Founder Editor Team
Ar. Rituparna Mandal is the woman behind Leafnest Design. She is an Architect by profession and she’s currently residing in Mumbai and doing her own practice. Rituparna describes herself as a learner for life. She was born and brought up in Calcutta, and her family stayed in a beautiful place surrounded by greenery. That made her marvel at nature’s creativity. From a very young age, Rituparna found nature to be beautiful, harmonious, and self-sufficient, and in spite of it having so many elements, it makes a great symphony.
This admiration, coupled with her curiosity and an encouraging family led Rituparna to pursue architecture. She graduated with a bachelor’s in architecture (B.Arch.) from Piloo Mody College of Architecture college in Orissa. Then, she completed her internship in Delhi. Rituparna moved to Mumbai and worked for over 8 years in a reputed architectural firm where she started managing projects independently as an associate.
At that juncture of life, after spending time, learning & growing in a few of the most valued companies, working in different cities on varied projects gave her a strong foundation to chalk a path of her own, and start her firm. Over the years, Rituparna realized building a house, is not only about brick, sand and cement but creating a space for the client they can call home.
Understanding clients’ needs and emotions and converting them to tangible space by
analytically solving the problem and communicating it well for all the parties involved. She is a self-motivated and disciplined soul, always keen to upskill herself by learning new things whenever she gets a chance.
Rituparna’s strengths are her analytical approach, and human touch to the situations which is her USP as well. The entrepreneur believes in being realistic. She feels that creating and designing a space where we live or work itself is a way of thinking about life. Leafnest Design was founded in 2019 and the company has successfully completed more than 7 projects. Rituparna believes that society is what we create as individuals, with our individuality co–existing with others. Her projects are also based on the same philosophy.
For an individual, home is where one belongs and connects with the inner self, so creating a space for an individual or family where they feel comfortable, and happy is of utmost importance. Rituparna’s projects showcase a person’s uniqueness and individuality. With B.Arch. As a qualification, over the last decade, Rituparna has worked on various commercial and residential projects. Over that time she discovered that she connected well with people and liked creating their dream houses. She started taking on more interior design projects and now she specializes inthem.
As an Architect, Rituparna has lots of design ideas, but she believes her USP of design is showcasing clients’ individuality which she feels more often than not gets lost by many others. She brings a human touch to the site and it is not just yet another house in the making. Humans would always need a home to go back to. The future of Rituparna’s firm is to be part of creating that home for them. She foresees that in 5 years’ time, the firms’ projects might triple.
Rituparna has always been curious about things around her and has been creative since childhood. She was fortunate to grow up in a family where her father was in the same profession and that laid the foundation stone. She wanted to leave a mark on her individual creativity in projects she wanted to do. These things made her walk on a path that was unique for her and LEAFNEST was born.
Rituparna’s inspiration and idol is her father. As a daughter she adores him, but as a
professional, she aspires to be like him. She grew up seeing him in the same profession and the kind of hard work he has put in to build his own space in the market. Her interest and love for this profession came over time. She wants to have the same skill sets and client servicing that he had, which helped him flourish his business.
As an entrepreneur, things are more unpredictable than having a steady job. Rituparna started her firm in 2019 and the first struggle she faced was a worldwide pandemic. With no projects and finances being tight, meeting ends was the primary challenge. She could have caved in and re-joined her previous firm to have a steady income, but she knew starting something of her own comes with risk. She took it as an opportunity to widen her horizons. But with patience and taking one day at a time the firm started getting projects as the covid cases reduced. So now, when Rituparna is working on a project, she is planning to pitch to at least 3 others at the same time.
As an individual, Rituparna can look at things from various perspectives. This has helped her build patience and appreciates the fact that there might not be a perfect situation to wait for. She also believes hard work is the key to success irrespective of where the person is. Rituparna feels client satisfaction is one of the most important pillars of success for any project.
When a client hires an architect, he/she is not taking the professional service to create four walls. He/she wants their dreams, and ideas to get materialized in the best possible way. As a designer, she believes it’s her duty to help them co-creating their dream house.
Rituparna’s advice to budding individuals is to choose this profession if you love creating something. This is not a run-of-the-mill job. It is for people who like to dream big and help others dreams come to reality. So be curious, observant, and lastly welcome to the world of fantasy which you can make a reality of.
