Interview with Mr. Amol Prabhu, partner at Shashi Prabhu& Associates.

1. You have multiple years of experience abroad and have worked for some of the leading companies in USA. What inspired you to return to India?

SPA founded 50 years ago, my father,Shashi Prabhu, started the company in1967. He is the director of the company. He is our mentor. My younger brother, AtulPrabhu, joined company almost 15years ago. He graduated from J.J. Collegeof Architecture. He leads the design formany projects. I was away and spent mostof my time in America. My backgroundwas Project Management. In that eventful career, I was professionally trained in various areas such as advanced leadership skills, estimating, scheduling, site supervision. I developed strategies and tactics that went on to become industry benchmarks. I came to Indiain 2005 and joined the company as apartner. Since then, we have changed theface of the company. We don’t do onlyarchitecture anymore. We do architecture, interior design, engineering, services. Wedo everything because it is important foran architect to be able to complete theproject rather than just do the planning.

2. SPA has projects in Sports, Hospitality, Healthcare, Residential, Institutional, Education, and Civic & Government. What type of projects do you particularly enjoy the most?

Sports, Hospitality

3. What are the upcoming projects SPA have in India?

• We are doing a lot of work with the municipal corporation. We are doing 3 major hospitals, each one almost 600 Bhagvati hospital, Borivali, one in Govandi called Shatabdi, and one in Bhandup. These are large tertiary care hospitals.
• We are doing the memorial for Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Shivaji Park.That’s going to be a mammoth project with almost 350ft tall bronze statue ofDr Ambedkar. It will be completed in 2 The contractor is already on board, construction has already started.
• We are also doing various mass housing projects.Weare going to build ten thousand houses for police constables and their widows in Panvel over 115 acres of This is probably one of the largest townships for police anywhere ever done.
• We are doing a Cricket Stadium in Guwahati which is almost at the stage of completion.

So, this is what keeps us busy.

4. What is your opinion on 3D printing? Do you think 3D printing will bring a new revolution in the architecture & construction sector?

Very well. First of all, massive amounts of software have come in the market which is enabling the architecture. We, ourselves, 13 years ago, everyonehad a drawing board, then came the era of Autocad where all of us had to switch to Autocad and now even Autocad has ruled out and BIM has taken over. Where software like Revit is helping architects conceive a building in 3-dimension and even coordinate the building in 3-dimension. And now3D p will bring a new revolution. Technology is going at a fast pace and is enabling architects to imagine and also construct in 3-dimension. In a certain way, the translation of ideas has become easier because earlier clients never understood 2-dimensional plans, but it is easier to understand a 3-dimensional physical plan.  

5. Since ‘going green’ has become a necessity what are the current trends in architecture related to green projects? Has SPA taken up any green initiatives?

Today, a host of resource conserving ideas are available in the market such as Sensors automatically shutting down Energy Consuming devices during inactivity, Heat exchangers converting lost heat from Air-Conditioning systems into hot water, Energy saving LED lights, Geothermal plants using ground water for Air-conditioning Systems, Sewer Treatment Plants converting raw sewer into grey water usable for landscaping and AC Systems, etc. Even when developers choose not to adopt the intensive Energy Saving Rating Certifications for their buildings, they could adopt any combination of the energy saving components thereby supporting their contribution to a greener planet. After all, it goes without saying that “One small step for man could possibly be a giant step for mankind in the future”. Our primary goal has always been to create high quality sustainable assets which meet the strategic business and financial objectives of our clients. In order to achieve this goal, we employ the best available talent, who are truly our assets. They work closely with our clients and use wide range of skills and industry experience. We utilize technology to its fullest while executing all our work. Every project we do we try to infusegreen aspects into it. Nevertheless, whetherour client decides to go green or not, we focus on convincing the clients toincorporate green elements in the designbecause it will benefit them in the longterm and I believe one should be lookingafter our environment.  

6. Future growth vision for SPA.

Architecture is an interesting field which touches human beings on an intrinsic level. Our goal is to be able to make human life better, make it convenient for them to survive and make a living and do whatever they are supposed to do, facilitate ease of doing so. That is what we aspire to do. We want to create betterstructures for human beings. That is our ultimate goal.