Mittul Vahanvati

BIO
Mittul is a senior lecturer in Sustainability and Urban Planning discipline. Her research focuses on the complex relationship between housing recovery after disasters and community resilience, to uphold housing as a human right and enhance its resilience.

Her research focusses on two aspects of housing recovery and community resilience: 1) bridging the short-term shelter needs with longer term disaster resilience, and 2) negotiations between enabling recovery program design and governance by governments, and grass-roots community abilities for risk-informed decision-making. She employs collaborative methods of research, including co-design and knowledge co-production, by engaging with various stakeholders from diverse cultural settings of Australasia and the Pacific.

Mittul's research focuses on informal settlements or vulnerable communities, for real-world impacts. She engages with UN-bodies, including UN-Habitat, UNEP, UNFCCC, national and local government in Australia and the Pacific as well as non-government organisations. She is one of the lead members in a large multidisciplinary action-research project titled 'Climate Resilient Honiara' (since 2018), funded by the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund and administered by UN-Habitat. She has worked with regional and rural communities in Victoria (Australia) to co-produce their own climate resilience action plan. Currently, she is the Chief Investigator for 'Solomon Islands Shelter Guide' project.

She started working in the field of architecture in 2000, working in architectural industry, after finishing her Bachelor of Architecture from CEPT in India. Since 2005, influenced by her Masters in Sustainable Development from UNSW in Sydney, her architectural practice pivoted towards sustainable architecture and later towards urban design. She moved into academia in 2012, when she started PhD at RMIT University in Melbourne to focus on housing for 'all', including the poor and the most vulnerable in developing countries. She is also a co-founder of a design + make social enterprise, Giant Grass. Her architectural industry practice spans across India, Switzerland, Sydney and Melbourne.

At RMIT, Mittul leads the design and development of a suit of Urban Design courses, core to Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) accreditation. She co-leads RMIT's Climate Change Transformations Research Group.

The impact of her research partnerships, industry engagement and agile dissemination of research findings in the field of disaster/climate change resilience has led to enhancement of her emerging external profile as a researcher and a public intellectual.

INDUSTRY COLLABORATION:
UN-bodies: UNFCCC, UN-Habitat and UNEP.
Australian Government: DTP, DECCA, Loddon Shire Council, Merri-Bek Council, Campaspe Shire Council.
Pacific Island Government: Ministry of Land, Housing and Survey (MLHS), Honiara City Council (HCC)
Non-profit organisations: Habitat for Humanity (HfH); Red Cross
International Universities: Solomon Islands National University (SINU)

AWARDS
2022: Best Paper Award at the World Building Congress 2022, in the category 'Future-Proof Cities'
2022: Best Paper Award at the World Building Congress 2022, in the category 'Urban resilience: implications, considerations, and the way forward'
2021: C40 International competition winning student team, fourth year urban planning students, as part of Urban Design Project course
2015: Best PhD research paper award at the 5th International Conference on Building Resilience at Newcastle
2012: RMIT PhD scholarship
1999: Scholarship and stipend from Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) for an exchange program at ZHW, Switzerland