An urban designer and architect, Pritam Dey pursued his postgraduation from SPA, Delhi, with distinction. During his academic tenure at SPA, he won the best community Habitat design on social infrastructure for less catered communities in the Sub Himalayan Villages and was awarded Fellowship by Design Innovation Center-MHRD, India. His research interests lie at the intersection of informal urbanism centred on the cities of the global south and anthropological inquiries.

He worked in the domain of urban design, specifically informal markets, as a shaper of urbanism in Indian cities briefly with MIT-IAL, USA. He was awarded the merit award for the best thesis at zone by COA-NIASA 2015 and Young Architect of the Year by IIA in 2016. In 2017 he was selected to present his design ideations for reinterpreting a crematorium in Varanasi at the International Union of Architects-World Architect Congress, Seoul, South Korea. He was adjudged winner in the Urban Innovation Challenge, India, 2016 for his work on social infrastructure at Varanasi.

Dey’s past research was on Research for compilation of specific case studies on slum upgrading in India post Independence with Prof. Swetha Mathur (SPA-D) for GIZ-Germany. His research on the vulnerability of Koliwadas as urban precincts in Mumbai had been published by the National Institute of Disaster Management, GOI.

Dey is currently involved in investigating the role of informal occupation in shaping up urbanity in the Indian city cores and co-mentored workshop on Urbanity of Chitpur Road, Kolkata with ENSAPLV, Paris. He also co-mentored the documentation of the retrospective landscape of Hampi with the French embassy.

Recently he had presented his research on the issues of Dharavi titled ‘The Tabooed City: power, politics and contestation’ at the Law and City conference, McGill University, Canada. His work on the transcultural nature of Chitpur Road, Kolkata, was simultaneously presented and published at World Science Congress 2021.

Pritam Dey has a keen interest in urban illustrations and has illustrated the report of the Commission for Development Research on The Culture and Development of Children’s Play: The socio-cultural influences of playgrounds on the development of children and communities with case studies in Mumbai being edited by TU-Vienna, TISS, Mumbai.