Vidhya Mohankumar

Vidhya Mohankumar is an architect and urban designer with 14 years of work experience in India, Ireland, and the United States. Her work is focused on creating cities that are people-oriented and centered around transit as part of a sustainable development agenda that she is passionate about. Her approach is driven by research that is grounded and intersectional as a way to understand the everyday urbanism of cities. With clientele ranging from state governments, ULBs, county/town councils, real estate developers, private sector firms and NGOs, her urban design projects exhibit a wide variety with master plans for cities, station areas, and harbor areas as well as redevelopment plans for town centers, public spaces, and brownfield sites. She has also been involved in several strategic planning projects, regional plans, local area plans, campus master plans and urban design studies in various cities around the world. In 2011, Vidhya founded Urban Design Collective (UDC), a collaborative platform for architects, urban designers, and planners to create livable cities through participatory planning. Since 2015, Vidhya has been serving on the Board of Center for the Living City. The Center was established in collaboration with urbanist Jane Jacobs to enhance the understanding of the complexity of contemporary urban life and through it, promote increased civic engagement. In addition, she has been advocating sustainable development practices as a guest faculty at various universities in India for the past 10 years.