MAP: Small Firm, Federal Footprint, Global Ambition
Metropolitan Architects and Planners (MAP) has worked in federal planning and design since 1992.
Founded that year by Devpal S. Duggal, who began his career at Gruzen and Partners in New York, where he worked as a senior planner on projects including the Air Rights Development at Grand Central Station and the Hastings-on-Hudson waterfront. By the late 1980s he was Director of Planning at Viking Systems International (VSI), working on federal projects. When VSI began winding down, he struck out on his own. The early years were lean—MAP built its portfolio through small subcontracts with larger firms before winning contracts directly with federal civilian agencies including GSA, NIH, EPA, DOC, and the Defense Information Systems Agency, among other clients.
Today MAP is led by CEO Debargha Sengupta, who has been with the company for nearly two decades and at its helm since 2021. Its core services span master planning, strategic planning, feasibility studies, program requirements, space planning and interior design, and construction administration and client representation.
The Subic Bay master plan
In the Philippines, MAP was hired by the World Bank to assist the Subic Bay Development Authority in developing the central-area master plan for the former U.S. Naval Base after its lease expired—defining the buildout, infrastructure, circulation systems, and urban design controls for the site. The plan culminated in an international design competition won by Kenzo Tange of Japan. The result: the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, now an economic hub for shipbuilding, logistics, and manufacturing, and—with its deep-water harbor preserved through that redevelopment—a site central to renewed U.S.-Philippine defense cooperation.
What MAP delivers
MAP’s core services include:
- Master planning and strategic planning for federal civilian agencies.
- Feasibility studies and program requirements development.
- Space planning and interior design.
- Construction administration and client representation services.
- Furniture services and facility programming.
With a portfolio that spans three decades of government contracts, MAP’s federal work includes the Judiciary Square Master Plan in Washington, DC; planning for ten EPA regional headquarters; master plans for NIEHS in Research Triangle Park and the NIH Animal Center in Poolesville, MD; programming and client representation for the Defense Information Systems Agency; and interior design for EPA headquarters. Its master plan for the NIST Gaithersburg campus won the American Planning Association Federal Planning Division’s 2019 honor award for Outstanding Federal Planning Project.
Small by design
“At MAP, we consistently punch above our weight, and take pride in the quality and innovation of the service we deliver,” says CEO Debargha Sengupta. “We are a small, agile and diverse company, but we deliver the quality, innovation, and capability of much larger firms.”
Over 34 years, MAP’s data-driven master planning has helped federal agencies avoid the cost overruns and underutilized capacity that come with poor planning—saving U.S. agencies millions of dollars in efficient workplace design while advancing their missions.
A case for small business
MAP is known in federal civilian planning circles, but by its own account is still largely unknown internationally. As it expands into Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, MAP is betting that small, experienced firms can deliver critical services at the highest quality and the most cost-effective price—the same case that won it federal work.
MAP is a minority-owned small business under Virginia’s Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned (SWaM) program, and a recipient of the Smart Growth Award from Preservation Maryland. “SBAIC provides a platform for connections, visibility, and insight into new opportunities,” Sengupta says, “and possibilities for fruitful partnerships.”
Learn more about MAP at metroarch.com.
