✦ Meeta Jain

Founder & Principal Architect, Meeta Jain Architects

Meeta Jain is an architect of intuition and inquiry—designing spaces that breathe, belong, and become. A gold medalist from CEPT Ahmedabad (Class of 1990), the premier institution founded by Dr. B.V. Doshi, her early formation was shaped by the profound mentorship of Prof. R.J. Vasavada, Prof. Kurula Varkey, and Prof. Neelkanth Chhaya. In 1994, she participated in a student exchange at ETH Zurich, expanding her lens through exposure to global approaches to structure, landscape, and culture.

In her formative years of practice, Meeta honed both design clarity and technical craft through work with some of the subcontinent’s most respected architects—Ashok B. Lall, Gurjit Singh Matharoo, and Georg Leuzinger of Switzerland and Sudhakar Pai imbibing values of rigour, responsiveness, and refined material expression.

Studio – A Creative Lab

In 2000, Meeta established her independent studio in Bangalore, beginning with projects for artists and creators. She soon came to be known as the “artist’s architect”—crafting spaces that were not just functional but deeply felt. Her earliest and most beloved work remains the organic making of 1Shanthiroad, an international art residency that has grown into a vital cultural home for Bangalore and a landmark of quiet influence.

Over the years, her studio evolved into a versatile, multidisciplinary practice that spans architecture, interiors, landscapes, and site planning. What unifies this range is a singular vision: to design environments that feel alive—rooted in context, rich in meaning, and open to the unexpected.

Design as Social Ecology

Meeta’s work is grounded in a belief that buildings can host more than their program—that they can nurture dialogue, offer refuge, and extend into the larger social and ecological fabric. She designs with an eye for thresholds, porous edges, and interface zones—places where people meet, pause, and exchange.

From countryside homes to spaces of play and learning, each project explores the architecture of relationship—between material and meaning, between built form and the land it rests upon.

A Language of Making

Her design process is deeply tactile and detail-driven. Every project unfolds through attentive material exploration and a search for a visual and structural language that is both site-specific and emotionally resonant. Steel, stone, wood, and light are not just elements—they are participants in the narrative.

Projects & Present Work

Today, the studio’s portfolio ranges from award-winning residences and institutional campuses to public space interventions and cultural infrastructure.
Recent and ongoing projects include:

• A large cultural park in the heart of Mysore’s Royal Centre

• Institutional projects in the historic cities of Varanasi and Hampi

• Villa Soham, a poetic countryside retreat that embodies Meeta’s most personal design philosophy.

Her team of 6–8 designers works closely under her direction, and landscape architect Vagish Naganur (CEPT) is a resident collaborator

Community, Collaboration & Change

Beyond private commissions, Meeta’s studio actively contributes to the public realm through art, education, and urban experiments. In 2009, she founded MapBee, a collective for spaces of change—bringing together diverse creative practitioners to co-create temporary interventions in public space.

MapBee’s projects span art residencies, mobile classrooms, urban recycling installations, and dismantlable play spaces—each exploring how design can be light, responsive, and accessible.

A Feminine Way of Architecture

Meeta’s current inquiry focuses on feminine leadership in architecture—a way of designing that is collaborative, empathetic, and process-oriented. She believes in spaces that nourish, hold, and evolve—architecture as a vessel for transformation, not just shelter.

She lives and works in Bangalore with her daughter and two cats, continuing to explore how space can be both sanctuary and stimulus.