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Commercial Design Awards 2022: A celebration of success

The first edition of Commercial Design Awards 2022 was about the celebration of the creative best and talent powerhouses from India’s commercial real estate and design industry

by Staff Writer

To witness an evening that brought together over 400-plus experts and professionals from the field of architecture, design, project and facility management on one single platform from across the country – was sight to behold. The Commercial Design Awards 2022, in its very first avatar, hosted at the open lawns of Sofitel BKC on the 15th of December, 2022, was not just an event, but a culmination of the hard work and purpose-driven efforts put in by the industry.

The founding factor

The conceptual foundation of the Awards itself is actually a reflection of the grit and determination shown by the industry in the past two years. There is no question about the fact that India is a huge market for companies all over the world, but the strength that our fraternity has showcased, in the face of the constantly changing norms and growing demand, in the last two years is commendable. We went on to prove that where there is a will, there is a way. And it’s in recognition of these very factors that led to the genesis of the Commercial Design Awards. The Awards is about the celebration of the creative best and talent powerhouses from India’s commercial real estate and design industry. 

The Awards night was also the time to celebrate the unsung heroes from the project and facility management fraternity, young designers, and seasoned artists working in the commercial office space. The award ceremony with various categories will strive to recognise individual excellence incorporating design and aesthetic values, innovation, and collaboration along with firm’s strength in the project’s overall success and delivery expertise.

Going behind the scenes

In the CRE industry, we are often blinded by the chic corridors and the gleam of the shiny marble floors. Lost in all this glamour is the work put in by the tireless and silent army of professionals who work behind the scene and always strive for excellence. The people driving the Indian CRE industry are said to be among the best in the world, known for their world-class service standards. But rarely do we acknowledge the work done by them; not just by the people leading from the front but also at the backend, the ones who ensure the smooth running of a workplace, which can make or break its functional productivity. The Commercial Design Awards aims to redress this lacunae. It rewards the often-unrecognised individuals that make the workplaces in India some of the very best in the world. It offers the back-of-house heroes a chance to shine. The fact that the leaders of the industry make our jury panel and choose the winners from the ones nominated makes this award that much more special.

The Grand Jury Meet

The categories for the Awards were devised to encapsulate every stakeholder involved across various stages in the lifecycle of a building – be it architects, who designing the space; project heads, executing it or facility managers who control its operations.

 Similarly the 20-member jury panel also comprised experts from diverse backgrounds, coming together to judge each entry.

The Awards had opened up for nominations on 15th of Oct, with a final deadline for submissions which closed by 30th November, 2022.

For the very first edition, we received over 500-plus nominations, across 12 awards categories.

On 7th of December we had all our 20-jury members under one roof at J W Marriott, Bangalore, most of who were flying down from other cities, taking out time from their busy schedules, who had an encumbering task of judging all the submitted entries. Each of the eminent jury members painstakingly spent hours picking the winners.

It is the culmination of their contribution and efforts that has got us to the final results of the Awards night.

JURY PANEL

  • Alhad Gore, Principal Architect, Beyond Design
  • Amar Narayan, General Manager-Commercial Air-Conditioning Division, Bluestar
  • Anil Dixit, Head-Office Facility, WSP Consultants
  • Devanshi Patel, India Delivery Lead – Construction Management Projects, JLL India
  • Dr Abhijit Sarkar, Senior Vice President & Head-Administration & Procurement, Sharekhan
  • Kumar Bhakthavatchalu, Director Of Finance And Operations, Mathworks India
  • Major Aditi Mohan, Chief Administrative Office, FNF India
  • Naresh Narasimhan, Principal Architect, Venkataramanan Associates
  • Parthajeet Sarma, Senior Associate, AWA
  • Renuka Rajagopal, Senior Director, Workplace, VMWare
  • Sabina Reddy, Director, M Moser Associates
  • Sameer Saxena, India Real Estate & Facility Manegement – Head, Marsh & McLennan
  • Satish Rajendran, Senior Executive Director & Head-Facilities & Asset Management Services, Knight Frank
  • Sumit Arora, Head-National Operations & Workplace Strategy,CBRE Consulting (India)
  • Thongram Kumarjit Singh, Country Head, AFC Furniture Solutions
  • Vikas Chawla, Director, Employee & Workplace Solutions, Adobe
  • Vistasp Bhagwagar, Principal Architect, AVA

List of winners:

Hall of Fame: Anuj Puri, Chairman and Founder, ANAROCK Property Consultants

Anuj Puri, Chairman and Founder, ANAROCK Property Consultants.

Category: Workplace Project of the Year:

Winner: Brigadier HS Kaura, Associate Partner, KPMG 

Girish Chaubey (second from left), Business Head – Projects, Hafele, and Sumit Arora (third from left), Head-National Operations & Workplace Strategy, CBRE Consulting (India), presenting the winning trophy to Brigadier HS Kaura (fourth from left), and his team at KPMG, for the brilliantly executed project in NESCO, Mumbai, designed by DSP Associates.

Category: Workplace Project of the Year:

Winner: Brigadier HS Kaura, Associate Partner, KPMG 

Jayashri Mhatre (centre), and her team from M Moser Associates accept the award from Girish Chaubey, Hafele (left) and Sumit Arora (second from left), CBRE, for creating a vibrant, dynamic, inclusive and brand-led office for Spotify in Mumbai.

Category: Workplace Designer of the Year

Winner: Ultraconfidentiel Design and SWBI Architects

Luca Zamparo (second from left), the design team lead; Lucas Gentil (centre), regional business head; and Prathamesh Khandekar (second from right), the architectural team lead from Ultraconfidential Design, accept the winner’s trophy from Manoj Tomar (left), Managing Director, AFC Furniture Solutions, and Kumar Bhakthavatchalu (right), Director Of Finance And Operations, Mathworks India.

Category: Workplace Designer of the Year

Winner: SWBI Architects

Sanjay Wadhwa (centre), Principal Architect, SWBI Architects, presented with the award for ‘Workplace Designer of the Year’ by Manoj Tomar (left) and Kumar Bhakthavatchalu (right).

Category: Design and Build firm of the Year

Winner: Space Matrix Design Consultants

Space Matrix won the award for the ‘Design & Build Firm of the Year’. Accepting the award on behalf of the firm’s is Meghna Vajani (centre), Director, Space Matrix.

Category: Design and Build firm of the Year

Runner up: ANJ Group

ANJ Group was presented the runners-up trophy by Nitin Sable (left), Deputy General Manger – Commercial Air Conditioning, Bluestar, and Anil Dixit (right), Head-Office Facility, WSP Consultants.

Category: Project Manager of the Year

Winner: Ajit Pandey, AVP – Project and Property, A Leading Private-sector Bank.

Ajit Pandey, won the award for setting up and opening 15 branches in war-conflicted zones across Jammu and Kashmir, Kargil and Leh.

Category: Project Manager of the year

Winner:  Ujjaljyoti Bhattacharya,  Senior Vice President,  Reliance Industries Ltd, Mumbai.

Ujjaljyoti Bhattacharya won the award for the stupendous work executed at the convention centre in Jio Gardens Mumbai. Presenting the award are Capt. Edwin Saldanha (left) from Boon Edam and Major Aditi Mohan (right) from FNF India.

Category: Project Manager of the Year

Runner-up: Sumit Rakshit, Savills India

Raghavendra Prabhu (centre) from Savills India collects the runners-up award on behalf of Sumit Rakshit, Managing Director & Head of Project Management – Bengaluru, Savills India; and presenting the award are Capt. Edwin Saldanha (left), Managing Director, Boon Edam, and Major Aditi Mohan (right), Chief Administrative Office, FNF India.

Category: Facility Manager of the Year

Winner: Punit Hira, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) India.

Punit Hira, Regional Manager Workplace & Facilities, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) India, won the ‘Facility Manager of the Year’ award. Collecting the award in his behalf is Yash Sanghvi (centre), the Assistant Manager – Facilities, JII India.

Category: Facility Manager of the Year

Runner-up: Rajiv Tyagi, Marsh McLennan Global Services India.

Rajiv Tyagi, Facility Manager, Marsh McLennan Global Services India, being presented with the runners-up trophy by Sameer Saxena (left), India Real Estate & Facility Manegement – Head, Marsh & McLennan Companies and Navneet S Likhari (right), Director Specifications –SAARC, ASSA ABLOY.

Category: Green and Sustainable Designer of the Year..

Winner: Tara Pandala and Ajay Abey, C.S.B.N.E.

Tara Pandala and Ajay Abey, Directors at Centre For Sustainable Built and Natural Environment (CSBNE) from Kochi, accepting the winners title from Nitin Sable (left), Deputy General Manger – Commercial Air Conditioning, Bluestar and Alhad Gore (right), Principal Architect, Beyond Design.

Category: Green and Sustainable Designer of the Year.

Winner: Shaon Sikta Sengupta, Edifice Consultants.

Category: Innovation at Workplace

Winner: Ajmal Khan, HDFC Bank.

Ajmal Khan, Senior Vice President – I, HDFC Bank, won this award for his innovative and agile design approach for the office at Gigaplex, Airoli, Navi Mumbai. The well-devised design brought an end to the conventional system of allotting permanent workstations, thereby enabling the office to achieve efficient occupancy levels.

Category: Innovation at Workplace
Runner-up:  Rajesh Kumar Das, Rubenius – Interior Wellbeing.

Manoj Tomar (left) Managing Director, AFC Furniture Solutions, and Vistasp Bhagwagar (centre), Principal Architect, AVA, present the award to Rajesh Kumar Das (right), Director, Rubenius – Interior Wellbeing.

Category: Interior Fit-out Project of the Year

Winner: Concept Consilio

It was amazing to see the team from Concept Consilio come together as one, along with the firm’s director, Ashwin Aryamane (centre), to accept the award. The firm won the award for their stellar work delivered for the British Petroleum office – a workplace that exudes a futuristic character with harmonious inlay of technology and biophilia.

Category: Interior Fit-out Project of the Year

Winner: Centrix Interiors 

Sabina Reddy, Director, M Moser Associates, and Ashish Aundhkar, Business Head – Automatics and Partitions, Hafele, presenting the runners-up award to Centrix Interiors, Bengaluru.

Category: Young Designer of the Year

Winner: Nebin Asharaf, Rubenius – Interior Wellbeing

Nebin Asharaf, the Creative head at Rubenius – Interior Wellbeing, took away the prestigious Young Designer award.

Category: Young Designer of the Year

Runner-up: Suparna Ghosh & Jensil John, Forum Architecture

Navneet S Likhari (left), Director Specifications -SAARC ASSA ABLOY, and Parthajeet Sarma (right), Senior Associate, AWA, felicitate Devashish Mohan (centre), Senior Associate, Forum Architecture, who was collecting the award on behalf of Suparna Ghosh and Jensil John, Principal Architects at Forum Architecture.

Category: Unsung Hero – Young Champion in Project Management

Winner: Rohit Sharma, KPMG

Rohit Sharma, Facility Manager, KPMG, the unparalleled winner of the Unsung Hero award, presented by Satish Rajendran (left) from Knight Frank, and Nitin Sable (right) from Bluestar.

Category: Unsung hero, Young champion in project management

Runner-up: Anu Pal, JLL India

Anu Pal (centre), Assistant Project Manager, Jones Lang Lasalle Property Consultants (JLL) India, presented with the runners-up awards by Satish Rajendran, Senior Executive Director & Head-Facilities & Asset Management Services, Knight Frank, and Nitin Sable, Deputy General Manger – Commercial Air Conditioning, Bluestar.

Category: Unsung hero,​ Champion in facility management

Winner: Ajesh C J, Marsh McLennan Global Services India​

Recognised for his contribution and efforts, Ajesh C J, Senior Manager – Facilities, Marsh McLennan Global Services India, won the award that was presented by Dheeraj Jain (left), Area Sales Head, Nestle Professional, and Abhijit Sarkar (right), Senior Vice President & Head-Administration & Procurement, Sharekhan.

Category: Unsung Hero -​ Champion in facility management

Runner-up: Rakesh Yadav, CBRE India

Rakesh Yadav, Deputy General Manager, CBRE India, is felicitated as one of the CRE professionals delivering some of the most creative and efficient spaces, but have always remained behind the scenes.

Category: Workplace and change management consultant

Winner: Vistasp Bhagwagar, AVA Design

Vistasp Bhagwagar, Principal Architect, AVA Design – an author of a book on workplace design and management and a highly respected expert in the field, presented with the winner’s trophy.

Category: Workplace and change management consultant

Runner-up: CBRE South Asia – India

Sumit Arora, Head-National Operations & Workplace Strategy, collected the award on behalf of CBRE South Asia – India; and presenting the award are Capt. Edwin Saldanha (left), Managing Director, Boon Edam and Indrajeet Saoji (right), Director, ITP Media India.