Bio

 

Varun Thautam, Born August 1984, grew up in Bangalore, one of the most populous cities of south India. As a child he loved playing with mud and clay. That prompted him to opt for an education in architecture. He graduated as an architect from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and had a short stint working for Olson Kundig Architects, Seattle. He then returned to Auroville, India in 2008 to learn and rekindle with the art and science of building with earth. Working at the Auroville Earth Institute (UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture), he co-developed a project to empower unskilled and unemployed youth to manually produce Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks – a material 6 times more energy efficient than Kiln fired bricks. This attempt to mainstream–ize earthen materials won a $84K USD grant to develop the project in 6 villages around Auroville.

 

He then spent a year building his parents home with rammed earth and went on to build a couple other homes with earth. Since then he has been travelling, learning, building and teaching through workshops. He believes in an approach where it might be possible to abstract the essential lessons of a local context and ways of building in such a manner that a genuine, fresh and sustainable design can be achieved. Within this approach, architects can find ways to give people the possibility to create and build for themselves their own hábitat.

 

His masters thesis at McGill University, Canada in 2011 on “Learning from Francois Cointreau”, (the father of Rammed Earth) was awarded the Maureen Anderson Prize in Architecture. His owner built project “Urban Infill Housing” in India won him the Young Designers Award 2014, by Indian Architect and Builder Magazine. He has written for Doums (India), Inside Outside, and presented his research work at the EcoCity conference in Montreal, Canada.

 

Education

 

2011-2012: Post-Professional Masters in Architecture; Urban design and Housing, McGill University

 

2003-2008: Professional Bachelors in Architecture; Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

 

Affiliations and Certifications

 

Architect, Council of Architecture India

 

LEED GA, Canadian Green Building Council, 2013

 

LEED AP, Indian Green Building Council, 2010

 

AUTODESK REVIT Architecture 2013 Certified Professional

 

Work Experience

 

International Visiting Professor - ITESM, Santiago de Queretaro, Sep 2014 - Date, Full time

 

Principal Architect - Contractor – 2011 Jan to Present, Part time

 

Architect, Biome Environmental Solutions, Bangalore – 2013 Sep - 2014 July: 9 Months, Full time

 

BIM Manager and Revit Job Captain, ADA Architects, Saskatchewan Canada, 2011 Nov – 2013 July: 1 year 8 months, Full time

 

Asst. Architect, WS ATKINS Plc, Bangalore, India, 2011 May – 2011 July, 3 months, full time

 

Project Architect, Auroville Earth Institute, Auroville, India, 2008 October to 2010 December, 1 year 3 months, Full Time

 

Intern Architect, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, Seattle, WA. 2008 Feb – 2008 Aug, 7 months, Full time

 

Intern Architect, Ar. Chitra Vishwanath, Bangalore, India, 2005 April – 2005 June, 2 months, Full Time