Striving for intelligent ways of space utilisation through efficient designing & planning

January 30, 2023
Brandz Editor Team
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Nihari Gada – Founder, Gada Associates – Interiors & Architects, Mumbai

Gada Associates was established in 2015 by Nihari Gada, one of the versatile architects who is known to be client centric in terms of design and having its focus on usability and sustainability of design and its materials. Combining the aesthetics, materiality, advanced technology, and modern craftsmanship, she is working with different scales and contexts. She believes that design or rather our surroundings in context to the place where you spend most of your time i.e. your house or work place should be geometrically & aesthetically aligned. Also, the space should have an ambience which not only appeals to the outsiders but the one who spends most of their time there.

As a person Nihari has always been a seeker and an absorber. In other words, she would eagerly accept and learn new things that came her way. Growing up in the environment of construction background gave her a deeper sense of design, scale and how much value a space can bring. So, after completion of 12^th grade she decided to pursue architecture. After completing graduation, she worked with architects like Talathi and Panthaki, Qutub Mandviwala and Associates and Naresh Shah. After gaining sufficient experience from one of the top architectural and interior firms she was confident enough to start her own venture “Gada Associates – Interiors & Architects”, and that’s how it all shaped up.

Nihari takes pride in declaring the fact that they have Completed 48 projects in last 7 years with 85000+ sq ft of design and execution across residential, commercial, hospitality and retail projects. And are currently working on a 19,000 sq ft of bungalow space, restoration of “King’s Vadiya Palace” and luxury residential spaces in multiple states including Mumbai, Maharashtra.

She feels that in today’s time people are preferring to have multi-purpose space in single unit e.g. “home office”. Spaces with integrated technology like home automation, mood lighting, selfcare area. Eco-friendly spaces where usage of solar panels, censored technology for optimum use of electricity and water, composite marble, glass, wood from cultivated forest that reduces carbon footprints. Also, there is lot of upcoming innovation in terms of use of space, sustainable planning and technology which widens the scope of exploring new things in design. As a result future is bright, exciting and challenging as well.

With the USP of simplicity, usability, innovation, and sustainability, Gada Associates has created their niche in a highly competitive market. Besides technical know-how, Nihari’s business acumen has helped her to expand the company strength in leaps and bounds. She gives high weightage to customer servicing and is ready to move that little extra mile to provide a better design and service to her clients. Every client is different and their requirements are unique, hence understand the same and sticking to it is the success mantra of Gada Associates.

When it comes to professional inspiration, she has been following multiple well-known designers like Tadao Ando, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier for their simplistic and contemporary approach towards architecture and design. Also, she keeps on exploring with new young minds who are an inspiration in terms of creative design thinking as per the current scenario and trend.

Being from a family involved in construction business, she always had an opportunity to join the family business as an architect and lead its architecture department. But she believed that choosing this easy path would not help her grow, hence chose to start her own designing firm and explore this profession from scratch.

Her struggle was always to find those few first projects, building a team, executing work and successfully handing over to client without any glitch. It took a while to get her first project which was a 2BHK apartment in Mumbai with a limited budget. She says,

“I took that as a challenge as started building my team with an approach of not be a boss who has started a company but as a learner who was ready to learn all bits and pieces of executing the project from labours, vendors, contractors etc, who are already working in this field since many years.”

This approach was imbibed in her since childhood that no person big or small, is not judged by his/her wealth but by knowledge. So, learning from labours helped her execute designs in practically, technically and fundamentally right way.

Nihari is aware of the shifting trend in her field, and believes that one has to design a space built while being mindful of its surroundings/nature. Following simple and sustainable practices like usage of locally sourced materials, using digital technology more efficiently, optimal planning to ensure natural ventilation and daylight in projects which makes space energy efficient. Reusing building materials today go a long way in tackling climate change.