Founding Partner, Design Forum International
Anand Sharma is a B.Arch (Hons) graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and aco-founder at Design Forum International. He believes in practicing socially inclusive architectureand has coined the term“PeopleFirst”, which became one of the guiding principles of the practice.
Over the last 25 years, Anand has been instrumental in the firm’s journey of being a part of ‘Nation-Building across the country. He has worked across diverse project typologies, where heleverages hisexpertise in architecture, engineering and construction to provide unique, and efficient designsolutions. He has played a key role in leading large scale commercial projects such as the Select CityWalk Mall (Delhi) and Guwahati City Centre, the largest retail mall in Guwahati. He has also workedon multiple competitions for civic infrastructure developments, including Dakshineswar Skywalk(Kolkata), ITO Foot over Bridge (New Delhi), and the upcoming Multi-Modal Logistics and TransportHub (Dadri), Azadpur Redevelopment Project (Delhi), and Sainik School (Gorakhpur, UP), amongothers, and is currently leading the New Integrated Terminal Building (NITB) at the GuwahatiInternational Airport, and the Bihta Airport (Bihar) and Amritsar Railway Station (Punjab), modelledon the ideas of environment-conscious and human-centric design. Through projects such as GulfAdiba (Gurugram) and the ongoing Amtron (Bongora, Assam), Anand is taking concrete steps towardre-envisioning traditional workplaces.
Anand is also the Co-Chair at PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s new people-driven initiative‘Reinvigorating Urban Identity in Indian Cities’. He has participated as a keynote speaker at variousevents,sharing his experience and observations on BIM, and frequently addresses architectural andreal estate issues. Anand has been felicitated by highly respectable personalities of India such asPadma Bhushan Shri Rajeev Sethi at the IndeXcellence Awards Ceremony. In 2021, he and his otherco-founders at DFIwere named amongst India’s ‘Top 30 Architects’ by Forbes India.
