Vikas Mehta
VIKAS MEHTA, PhD, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, teaches graduate architecture and urban design studios, theory courses and electives on public space and Indian architecture. Dr. Mehta is interested in the social and sensorial dimensions of architecture and urban design. His research explores the design of the built environment with an emphasis on aspects of human behavior and perceptions, especially as they relate to the design of public spaces and public buildings.
Dr. Mehta’s scholarship addresses various issues of urbanity including urban vitality and regeneration, urban morphology, and environmental sustainability through urbanism. His current research investigates the phenomenological sense of place in everyday spaces, strategies to revitalize and repair historic districts in cities, the design of neighborhoods to foster community, and the connection between the built environment, social activity and walking behavior.
Dr. Mehta’s work has been published in the Journal of Urban Design, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of Urbanism, and numerous peer-reviewed conference proceedings. He has presented papers in several international and national conferences on architecture, urban design, urban planning and environmental design. His 2007 article on the relationship between the street environment and social behavior received the 2008 Chester Rapkin Award honorable mention for the Best Paper of the Year from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. Mehta’s research on the impact of the sensory and social dimensions of the environment on walking behavior has been supported by the Active Living Research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Mehta’s work has advanced the existing methods to study human behavior in public spaces and has developed measures of sociability of public spaces that are useful to urban designers, architects, and urban planners.
Dr. Mehta also directs the SACD Education Abroad summer program to India. In 2008, 11 students spent five weeks in India working with architects, urban designers and planners from Auroville, to create design scenarios for the master plan of a large part of the settlement and the design of a guesthouse in Auroville.
Dr. Mehta earned his PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and Design from the University of Maryland with a focus on Urban Design. He also holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Architecture and has over 13 years experience working as an architect and urban designer in the U.S. and India.