Daksh Jain

About

Trained as an Architect (Honors in B. arch, Gold medallist; JNVU, Jodhpur) and an Urban designer (KRVIA, Mumbai), Daksh Jain is a resident of Udaipur, India. His interests traverse in the domain of Urban planning, Urban design, Heritage conservation, Development finance and Policy framework. His works in academia follows the lines of Sociology, Ecology, Economics, Cultural studies, Informality and inclusive public oriented designs.

An avid traveller and food enthusiast, currently, he is working as an architect and urban researcher at Urban Foundry where he is also the founding partner. He has been involved in various architectural and interior design projects in Udaipur & Mumbai. At Urban Foundry, he and his team have been curating maps based on the tangible & intangible cultural heritage of Rajasthan. Their work on representation of faith at Mahim Dargah; a coffee table comic was put on display at Kala Ghoda Art Festival, 2020.

In 2023, he authored his first book Culture, Spaces & People – Urban Dynamics in Contemporary India, published by Routledge Taylor & Francis. He has also written a series of articles on urbanization in Udaipur, discussing the various phenomena like Plight of over tourism, Peri-Urban growth & State of conservation in the city.

He has presented paper at a workshop convened by Sir JJ College of Architecture and METROMOD on Bombay’s Spaces of Sociability: Exile, Migration and Contact Zones. His paper was titled ‘The LGBTQIA community and its presence in social spaces of Bombay’. His abstract from the working paper titled as ‘Spaces of interaction for Sub-Altern – How radical urban design can bring in inclusivity and social change’ was published at DEBW – A scientific Insight into Design Education for Better World, organised by Centre for Design Excellence, Vivekananda Global University, Jaipur in association with Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of Rajasthan. Along with that, he has been invited to conduct seminars and webinars at various colleges.

He is also the recipient of Bhamashah Award for excellence in Academics by Eternal Mewar, Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, Udaipur, in 2019.

As an architect, he has worked on multiple projects in and around Udaipur that ranges from Kalashetra; a film studio, mixed use building, bungalows, RIICO based Ayurvedic industry and interior of residential and commercial outlets. He is also involved in planning & adaptive re use of his maternal house in historic core and converting it to jewellery workshop and rooftop café.

He is a course leader for the preparation of NATA at Silica Education Institute.

Since 2022, he is teaching at Rizvi College of Architecture. He has keen interest in Theory & Research, Urban analytics, Architectural & Urban design, and has been involved in Bachelors and Masters level. In his teaching, he emphasizes on the process based learning that is rooted within the context. He believes in identifying networks, systems and patterns embedded in the context as triggers and to navigate architecture that responds and respects these triggers. Reflecting upon the mantra of Conceptualization, Exploration and Experimentation, Daksh looks forward to have an interactive approach and collaborative learning based on dialogue. Through these dialogues, a critical discourse can be deciphered and human centric and locally contextualized knowledge systems can be disseminated.