Vidhya Mohankumar
Architect and Urban Designer in Chennai, India
Vidhya Mohankumar is an urban development professional with two decades of experience in sustainable, people-centred urban design. Based in Chennai, India, Vidhya founded Urban Design Collective (UDC) in 2011, a collaborative platform focused on creating livable cities through participatory planning. At UDC, Vidhya employs a pioneering approach that combines storytelling, advocacy, and practical demonstration to advance sustainable urban development.
Her notable contributions at UDC include mainstreaming participatory planning, developing India’s first accessible beach boardwalk and museum for the differently-abled, gamifying the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to raise awareness, creating guidebooks on active travel and sustainable urban planning, and exploring art's impact on urban regeneration, especially in the context of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
In 2019, Vidhya was appointed as a technical expert for the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) under the CITIIS Program, where she mentored Smart City projects in Hubli-Dharwad and Agartala. This role enabled her to push forward climate action through transformative design and nature-based solutions in public sector urban design projects.
With experience spanning master plans, redevelopment projects, strategic planning, and urban design studies, Vidhya’s clientele includes national, state and local governments, multilateral agencies, and NGOs. Her approach to urban challenges is grounded and intersectional, emphasising everyday urbanism, transit-centred development, and sustainability.
As an urbanist with a broad international reference, Vidhya is versatile and excited about working on projects/ initiatives that address urban challenges across sectors and in diverse contexts through solutions that are integrated, innovative, inclusive and equitable.