Born in 1962, Ar Shimul Javeri Kadri is a much-celebrated veteran Indian architect. She studied architecture in Mumbai at the Academy of Architecture, and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. In 1997, Ar Kadri founded her own architectural firm, SJK Architects, in the business capital of India. Today, the firm has a repute of over two decades for designing spaces that are aligned with every natural element.
With the motto and dedication towards building new India without preconceived notions, Ar Kadri nurtured the SJK Architects as the founder and principal architect towards its present glory. The architectural firm is famed for its value of culture and building respective to the climate. Ar Shimul Javeri Kadri has responsibly made a portfolio on the ethos of natural and light construction and supporting equality through education and feminism. The occasional writer, jurist, speaker and teacher is compelled by her overwhelming passion and desire to present, engage and discuss about it.
Ar Kadri’s firm is engaged with energy-conscious designs and constructions and has won multiple international and national awards including the Prix Versailles Award, 2016 and the World Architecture Festival Award, 2012. Named as one of the Architectural Design’s Top 100 (AD 100) and the Top 50 as well, the firm has gained its fame through constructing schools, colleges, factories, high-end commercial projects including hotels and resorts, offices as well as museums and residential houses. It has also undertaken the restoration of the heritage project, Jiji House Building in Mumbai covering 20,000 sq ft. Some of Ar Kadri’s significant projects are—Synergy Lifestyles factory in Karur, constructed with mud hollow blocks for insulation, the Sparkrill International School and SR Engineering College in Warangal and Ayushakti and the Ayurvedic health resort, infused with light, air, space, joy and peace in a crowded Mumbai suburb within a narrow 16 m wide plot surrounded on three sides by residential buildings.
Ar Kadri designed the Automobile Design Studio for Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, India that received the recognition of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design Award 2016. Among her many distinguished projects there is the Dasavatara Hotel in Tirupati that won the Prix Versailles Special Prize in 2016, while the design of the Lotus Cafe in the same hotel won the Prix Versailles in the Restaurants category. Ar Shimul Javeri Kadri also bagged the World Architecture Festival Small Project of the Year Award 2012, the Excellence in Design Award and the FuturArc Green Leadership Award for the Nirvana Films office, Bengaluru.
The philanthropist, Ar Shimul Javeri Kadri also serves as a trustee for Akshara, a women’s resource centre in Mumbai where she has been actively steering education and women’s projects.