Sonal Mithal
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Sonal Mithal

Adjunct Associate Professor
Programs
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About Sonal Mithal

Sonal Mithal is an architect, artist, and educator. She is co-founder of research and conservation studio, People for Heritage Concern. Her work transects architecture, landscape, queer studies, history, and heritage — focusing on processes and agencies of ecological survival, contingencies of identity and representation, and emergent intersectionality in shaping of the built environment.
Sonal Mithal is an architect-artist. She holds a doctoral degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master’s degree from School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi; and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Lucknow University. Her practice, People for Heritage Concern, prioritizes archival and material research-based architectural conservation and artistic practice.
  • Architectural Conservation
  • Landscape Studies
  • Feminist Materialism
  • Circularity
  • Ecology and Architecture

Book Chapter

  1. Integrating Ecological Feminist Materialist Approaches in Architectural Conservation and Landscape Pedagogy Design After Discipline: Collective Pedagogies for an Anti-Disciplinary Design Education
  2. Government Officer Housing Precincts in Urban Lucknow: a construction of urban exclusivity through occupation defined neighborhoods. Bloomsbury. Neighborhoods in Urban India: In Between Home and the City
  3. Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of Incongruous Possibilities SAGE Publications India. Radical City

Other

  1. 2025. Speaker. Queer Methodologies and Architectural Histories. Neighbors Lecture Series, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
  2. Book Talk. Living Together: More-than-Human Ecologies for Architectural Thinking Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Switzerland.
  3. Book Talk. Living Together: More-than-Human Ecologies for Architectural Thinking Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
  4. Book Talk. Living Together: More-than-Human Ecologies for Architectural Thinking, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
  5. Speaker. Lucknow Queerscapes. Center for South and Middle Eastern Studies, UIUC, USA.
  6. Speaker. Bookmakers at the School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, India. Bookmakers at the School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, India.
  7. 2019: Invited speaker. Cyborg City. RV College of Architecture, Bangalore. India. Cyborg City

Convention

  1. Master Class. Mapping for Restoration Adaptive Re-use Practices. The Architect’s Diary, Ahmedabad Textile Millowner’s Association building, Ahmedabad, India. Elev8
  2. Panelist. Public Policy Session: People, Culture, and Heritage. Kerela Urban Concalve, Kochi.

Workshop

  1. Panelist. Architectural Alchemy: Turning Heritage into Opportunity. Calcutta Heritage Collective, Kolkata.
  2. Queering Urban Heritage: Methodologies and Theories. The Bartlett’s Queer Network, The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. University College London, UK.
  3. 2021: Invited speaker. Agency of Mapping. National Lecture Series: Politics of Ecology, Gender, and Materiality: The toilets of an Indian City. School of Architecture, Christ University, Bangalore, India. Agency of Mapping
  4. 2019: Invited speaker. Architecture for Non Architects. Azeem Premji University, Bangalore. India. Architecture for Non Architects
  5. 2019: Invited speaker. Manifestoes of the Modern India. Master Class Series. Wadiyar College of Architecture, Mysore. India. Manifestoes of the Modern India

Round Table

  1. Roundtable Panelist. Design After Discipline: Collective Pedagogies for an Anti-Disciplinary Design Education. Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino.

Book

  1. Incloosive Ahmedabad: CEPT Univ Press
  2. Living Together Basel: Birkauser
  3. Lucknow Queerscape Oxon: Taylor and Francis

Conference

  1. Integrating Ecological Feminist Materialist Approaches in Architectural Conservation and Landscape Pedagogy Design after Discipline
  2. Panelist. Cities in Transition, with Dr. Bimal Patel and Prof. Rupali Gupte Organized by Ahmedabad Collection and Indian Institute of Architects at Sabarmati Riverfront House, Ahmedabad, India.
  3. 2022. Staging Ecologies — Reframing Architecture of Care Building Ground for Climate Collectivism: Architecture after the Anthropocene. Organized by Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)
  4. Panelist. Environmental Storytelling Circle with Isabelle Doucet, Hélène Frichot, Charity Edwards, Sepideh Karami, Elke Krasny, Jane Rendell Building Ground for Climate Collectivism: Architecture after the Anthropocene. Organized by Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Brooklyn, USA.
  5. 2021: Co-presenter. ​“Queering Colonial Archive — Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow.” Society of Architectural Historians 2021 Virtual Conference. Queering Colonial Archive — Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow.
  6. 2021: Invited speaker. Lucknow Cantonment: A Cartographic History. 12th session at the Lucknow Military Literature Festival. Lucknow Cantonment: A Cartographic History
  7. 2021: Invited speaker. Sentient Ruins. Sustainable Futures Episode 26. In Conversation with Nisha Matthew Ghosh. Supported By Sustainability Ideas Lab. Sentient Ruins
  8. Queering Colonial Archive — Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow Society of Architectural Historians 2021
  9. 2020: Presenter. ​“Melding Matter.” At the Gender and Academic Leadership in Architecture in India conference. Organized by Avani Institute of Design, Calicut, India. Melding Matter.
  10. 2019: Invited talk and exhibition of maps of Lucknow. Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of incongruous Possibilities. Srishti School of Art and Design. Bangalore, India. Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of incongruous Possibilities
  11. Performing Urban Palimpsest — an inquiry for design Conference on Research, Art, and Design. Organized by Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.
  12. 2018: Presenter. ​“Performing Urban Palimpsest — an inquiry for design.” At the Conference on Research, Art, and Design. Organized by Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. Performing Urban Palimpsest — an inquiry for design.

Symposium

  1. Speaker. Spatial Tense. Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architectural and Environmental Studies. Mumbai, India.
  2. 2020: Invited speaker. School of Environmental Design and Architecture, Navrachna University, Vadodara, India. School of Environmental Design and Architecture
  3. 2020: Invited speaker. Figuring Material Archives. Smt. Manoramabai Mundle College of Architecture, Nagpur, India. Figuring Material Archives
  4. 2015: Invited speaker. Neutralizing Heritage? Evaluating UNESCO’s World Heritage Nomination Process through the example of Santiniketan, India. Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), UIUC, USA. Neutralizing Heritage? Evaluating UNESCO’s World Heritage Nomination Process through the example of Santiniketan, India
  1. 2023: Invited speaker. Mapping Kaiserbagh. School of Architecture, Christ University, Bangalore, India. Mapping Kaiserbagh
  2. 2018: Invited panelist: Cyborg City. Designed Environments: climate change, adaptability, and our nomadic futures. Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. Designed Environments: climate change, adaptability, and our nomadic futures

Seminar

  1. 2020: Invited panelist. International webinar: Public Spaces, Gatherings, and the Performing Arts, in the time of Pandemic. Project Platypus, Bangalore, India. International webinar: Public Spaces

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