UCLA AUD Winter 2025 Events: Neeraj Bhatia

February 24, 2025, 5:30 pm, Perloff Hall Decafe

Neeraj Bhatia is a licensed architect and urban designer whose work resides at the intersection of politics, housing, infrastructure, and urbanism. He is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where he also co-directs the urbanism research lab, The Urban Works Agency. Bhatia has also held teaching positions at Harvard GSD, UC Berkeley as the Visiting Esherick Professor, UT Arlington as the Visiting Ralph Hawkins Professor, Cornell University, Rice University, and the University of Toronto.

Neeraj is principal of THE OPEN WORKSHOP, a transcalar design-research office examining the negotiation between architecture and its territorial environment. Select distinctions include the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award (2024), Canadian Professional Prix de Rome (2019), the Architectural League Young Architects Prize (2016), Emerging Leaders Award from Design Intelligence (2016), Graham Foundation Grants, The Lawrence B. Anderson Award, Shell Center for Sustainability Grant, ACSA Faculty Design Awards, ACSA Creative Achievement Award, ACSA Housing Design Education Award, and the Fulbright Fellowship. THE OPEN WORKSHOP’s design-research has been commissioned by the Seoul Biennale, Venice Biennale, Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, among other venues.

Bhatia is co-editor of books Bracket [Takes Action], The Petropolis of Tomorrow, Bracket [Goes Soft], Arium: Weather + Architecture, and author of New Investigations in Collective Form and Pamphlet Architecture 30: Coupling — Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism. His articles have appeared in El Croquis, Volume/Archis, Log, AA Files, New Geographies, Thresholds, Manifest, MONU, AD, Places, Footprint, Domus, Onsite Review, Scenario Journal, PLAT, Avery Review, Field Journal, ARPA, GAM, and Yale Perspecta. Bhatia received his master’s degree in architecture and urban design from MIT, where he was studying on a Fulbright Fellowship. Prior to that, he attended the University of Waterloo, where he earned his Bachelor of Environmental Studies and his Bachelor of Architecture. He is licensed architect in California (USA) and Ontario (Canada).