Neeraj Bhatia is an architect and urban designer whose work resides at the intersection of politics, infrastructure, housing, and urbanism. He is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where he also co-directs the urbanism research lab, The Urban Works Agency. Neeraj is founder of THE OPEN WORKSHOP, a transcalar design-research office. Select distinctions include the Emerging Voices Award (2024), the Canadian Professional Prix de Rome (2019), Architectural League Young Architects Prize (2016), and Emerging Leaders Award from Design Intelligence (2016).

The lines drawn on land to claim ownership and demarcate property have had widespread ramifications on forming divisions—between race, class, ecologies, and social groups, amongst others. In the United States, the commodification of land is now so deeply entrenched with economic and social policies that it often is used as a form of economic support in the wake of dwindling forms of social security. Not only does this amplify divisions between classes, but these policies reify in formal decisions that reaffirm this status quo. Despite the pervasiveness of commodified private property models, these are relatively nascent when compared to the history of the city and how humans have lived. Forming Life in Common will examine a series of projects by THE OPEN WORKSHOP that reveal how the territory, neighborhood, block, and home can be reclaimed for more collectivized ways of living and being.