric and place based approaches. He joined the studio in 2016, establishing the interiors and design oriented arm. His keen interest is in making built environment with the quality of wholeness across typologies. Harsh has guided documentation of traditional Himalayan settlements and structuralist theory based workshop at various educational institutes across the country and continues to teach at CEPT University.

WORK
Neelkanth Chhaya 2016/ Shubhra Raje 2017

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION
Council Of Architecture, India / Indian Institute of Architects

Collaborators over the years

  • Kandarp Bhatt                Architect
  • Mahesh Patel                  Architect
  • Chandragupta Shah       Architect
  • Shital Shah                       Interior & Furniture Designer
  • Parush Gandhi                Architect
  • Harsh Desai                     Architect & Interior Designer
  • Abhishek Mochi               Architect
  • Bhuvan Desai                   Civil Engineer & Construction Management
  • Chaitali Joharapurkar       Architect
  • Harsh Parmar                    Architect & Interior Designer

 

Civil Draftsmen

Premji Vaghela
Vinod Shah
Mr. Gopi
Falgun Makwana
Naisadh Gajjar
Ashok Patel
Vipul Desai

 

Interns

Harsh Patel
Sahil Punia
Sunil Tanvar
Ms. Abhilasha
Savan Panchal
Keerthi Shanigarapu
Riddhi Gohel
Mohit Pangul
Himali Bohodkar
Shweta Tapase