Nandini Bagchee is the principal of Bagchee Architects and Associate Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture (CCNY, CUNY). Her research focuses on activism in architecture and the ways in which ground up collaborative building practices provide an alternative medium for the creation of public space. Nandini is the author of a book on the history and impact of activist-run spaces in New York City, entitled Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side (Fordham University Press, 2018). Nandini’s design work and writing has been published in the New York Times, Interiors Now, Urban Omnibus and the Journal of Architectural Education. She is the recipient of grants from the New York State Council of the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Graham Foundation. Her research-based architectural work involves an engagement with grass roots organizations such as the South Bronx Unite, Upbeat NYC, Interference Archive, the Clemente Center and the Laundromat Project in New York City. Through her practice, Bagchee Architects, she is working with a few different community land trusts in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens to design community-controlled spaces.