Assistant Professor Parantap Bhatt is a Toronto-based designer, educator and researcher who works at the intersections of architecture, embodied design, ecological thinking and emerging technologies.
Across his academic work, consultancy, and creative practice, Bhatt aims to integrate traditional wisdom, biological and ecological systems, and intelligent technologies into design processes that support well-being, awareness and meaningful civic engagement. He is also developing SYNTH LAB, an emerging research studio dedicated to embodied, ecological, and intelligent futures.
He currently teaches across Environmental Design, Industrial Design, Digital Futures and Strategic Foresight & Innovation programs at OCAD University, where his work bridges spatial design, computation, movement and human experience.
Bhatt’s academic and professional journey has taken him through India, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and now Canada, shaping a global and deeply interdisciplinary practice. He studied and practised architecture in Ahmedabad, advanced it through scenography and interaction in Stuttgart; explored emerging technology and computational design in London, England; and now integrates these cross-cultural insights into his teaching and research in Toronto.
OCAD U caught up with Bhatt to learn more about his current research project, Perceptual Rituals for Immersive and Civic Awareness (PRIVA).
Tell us more about your current project, known as PRIVA.
PRIVA is exploring how everyday embodied rituals—breathing, posture, movement, sensory orientation—shape our perception of space and our relationship to its environments. The project asks a fundamental question: What happens when design is not only shaping space, but shaping the state of being that we bring into that space?
PRIVA brings together my lifelong interests in consciousness studies, somatic practices, and martial arts—disciplines that understand how inner states dramatically influence outer experience. The project creates a framework where civic awareness emerges from inner awareness, and where design becomes a catalyst for presence, perception, and relational sensitivity.
What drew you into this field of study? Was there a turning point or defining moment?
My journey has always been multidisciplinary. Training and working in India, Stuttgart (Germany), London England), Dubai, Milan and Toronto exposed me to radically different architectural languages and cultural relationships to space. These experiences taught me that design is not universal—it is embodied, contextual, and rooted in how people move, sense, and tell stories.
Parallel to this, martial arts and yoga have been part of my life since childhood. More than 25 years of practising both these arts taught me awareness, rhythm, posture, breath and the intelligence of the body—lessons that profoundly shaped how I understand space.
The defining moment was realizing these two worlds are not separate—the way we move, and sense space fundamentally shapes how we design and imagine futures. PRIVA emerged from bringing these disciplines together.
What question is your research trying to answer, and why is it important?
Modern cities often produce disconnection—internally and socially. Many urban experiences are rushed, fragmented, overstimulating, or isolating.
The central question PRIVA asks is: How can design cultivate presence, awareness, and relational sensitivity within civic spaces?
This matters because civic participation, empathy and collective belonging depend on how we feel in public environments. If spatial experiences can support grounding, clarity, and perceptual attunement, they can also support healthier social interaction, inclusive behaviour, and more mindful engagement with the city.
Understanding how our bodies sense and interpret space can help us design environments that support wellbeing, belonging, and ecological consciousness. It provides a framework for designers to reconnect physical experience with spatial imagination.
How do you see the research findings contributing to your field or affecting people’s lives?
The research will demonstrate that small, embodied rituals can meaningfully transform how people perceive and interact with space. It can contribute in several ways:
I plan to develop the research as a study that can evolve from small-scale experiments into a large-scale installation and eventually become embedded within the ecosystem of space making.
Are you working with any collaborators or institutions?
The project is supported by the OCAD U seed grants received from the Office of Research through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Institutional Grant program. I am working closely with peer researchers and academics across disciplines.
This research connects to my past and emerging collaborations with:
Professor Dr. Barbara Rauch who is founder of Data Materialization Studio at OCAD U; Michelle Gay, artist and designer with expertise in social and urban change from York University; Zareen Tse, a recent grad and previous student researcher from the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program and co-author on a paper on circular intelligence at the World Design Congress 2025; Professor Philip Beesley from the University of Waterloo/ founder of the Living Architecture Systems Group; and industry collaborators like WAMI Studio in Dubai and Allied Engineering in Ahmedabad; along with peers from the Faculty of Design at OCAD U; the Architectural Association in the United Kingdom and CEPT University in India.
These relationships will continue and grow through the development of the research and SYNTH Lab.
What do you hope people—inside and outside your field—take away from your research?
I hope people recognize that design is not only external—it is deeply internal. Our bodies, breath, attention and rituals are part of the spatial ecosystem.
For designers, I hope PRIVA opens new pathways to integrate somatics, awareness practices, ecological sensitivity, and perceptual science into spatial thinking.
For the public, I hope the research communicates that with small shifts in awareness, the world around us can feel more connected, meaningful, and alive.
At its heart, PRIVA is an invitation — to slow down, sense more deeply, and rediscover the profound relationship between the body, space and the city.