Varun Kohli FAIA, LEED AP
A fierce advocate for environmental and social sustainability, Varun creates and implements integrated design processes for significant projects globally. His meticulous approach purposefully dissolves the boundaries between built, human, and natural ecosystems.
An industry leader, Varun has contributed to major architecture firms and his own design practice in New York, integrating environmental analytics and sustainable design ranging from urban scale resiliency and decarbonization to major national and international projects. Passionate about ecology within the built environment, Varun challenges architects to move closer to net-zero environmental impact. As the Director of Sustainability at Corgan, Varun provides leadership for high-performance projects and strives to maximize environmental sustainability and social equity while addressing climate change adaptation and resiliency. Varun has played a leadership role with the AIA with a passion to support our architectural design community. Between 2017 and 2020, Varun served as an advisory group member for the Committee on the Environment (COTE). In his role, he led an effort to digitally catalog AIA COTE Top Ten projects and supported the Top Ten Toolkit. Recently, he led the effort to co-author AIA’s Climate Action Business Playbook, designed to provide a pathway for architectural practices to address climate change.
With a focus on integrating environmental sensitivities in design, Varun has collaborated with Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (CEA) researchers on novel pedagogical models for environmental design and has taught courses at Harvard GSD and RPI (CASE). He is a frequent critic at Princeton School of Architecture and U-Penn Design, contributes to books and peer-reviewed journals, and speaks at many conferences and forums. He recently authored a chapter in Energy Modeling in Architecture; A practice guide, published by RIBA. Outside of the professional spotlight, Varun serves on the board of Pokhrama Foundation and leads the design for a net-zero school campus in remote northern India, that serves a community with limited access to education. The school is breaking social norms and is empowering children and especially girls by providing them access to K-12 education.
Born in India and raised in Nepal, Varun came to the U.S. as an exchange student in a small Nebraska town. Having studied architecture in New York and London, Varun has delved into urban systems and its relationship to the environment. In his spare time Varun explores the outdoors in destinations around the world and believes that “We need to learn to dance with nature—not fight it.”
Learn more about Varun through Corgan's SQUARE podcast below.