About us
Dharohar is a proprietorship architecture firm established in 2008 based in New Delhi headed by Sangeeta Bais. Dharohar is specialized in heritage conservation works with projects ranging from urban conservation, building conservation, adaptive reuse of heritage structures, heritage research project and other related works.
The focal domain of Dharohar is to adopt a scientific approach for heritage conservation works. We emphasise on research-oriented approach including archival research, material and structural investigations, studies of traditional and historical building material and construction techniques, preparing material specifications, capacity building of the local teams, integrating traditional and modern knowledge systems for adoption of heritage for reuse projects, study of socio-cultural aspects and community participation in heritage conservation projects.
Dharohar has panel of national and international experts from different field of heritage conservation works including historic and traditional building material experts, structural experts specialized in historic structures, PHE consultants, historians, heritage management experts, graphic designers etc.
Each project is managed by a team of experts, young professionals and supervised by the senior professionals. A multidisciplinary team is formed for each project as per project requirements which includes experts and consultants from different field. Project formulation and design process also include rigorous review process to achieve and deliver best possible milestones for each project.
Principal Architect
Dharohar was established by conservation architect Sangeeta Bais, an alumnus of the School of Planning and Architecture, New-Delhi (1999) and National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur. She has a working experience in heritage conservation for over 21 years. She had worked with several national and international organizations such as National Center for safety of historic structure (NCSHS) IIT Madras, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), UNESCO and UNDP. She was also nominated for the U.S. Single Country project on Megacities and Urban Planning in 2013. She is an expert member of International Scientific Committee for Stone ICOMOS. She is founding member of ICOMOS India (COMOS) and Kalakriti an organisation working for promoting traditional building craft.
She has built up a strong database and expertise about historic and traditional buildings materials, construction and conservation techniques throughout her professional career of 21 years. She was awarded Charles Wallace scholarship in 2003 and trained for historic lime works under Scottish Lime Centre, Charlestown, Scotland. She has participated in several scientific courses including ICCROM courses for wood conservation (2008), People Centric approaches for conservation for nature culture sites in the context of World Heritage Sites (2017) ICCROM and Earthen Architecture Conservation Course (EAC 2018) organised by Getty Conservation Institute. She has written books and articles on building lime which include “Lime manual for conservation works” with NCSHS, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and “Why use lime” published by INTACH UK trust.
She has conducted and delivered several hands-on workshops and lectures for building lime and conservation works in India and has given training to more than 750 professionals working in the field of heritage conservation including architects, conservation architects, masons, site mangers, archaeologists, engineers, contractors and others.
She is presently conducting a research on Incised plaster works on Delhi, Cultural Spaces of Chishti Dargah of India, stone craftsmanship of Mughal monuments. and working for creating the database of traditional and historic arts forms for its promotion for the modern architecture projects.