Early life

Himanshu Parikh was born in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...

, Gujarat. He graduated from Cambridge University, where he obtained both his bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering sciences with honours.

Career

Himanshu Parikh established Himanshu Parikh Consulting Engineers in Ahmedabad, India in 1982. His company focusses on urban planning, infrastructure design, and environmental upgrading.

He developed a new concept for slum development

Slum

A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

, Slum Networking

Slum Networking

Slum Networking is a holistic approach for improving urban infrastructure, developed by Himanshu Parikh of Ahmedabad, India.It addresses a range of facilities needed by slum dwellers:* roads and footpaths* storm drainage* sanitation and sewerage...

.

Teaching career

Himanshu Parikh was a professor at the School of Planning, CEPT University

CEPT University

Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University is an academic institution located in Ahmedabad, India offering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in areas of natural and developed environment of human society and related disciplines.-History:The , a premier educational body...

, Ahmedabad, and visiting lecturer at the Human Settlements Management Institute in Delhi.

Awards

• Fazlur Khan International Travelling Fellowship for excellence in structural engineering in 1985
• The United Nations World Habitat Award for Urban Development in 1993
• Aga Khan Award for Architecture for his slum-networking project at Indore
• The Habitat II Best Practice recognition for Slum Networking in 1996

Further reading

• Sum Networking of Indore City by Cynthia C. Davidson - 1998
• Water and Sewage Networks in Indore, India by Abdelbaki Mohamed Ibrahim - 1998