We envision an inclusive world where every human enjoys access to vibrant, safe and healthy spaces to live, work and play.

Community Design Agency (CDA) is a nimble, experienced team of architects, community organisers, artists and researchers who work alongside communities on the margins through collaborating with civic and government bodies, corporates and other philanthropic partners.

Mansi is a researcher interested in questions of identity, justice, and built environment in the urban. In her early career, she works to support the social processes of design-based development work in urban housing. As a Research Associate at Community Design Agency, Mansi works closely with the community living in an R&R colony in Govandi, mainly in areas of programming and capacity building within the built spaces. Working with historically marginalised communities, theirs is a practice in flux, albeit informed by a rights-based, empathetic approach to spatial interventions.

Mansi was a part of the Urban Fellows Programme at the Indian Institute for Human Settlement and has secured a Bachelor’s in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Delhi.

Mugdha Shejale is an Exhibition Design graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, currently working as a Visual Designer for the 2025 edition of Govandi Arts Festival. She is passionate about collaborating with diverse communities to create impactful experiences that amplify local voices and stories. This approach was evident during her participation in a two-week collaborative workshop with NID, SoA+D, ENSCI, and CMU in Ngao, Thailand, where she helped develop design strategies celebrating the town’s rich heritage and cultural practices. Driven by a belief that design can be a powerful tool for social change, Mugdha focuses on creating work that brings marginalized narratives to the forefront. Her multidisciplinary approach combines spatial design with storytelling, always informed by her love for learning new skills and techniques. Crochet serves as her personal tactile practice, connecting her to craft traditions and offering a meditative counterpoint to her digital design work.

Natasha Sharma is a Lead for Public Arts and Design and the co-curator of Govandi Arts Festival at Community Design Agency. At CDA, she works with communities living and working in neglected neighbourhoods to drive social and spatial improvements through the tools of community arts, placemaking and participatory research. She hopes that these methods create a space for both dialogue and celebration with different communities, practitioners and government authorities around the idea of home, identity, inclusivity in city-making.

Natasha is also as independent visual artist creating tactile and experiential works of varied scales and materials. Her diverse work has ranged from creating learning environments in metro stations of Bangalore to site-specific interventions in public spaces to replacing advertisement billboards with art in Germany. She was a speaker at Urban Thinkers Campus 2022 (supported by the UN Habitat) and The Global Solutions Summit 2021 (Berlin) amongst others to share on-ground learnings of participatory practice. She won the Reclaim Art Award (2021), Germany for design and use of public spaces.

Parveen Shaikh is a social worker and community organiser with over 20 years of experience in advocacy work for the rights of slum and pavement dwellers. A powerful public speaker, she has championed the cause of safe formal housing for vulnerable communities at multiple national and international forums as a former member of the National Slum Dwellers Federation. She helped set up the Myna Mahila Foundation in 2015, which works on issues of menstrual health in underserved communities, and is currently the President of Navnirman Association, the federation body of Natwar Parekh Colony. Passionate about the rights of women from Muslim and minority communities, she continues to support the women and young girls of her neighbourhood through her work at Community Design Agency and beyond.

Sana Shaikh is an undergraduate commerce student at Mumbai University. She works as a library assistant at Kitaab Mahal and is one of the Community Coordinator for Govandi Arts Festival. She also teaches children the basics of computer literacy at the digital centre run by the Community Design Agency. She wants to become a filmmaker and learns new words by watching English films with subtitles. She enjoys creating mehendi patterns in her free time.

Sandhya Naidu Janardhan is an architect with 12 years of experience in community-led design and sustainable architecture. At Community Design Agency, she is working with a diverse group of disadvantaged communities, civic agencies and designers to address inequities in the built environment. Licensed and educated in India, Sandhya is also a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a TEDIndia Fellow. Her previous work spans multiple countries, in both the commercial and not-for-profit sectors – including landscape architecture and design for a Singapore-based interdisciplinary design firm, and post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti for a US Based non-profit.

Sandra Alexander is a researcher and urban practitioner. Her work is focussed at the intersections of spatial identities, urban informality and climate action. Sandra is passionate about using her writing and storytelling skills to deconstruct processes of marginalization in urban areas and to work with communities to reclaim their narratives. At Community Design Agency, she works on the community engagement and research front. Sandra holds a Master’s degree in Global Studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi, and a Bachelor’s in Mass Media – Journalism from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.