CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust) is a group of architects, scholars, technicians and artists who have worked together over the past seven years in Mumbai. Our collective was established in early 2003 with the aim of undertaking urban research, design and activism in the cities of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. CRIT regards this vast urban realm as its laboratory and terrain for articulating an emerging urbanism. Our understanding of urbanism is based on the belief that everyday exchange between disciplines and collective research is essential to transforming urban spaces and civic life.

Since 2003, CRIT has undertaken research and design projects throughout the Mumbai Metropolitan Region on housing, environment, conservation, spatial and planning policies in the context of urban development. Our current and completed projects are grouped within the following programmes: Metropolitan Peripheries, Community Housing, Public Spaces, Post-Industrial Landscapes, Sanitation and Waste Management. We also occassionally produce print and web publications, curate exhibitions, organise workshops and public events as part of our ongoing series Metrologue.

Partners and Supporters
Since 2003, CRIT has successfully engaged and completed urban development, design and research projects for state agencies including the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), and the Thane District Collectorate; international agencies such as the Asia-Pacific Development Information Program (APDIP) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); institutes and foundations including the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), Mumbai, the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Bangalore, and the SARAI New Media Initiative of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi; academic bodies including the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen and the Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme, Lingnan University, Hong Kong; professional consultancies including Shirish Patel Associates (SPAPL), Mumbai and Taru Leading Edge Consultants, New Delhi; and community organisations including the Slum Rehabilitation Society (SRS), Mumbai, the Arun Kumar Vaidya Nagar Residents Association, Bandra West, Mumbai, and the Mumbai Federation of Tenants Associations and its associated housing cooperatives throughout Greater Mumbai.

Members and Advisors
CRIT is comprised of a core collective of ten executive members from the fields of architecture, urban design, information technology, fine arts, history, anthropology, and urban management, with members based in India and the U.S.A. CRIT also comprises a project cell of several young professionals who work on a flexible basis in its studio in Mumbai, and an advisory group of prominent individuals from the fields of architecture and urban studies, history and anthropology, film and media studies, and civic administration and housing rights activism. CRIT was founded in 2002 by the first alumni of the Design Cell of the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA), Mumbai — the consultancy wing of the city’s most prestigious architecture college — to carry forward the experiments and interventions initiated within the academy since 1997.

Administration
CRIT operates full-time from a studio in Malad West, in the Western Suburbs of Mumbai, and its finances and administration are collectively managed in a non-hierarchical spirit of voluntarism, mutual exchange and support by all its members. CRIT is registered as a public educational trust (E-29593) with the Charity Commissioner in the State of Maharashtra, India and is currently applying for tax exemption under Section 80G of the Indian Income Tax Act. Further information on our finances and administration are available upon request.

Official Documents

Audited Accounts

CRIT Audited Accounts (PDF) 2003-2004
CRIT Audited Accounts (PDF) 2004-2005