Vinayak Bharne
Vinayak Bharne was born in Goa, a culturally diverse coastal territory in India. He studied Architecture and Urban Planning at Goa University and the University of Southern California (USC) and is currently associated with the offices of Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists in Pasadena.

Born in a family of art enthusiasts, Mr. Bharne's fascination for Japanese culture developed at a young age, having been raised in an environment of Oriental art and antiquity. He first traveled to Japan as an exchange student on the Asia Pacific Development Commission Travelling Award where he researched on Zen architecture. Since then, he has authored numerous papers and lectured on subjects of Japanese culture on various occasions including the 1993 Jaycee Convention in Tokyo where he was invited as a keynote speaker.

Mr. Bharne's recent experience at Moule & Polyzoides includes several large scale projects such as the 500 acre new town of Hueco in Texas and the 400 acre new town of Civano in Arizona, both models of sustainable architecture and urbanism. His urban design experience ranges from revitalization projects to strategic plans and campus planning projects for the Scripps Colleges in Claremont and the University of California at Los Angeles.

An ardent nature and animal lover, Mr. Bharne also has a background in Oratory, having won the 1993 National Speaker Award in India. Mr. Bharne also won the 1993 National Association of Students of Architecture Design Competition - "The Wall", in India. At USC, he received the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award for graduate studies in Architecture and in 1997 was nominated as a Presidential Fellow by the Leadership Institute of USC's Marshall School of Business. His urban design proposal for the historic town of Rochefort in France was exhibited at Le Centre d' Etude d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme in France and his graduate thesis featuring a housing strategy for Chinatown was recently on display at the Chinese New Year Exhibition in Los Angeles.

Mr. Bharne is a visiting critic at USC and Woodbury University. His projects have been published in the Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects, the USC Chronicle, and Saintonge, an architecture journal of which he was Assistant Editor from 1997-1998.

He is currently assisting in a book on American Urbanism.