Neeraj Bhatia (BES '03, BArch '05) has been announced as a recipient of the 2024 ASCA Architectural Education Award and the 2024 Architectural League Emerging Award.

ACSA 2024 Architectural Education Award

Neeraj along with colleague Antje Steinmuller was recognized by the ASCA in the Creative Achivement category which recognizes a specific creative achievement in teaching, design, scholarship, research, or service that advances architectural education, for their project Making Space for Community – Learning from Collective Living as a Basis for Designing Policy.

Making Space for Community analyzes over forty contemporary collective living projects, revealing how these often invisible domestic typologies leverage space, resources, and labor to shape meaningful social groups. The case studies are analyzed through three lenses (i) Hardware, or physical spatial arrangements (ii) Software, or mechanisms of sharing; and (iii) Orgware, which includes governance and labor protocols. This shaped a whitepaper report that guided new Group Housing legislation in San Francisco — ensuring shared spaces that foster community. This unique approach foregrounds the agency of architects in mediating between the lived experience of communities and institutional protocols. Because San Francisco’s planning policy has often served as a model for other municipalities, this work provides a template for how more diverse voices can inform policy.

Each year, ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, and service. Award winners inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base, and extend their work beyond the borders of academy into practice and the public sector.

View the full list of award recipients and learn more about Making Space for Community – Learning from Collective Living as a Basis for Designing Policy on the ASCA Awards Page.

architectural drawing from the project Making Space for Community – Learning from Collective Living as a Basis for Designing Policy
architectural drawing from the project The Garden of Framed Scenes by The Open Workshop

The Architectural League Emerging Voices Award

Neeraj Bhatia founded THE OPEN WORKSHOP in 2013 in Toronto, Canada. Now based in San Francisco, the multidisciplinary practice produces a diverse range of research projects and built works that bridge speculative research and formal design. The studio investigates how architecture and urbanism can foster social, racial, environmental, and economic equity, engaging frequently with issues of housing justice and public space. Often created collaboratively with communities, institutions, and other designers, these projects both propose and represent what the firm describes as“a collective ethos of design and forms of exchange.”

THE OPEN WORKSHOP’s work has been published and exhibited widely, including at the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Venice Biennale. The firm won the Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2019.

The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices program spotlights North American architects, landscape architects, and urban designers who have significant bodies of realized work and the potential to influence their field.

See the list of winners and read the full feature on The Open Workshop.

Neeraj will be presenting the lecture Life After Property in the Cummings Lecture Theatre at the school on Thursday, March 21 as part of the Arriscraft Canada Brick Speaker Series.