Nominated by the BMW Guggenheim Lab Advisory Committee, each Lab Team is an innovative, interdisciplinary group of emerging talents in their fields. In each city, the Lab Team convenes to develop ideas around a theme and design a roster of public programming.
With the New York and Berlin Labs concluded, the Lab has moved on to Mumbai, where it is open through January 20, 2013. A newly appointed Mumbai Lab Team—an international group of experts and innovators—has created a series of projects, academic and participatory studies, and design proposals that reflect the unique conditions and challenges of Mumbai. In addition to neighborhood-specific public programming in satellite locations, the Lab Team’s program includes a series of participatory research studies and city design projects that have the potential to inform future urban designs in Mumbai and in other cities.
Photo: Arjunan Sanjayan
Aisha Dasgupta
Aisha Dasgupta is based in Malawi, where she conducts research for her doctorate. She is interested in the links between population and the environment. In particular, she is concerned that the high population growth and high fertility rates that exist in much of sub-Saharan Africa may be responsible, in part, for the depletion of local environmental resources in rural Africa.
This issue has led to her interest in the effect of family planning on fertility. Dasgupta is collecting new data from more than 6,000 Malawian women on family planning use, method/provider-switching, and discontinuation of family planning. Dasgupta’s academic background is in anthropology and demography. She is a Ph.D. student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a Research Fellow at the College of Medicine at the University of Malawi. Dasgupta carries out her research through the Karonga Prevention Study, and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Photo: Arjunan Sanjayan
Neville Mars
Neville Mars is a Dutch architect and planner in China. Trained at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, Mars started his career with the office of Rem Koolhaas OMA in Rotterdam, working on projects such as the Guggenheim Museum Las Vegas, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and Rotterdam Central Station.
In 2003, he founded the Dynamic City Foundation (DCF) in Beijing. DCF became a prominent urban research and design platform focused on China's rapidly changing urban environments. Author of The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction, Mars has served since 2009 as the principal of Mars Architects in Shanghai. With his design studio, he applies urban research to realize sustainable projects on all scales, from buildings and furniture to urban master plans and sustainability strategies. The studio's core premise is that urban growth is essentially organic. With this notion, a radical new “evolutionary planning” methodology has been developed that can respond to China's accelerated and pressured market conditions.
Photo: Arjunan Sanjayan
Trupti Amritwar Vaitla
Trupti Amritwar Vaitla is an architect and urban designer. She believes that transformation in cities can take place only through the collaborative creation of democratic public spaces that address multiple interests and concerns.
For Vaitla, the most important starting point to create a meaningful public space is understanding the critical issues of the surrounding fabric and what is important for the community. Vaitla is currently working with Mumbai Environmental Social Network, an NGO that has earned a reputation as an important think tank related to transport issues in Mumbai. She also works as visiting faculty at Rachana Sansad’s Institute of Urban Planning. Vaitla is involved in various research projects related to public spaces and sustainable mobility for the city of Mumbai.
Photo: Arjunan Sanjayan
Hector Zamora
Héctor Zamora is a Mexican artist based in São Paulo, Brazil. During the past decade, he has worked extensively in public space, creating major works that often rearticulate the physical characteristics of a specific urban or architectural environment.
Zamora’s structures enhance or highlight particular patterns of social use of that environment; he often uses materials that convey a particular resonance within a location, and draws the local community into the process of creating the work of art. Zamora received a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico City, in 1998. His solo exhibitions include Inconstância Material, Luciana Brito Gallery, 2012; White Noise, Auckland Arts Festival, New Zealand, 2011; Paraísos Ofrecidos, El Eco, Mexico City, 2011; and Errante, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, 2010. Zamora’s work has also appeared in group exhibitions worldwide, including Resisting the Present: Mexico 2000/2012, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, 2012; 32° Panorama da arte Brasileria, São Paulo, 2011; Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2010; 53rd Venice Biennial, Italy, 2009; 27th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil; 9th Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2006; and Eco: Arte Mexicano Contemporáneo, Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2005.