Projects

Research

Publications

Authored Texts

Media

Information

Toronto

11 Cavalry Trail
Markham, ON
L3R 9H1 Canada

San Francisco

2830 20th Street, #208
San Francisco, CA, 94110

The Open Workshop is a multidisciplinary design workshop focused on critically re-examining the concept of an open work, first posited by Umberto Eco in 1962. With expertise ranging from architecture to urban design, The Open Workshop uses a multidisciplinary approach to provide innovative, project-specific design solutions. Recognized for its design-research, the office has a record of complex projects that engage multiple systems and stakeholders.

The office has garnered recognition through international competitions, exhibitions, and publications that focus on how design-research can renegotiate the relationship between architecture and its environment. The firm’s approach relies on transcalar design techniques that find opportunities to holistically integrate environmental, political, economic and social factors. The Open Workshop is a licensed architectural practice in the State of California, USA and the Province of Ontario, Canada (OAA).

Leadership

Neeraj Bhatia
Founding Principal

Bios

NEERAJ BHATIA is a licensed architect and urban designer whose work resides at the intersection of politics and architecture. Neeraj is founder of THE OPEN WORKSHOP, a transcalar design-research office examining the negotiation between architecture, territory, and collectivity. Select distinctions include the Architectural League Young Architects Prize, Emerging Leaders Award from Design Intelligence, and the Canadian Prix de Rome. He is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where he also Directs the urbanism research lab, the Urban Works Agency. Bhatia has also held teaching positions at UC Berkeley (as the visiting Esherick Professor), UT Arlington (as the visiting Ralph Hawkins Professor), Cornell University, Rice University (As the Wortham Fellow), and the University of Toronto. He is co-editor of books Bracket [Takes Action], The Petropolis of Tomorrow, Bracket [Goes Soft], Arium: Weather + Architecture, and co-author of Pamphlet Architecture 30: Coupling — Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism and New Investigations in Collective Form. Neeraj has a Master degree in Architecture and Urbanism from MIT where he was studying on a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies and Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Waterloo.

Current Team

Clare Hacko
Duy Nguyen
Fabiana Possamai

Previous Team

Haifa Al-Gwaiz, Caleb Bentley, Kayla Bien, Rafael Berges, Andrew Bertics, Tracy Bremer, Mary Casper, Jared Clifton, Venessa Davidenko, Carly Dean, Ian Erickson, Zack Glennon, Alicia Hergenroeder, Anesta Iwan, Jeremy Jacinth, Hannah Jane Kim, Shawn Komlos, Brian Lee, Douglas Lee, Mikaela Leo, Liz Lessig, Cesar A. Lopez (Associate), Bella Mang, Shirin Monshipouri, Jonathan Negron, Bomin Park, Sonia Ramundi, Katharina Sauermann, Sayer Al Sayer, Blake Stevenson, Fei-Ling Tseng, Laura Williams, Shuang Yan, De Peter Yi, and Wei Zhao.


Collaborators

Pier Vittorio Aureli / DOGMA, Mark Baechler, Inaqui Carnicero / RICA Studio, Lorena Del Rio / RICA Studio, Alexander D'Hooghe / Organization for Permanent Modernity, Reto Geiser / MG&Co., Christoph Hesse / Christoph Hesse Architects, Richard Hindle, Karen Kubey, Jürgen Mayer H. / J. Mayer H. Architecture, Noemi Mollet / MG&Co., Maya Przybylski / InfraNet Lab, Christopher Roach/ Studio VARA, Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW), Mauricio Soto / Studio-LD, Antje Steinmuller, Surface Design Inc.

Events

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures at Syracuse University, as part of their Domestic Affairs lecture series

    April 5, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures at University of Michigan, Taubman College

    March 23, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia and Sergio Lopez-Pineiro discuss ‘Typologies for Big Words’ at Harvard GSD

    March 1, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia moderates a discussion with Liz Obgu at CCA

    February 2, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures on “Forming Life in Common” at the Cooper Union

    January 26, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures to the Landscape Architecture program at Harvard GSD

    January 18, 2023

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures at the University of Oregon on “Collective Form/ Forms of Collectives”

    November, 16, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia presents “This Land is Your Land” at the Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley Conference at UT Knoxville

    November 3, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia selected as an Emerging Talent speaker at the Monterey Design Conference

    October 29, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia moderates ACSA Panel on Equitable Futures

    October 6, 2022

    Panelists included: Bess Williamson, Erin Reilly-Sanders, Aimee Moore, Johnna Keller, Parsons and Elisandra Garcia-Gonzalez

  • The Open Workshop and Borderless Studio organize a series of roundtables on Care, Making, Ecology and Solidarity

    September 17, 2022

    Discussions featured: Amanda Williams, Craig Stevenson, Andrea Yarbrough, Lydia Ross, Cosmos Ray, Glenance Green, Ghian Foreman, Bweza Itaag, Erika Allen, and ​Rachel Kaplan

  • Neeraj Bhatia participates in a panel discussion on “Experimenting with the Everyday”, organized by the AA Visiting School and hosted by the David Ireland House

    August 3, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia lectures in Raleigh, NC as part of the Real Matter Lecture Series

    July 29, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia participates in a panel discussion on Aging in West Oakland at the Center for Architecture NY

    July 11, 2022

    Panel discussion with Ignacio Galan, Karen Kubey, Todd Levon Brown, Lindsay A Goldman, Annie Ledbury, David Peters, and Emanuel Admassu (moderator)

  • Neeraj Bhatia and Antje Steinmuller convene and moderate a discussion on “Protocols for Living Together” with Zarinah Agnew, Sunny Angulo and Kate Conner at the David Ireland House

    May 18, 2022

  • Neeraj Bhatia joins Dominique Davidson, William Leddy and Mariana Martins for the AIA Austin 2022 Design Awards Jury

    2022

  • Aging Against the Machine opens at the Center for Architecture New York, RESET: Towards a New Commons, Ignacio G. Galen, Karen Kubey (Collaborators), Barry Bergdoll (curator), New York, NY, USA.

    April 14 – September 3, 2022

  • HOUSE OF COMMONS opens at the David Ireland House in San Francisco

    March 19-May 31, 2022

Recognition

Press

Awards