SK Das: In the course of his career, he has gained renown as an award-winning architect, urban planner, and professor. To Mr. Das these are not entirely disparate fields, but disciplines that need to come into conversation with each other again if India is to meet its growing urban needs in a progressive yet socially responsible manner. To that end, he has devoted his career to reconciling the needs of aesthetics and accessibility, of citizen and market, and of growth and responsibility. His work spans a vast range of scales, including townships and urban master planning, cultural and institutional buildings, housing developments, mixed-use developments, private homes, urban development, and low cost housing for the poor. It also spans extremely diverse locales, as he has done projects in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the USA. Across all these scales and locations, his work is characterized by its innovative design, astonishing versatility and sensitivity to context.
He brings the same subtlety and depth to his consultancies and academic work. He has been a project consultant to many multilateral and international agencies, including UNDP/UN Habitat and the governments of Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. He has held several teaching positions, including that of Senior Staff Member, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (HIS), Rotterdam; Dean and Professor at the Sushant School of Art and Architecture, New Delhi; Visiting Professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi; and Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He has also lectured and taught design studios at several universities, including MIT, Columbia, and Architectural Association, London.
In 1991 he won the National Award for Community Architecture in India, and his work on post-cyclone reconstruction in Orissa with CARE-India has been listed among the 100 Best Practices by UN Habitat. His works have been exhibited twice at the Aedes Gallery in Berlin.
