Soham Waghela
Landscape Architect
B.Arch, Mumbai UniversityMaster of Landscape Architecture, Newcastle University
Architecture · Urban planning · Landscape · Geomatics
Crafting healthy communities
This is playmakers.
playmakers works across architecture, urban planning, landscape and geomatics, treating each project as both a spatial and a research problem.
We work with planning authorities, developers, NGOs and communities to shape places that function, endure and belong. Every commission begins on the ground: mapped, measured and understood before it is designed.
Alumni of Mumbai University, CEPT University and Newcastle University.
10+years of professional experience
4disciplines in one process
What we do
We research before we design
Site reading
Every place holds layers of history, activity and lived experience. We investigate the built environment, movement patterns, ecological systems and community needs to understand the character of a site before defining a design response.
Spatial data
We translate the physical and social environment into measurable spatial information. Through GIS, mapping, surveys and remote sensing, we document the patterns, systems and conditions that shape a place.
Analysis
We integrate spatial datasets and on-ground observations to uncover relationships, identify constraints and reveal opportunities. This evidence-led process shows where, why and how interventions can make a difference.
Response
We translate these insights into architectural, urban and landscape propositions. Grounded in context and informed by evidence, our designs aim to be functional, inclusive, environmentally responsive and meaningful to the people who use them.
How we spend our effort
Every project moves through the same four stages. What changes is the weight: effort shifts from reading a place, to mapping it, to analysing it, to finally responding with design. Hover or tap the chart to see the steps inside each stage.
Shapes are an illustrative weighting of each way of working across the 20 steps of our process, not measured data.
We don't simply make designs; we research and analyse places first, so every spatial response is grounded in evidence.
Projects
Bhopal development planUrban planning & design
Cubes of Mumbai: population & trafficGeomatics / Data visualisation
About playmakers
Philosophy
We make spaces to play.
Play takes many forms. It is movement, music, performance, exploration, interaction and discovery. It happens on streets and in parks, inside buildings, across neighbourhoods and within entire cities.
At Playmakers, we explore how spaces can enable these experiences. Working across architecture, urban planning and design, landscape, geomatics and research, we study the relationships between people, places and the systems that shape them.
We make spaces not just to occupy, but to use, experience, transform and make our own.
Our journey
playmakers began in 2022 in Mumbai, India, with a simple question: why do so many cities struggle with problems that are, at their root, problems of space? Flooded neighbourhoods, broken pedestrian links, unused open land and crowded transit interchanges are rarely failures of one building or one policy. They are failures of how places are read, connected and managed.
We were three friends trained across architecture, landscape, urban planning and geomatics, and we saw that each discipline held a piece of the answer. Design alone could not explain why a place failed. Data alone could not make one work. So we set out to solve urban issues spatially and through frameworks, bringing the disciplines into one process.
From Mumbai, our work has widened to other cities and regions of India, with planning authorities, NGOs, developers and communities. The scale changes, from a neighbourhood park to a 500 sq km development plan, but the approach does not.
The people
Nishi Patel
Architect & Geo-analyst
B.Arch, Mumbai UniversityMaster in Geomatics, CEPT University
Guruprasad Phansekar
Architect & Urban Planner
B.Arch, Mumbai UniversityMaster in Urban Planning, CEPT University