Sameep Padora's bungalow office is tucked away in one of the charming gaothans (village settlements) of Bandra West, the kind that is now considered chic enough to be dotted with cafes and boutiques. Padora's work is very under the radar, and he would prefer to keep it this way. The office is a three-storied structure, with glass windows, dark walls, a cantilevered staircase and possibly every design book there is out there.
"I bought this space when I returned from the US in 2010. Gaothan land predates British records. The inside of this one was burnt, and was thus a good investment. I used to live upstairs and the office was downstairs then," says Padora, 48. He studied at the Parsons School of Design and Harvard's Graduate School of Design. The gaothan land was probably what gave this Kashmiri in Mumbai his strong sense of community. Padora's multiple projects and studies of low-income housing in Mumbai have resulted in a well-regarded exhibition of 18 building codes called 'deCoding Mumbai.
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