Anupama Kundoo (Germany / India)

Anupama Kundoo graduated from University of Mumbai in 1989 and received her PhD degree from TU Berlin in 2008. Her research-oriented practice started in 1990 in Auroville and has generated people-centric architecture based on spatial and material research for low environmental impact while being socio-economically beneficial. Her body of works was recently exhibited as a solo show, “Taking Time”, at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark till 16 May 2021.

She has taught Architecture and Urban Management at various international universities strengthening her expertise in rapid urbanization and climate change related development issues and was the Davenport Visiting Professor at Yale University in Spring 2020. She is currently Professor at Potsdam School of Architecture, Germany and the Head of Urban Design, Auroville. She is the recipient of the 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks award for her contribution to architectural theory, the 2021 Auguste Perret Prize for architectural technology and the 2021 Building Sense Now Global Award of the German Sustainable Building Council.

Her studios are based in Berlin in Germany, and Pune and Pondicherry in India. Kundoo’s rigorous research and experimentation in new materiality for architecture is the result of questioning basic assumptions, construction habits that humanity has adopted during the long process of industrialization. Rather than focusing on shortage, she sought abundance through investing in human resources and human resourcefulness, such as ingenuity, time, skills, care, and sense of community. The act of building produces knowledge just as the resulting knowledge produces buildings.