Bimal Mendis

Bimal Mendis is an architect and urbanist. He is the co-founder of Plan B Architecture & Urbanism, an award-winning design and research practice based in New Haven, USA. Plan B operates as both a research laboratory and experimental design studio, using cartographic analysis, design experimentation, and architectural implementation to examine how humans have transformed the earth and to re-imagine design at the planetary scale. Plan B’s work ranges from installations and buildings to landscapes, urban plans and global models of urbanization.

Mendis is the recipient of numerous prizes and grants for his research and work, including the AIA Latrobe Prize, a Graham Foundation Grant, Hines Research Grants for Advanced Sustainability, an AIA Upjohn Research Grant, a Yale Planetary Solutions Project grant, MacMillan Center Faculty Research Grants, and funding from the Franke Program in Science and Humanities. Design awards include the inaugural J. Irwin & Xenia S. Miller Prize and the Modern Atlanta Prize. Mendis has been invited to exhibit his work in biennials and galleries worldwide, including the Venice Architecture Biennial, the Lisbon Triennale, the Istanbul Biennial, the Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale, the Chengdu Architecture Biennale, and the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE and the Arctic Assembly in Iceland. Exhibitions at architecture schools across the US include large-scale solo shows at the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture Gallery and the Yale Architecture Gallery. His research on urban development, the impact of population growth, resource consumption, climate change and design at the scale of the world has been featured in diverse forums including Atlantic Cities, Bracket, Log, New Geographies, LA Forum and the Copenhagen Urban Futures Forum.

Mendis’ current research examines the coastline of Sri Lanka as an urban construct and sites of deglaciation in Iceland within the larger context of the Arctic. He was recently awarded a research grant from the MacMillan Center for the project: “A Terra-Aqueous Urban Border: Mapping the Exclusive Economic Zone and its Spatial Conflicts.” The project, “Design for Deglaciation,” which was awarded a Yale Planetary Solutions Grant, confronts the unique spatial phenomena of a vanishing cryosphere and addresses the challenges of deglaciation. Using Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest icecap as a case study, Mendis is conducting field work and site analysis to design spatial protocols, land-use principles and scenarios of adaptation to address divergent demands to develop new ground exposed by glacial retreat.

Before joining the faculty at Yale, Mendis worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the Netherlands and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in New Haven, where he led and managed the design and construction of large-scale urban projects including the National Library in Qatar.

Mendis graduated with a B.A. from Yale College and an M.Arch degree from the Yale School of Architecture. He was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mendis currently coordinates the year-long Design Research “Thesis” Studio in the M.Arch II program and the summer program in Rome. He also teaches an undergraduate course, “Scales of Design,” which examines the role of Architecture from the human to the world.