The studio is led by two principal architects Shantanu Poredi( AA, London; C.E.P.T. India) and Manisha Agarwal (Cornell, NY ; C.E.P.T. The firm has completed projects of various program categories such as educational campus, hospitality, residential communities, offices, exhibitions and healthcare. The firm has also won the ‘Architect of the Year Award’ for a university group housing project in 2010 amongst several other awards. The firm had been invited to design the visitors pavilion at Urbanism and Architecture Biennale at Shenzhen, China in 2013. They have exhibited at the Aedes Gallery in Berlin and have been invited by the NAI and Dutch DFA for workshops and as speakers at conferences in Netherlands. MO-OF’s interest in architecture and design stems from the debate on the evolving cities and the potential it offers a designer. The engagements with communities, the context the works are situated in, create design frameworks for the architectural rhetoric. The primary issues that the practice engages with are Social, cultural, environmental sustainability - these issues usher explorations that transform building types and typologies. The firm won the first prize at the national open competition for the residential campus of the ‘Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University’ at Wardha in 2002 in their first year of practice. More recently in 2012 the firm won the first prize for the campus of ‘School of Planning and Architecture’ at Vijayawada with an area of 4,50,000 sqft which is presently under construction. A postgraduate boys’ hostel at the premier V.J.T.I engineering college in Mumbai was awarded in 2015 through a two stage competition. Ideas are tested through the various competitions the practice engages with at all levels. This has led to an opportunity for realizing some of the largest projects of the practice. The firm has anticipated research areas that have raised curiosity with diverse subjects and ushered the practice towards an unsolicited architectural realm. The belief is that a repository of design knowledge is available to each member of the team working towards growth within the firm's life cycle. The essence of the practice is embedded in the idea of collaboration with diverse co-creators. The practice has been informed by pedagogy and academic research through a multidisciplinary approach to design and its ex*****on.
