Janki Contractor is a partner and practicing architect/designer at CraftsPOD Design Studio. The studio offers unique design solutions integrating Form, Function and Built Environment. They work on a variety of scale; from master planning to details; thus looking at projects holistically. Since its inception in 2016, she heads the studio, guiding the team in a range of residential and commercial interior projects. She has been pivotal in guiding every project from conceptual to details and its eventual execution on site. Through the projects, the studio tries to come up to alternate approaches to formation of space where exploration of light (natural as well as artificial) and material expressions plays an important role.
Her expertise is a resultant of the work experience gained by working with eminent Architects in Ahmedabad over the years before cofounding CraftsPOD Design Studio. Her work with Ar. Kamal Mangaldas has helped her look at projects from part to whole, thus integrating every minute detail in design. Over the years of working with that firm, she being the senior architect, managed a variety of projects from master planning, housing to individual residences. Her initial work with Ar. Yatin Pandya has also helped her gain a deep rooted insight in the importance of integrating traditional elements in design. Apart from practice, she is currently a visiting faculty at the Faculty of Design, CEPT University, Ahmedabad where she mentors a design studio based on Building in a Historic context. She has been associated with CEPT for over three years while teaching in Design and Architecture Departments. She was also a visiting faculty at Navrachna University Vadodara, where in she taught Housing and Working Drawing Studios. Currently, she is an external guide to few research thesis students at SEDA, Navrachna University, Vadodara with keen interest in housing and neighbourhoods. Janki holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from University of Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art, UK and a Bachelors degree in Architecture from CEPT University, Ahmedabad. She was also selected for an Erasmus Summer School in Amsterdam titled “Design in Urbanism”. It was a ten-day intensive workshop with 8 participating schools, to redesign and rethink the idea of neighbourhood in today’s changing world.
During her Bachelors, she was also a part of a mutual exchange programme between CEPT University Ahmedabad and ZHAW Winterthur, Switzerland. Her experience has helped her develop a varied interest from part details to whole thus developing Interior design, architecture and mass-housing, as her forte . Her research paper written during her Masters study titled “Potential for Net Zero Energy Neighbourhoods in the Ahmedabad Urban and Solar Context” was published and presented at the Annual International PLEA Conference in 2014.