AIA Speaker Series: Regenerative Cities

For more than two decades, Varun Kohli, FAIA, has served as a leader in integrating environmental analytics and sustainable design into the practice of architecture. From urban scale resiliency and decarbonization to major commercial, education, aviation, and mixed-use development projects, he has served as an educator for the future of the practice and a leader on banner projects both domestically and internationally. Passionate about ecology within the built environment, Varun challenges architects to move closer to net-zero. “Over the past several decades we have let go of meaningful connection between natural and built ecologies, which means that when we design buildings or cities, we must be aware of the environmental context around them—architecture should harmonize the relationship between people and the environment,” Varun explains, “When you take that approach the ecology naturally progresses toward energy efficiency and sustainability as the environments all start to synchronize.”

As the director of sustainability at Corgan, Varun provides leadership for high-performance projects and strives to maximize environmental sustainability and social equity while addressing climate change adaptation and resiliency at the building and urban scale. With a focus on integrating environmental sensitivities in design, Varun has collaborated with Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (CEA) researchers on novel pedagogical models for environmental design and has taught courses at Harvard GSD and RPI (CASE). He is a frequent critic at Princeton School of Architecture and U-Penn Design, contributes to books and peer-reviewed journals, and speaks at many conferences and forums, and affiliated organizations. He recently authored a chapter in Energy Modeling in Architecture; A practice guide, published by RIBA and currently serves on the board of Pokhrama Foundation, working to build a net-zero school to provide K-12 education in a remote region of northern India.