SELCO Foundation

Nirmita Chandrashekar is an architect and development practitioner. In the 5 years at SELCO Foundation, she has led the Built environment portfolio and anchors core programmes in urban, disaster and cooling contexts. As team lead, she has conceptualised and implemented infrastructure projects in the sectors of Housing, Livelihood, Healthcare and Education. In the sector of Housing, key projects include construction of climate smart homes for tenured and migrant low-income communities in heat stressed, disaster resilient regions and developing guidelines for refugee camps and labour housing. In providing last-mile healthcare services, designs and guidelines for setting up of energy optimised health centres has resulted in unlocking of government funding for 300 centres in the state of Meghalaya. This includes development of models for land selection based on climate risk and remoteness and its impacts on program costs. Currently she is also leading key research on linkages between built environment and its impacts on occupant wellbeing and productivity across sectors of animal husbandry, small businesses like eateries, retail shops, etc. This is to feed into developing guidelines and conducive ecosystems for awareness and uptake on construction practices for self-building communities.