Nirmal Kishnani is host and editor-in-chief of Ecogradia, a new platform on sustainable architecture and urbanism. The Holcim Foundation is sponsor of Ecogradia and the Ecogradia podcast. He provided the keynote address “Is ‘Green enough? Four Mindsets of Greening in Asia that are Becoming Barriers to Sustainability” at the Holcim Foundation Awards 2011 ceremony for r Asia Pacific, held in Singapore and participated in the Concluding Debate at the 4th Holcim Forum 2013 on the “Economy of Sustainable Construction”.

He presented public lectures and panel discussions on “Green and Sustainable ideas for Australia” at events organized by Holcim Australia and held at Melbourne University, the University of New South Wales, Queensland University of Technology, and Curtin University in 2014.

Nirmal Kishnani’s areas of interest are environmental psychology (perception and behaviour in the built environment); climate, comfort and consumption; and, sustainable buildings (processes and outcomes). His research interests include high-rise buildings in the tropics that strive to create indoor comfort via passive, active and mixed-mode strategies. He has been active in the field of performance-based architecture, applying principles and methodologies that are now known as “green” since the mid-1990s.

Nirmal Kishnani holds a Bachelor of Architecture (hons) from the NUS (1988), Master of Science in Environmental Psychology from the University of Surrey, UK (1992) and a PhD from the School of Built Environment at Curtin University of Technology, Australia (2001).

He established one of Asia’s first consultancies dedicated to “greening” in 2002. As interest grew, his team advised developers and project teams across Asia including landmark developments such as the Asian Development Bank Retrofit in Manila, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore, the Islamabad Airport in Pakistan and the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. He has also lectured and conducted workshops on green design processes in Australia, Asia and Europe.

He has been a member of several advisory panels in China, Singapore and Vietnam shaping policy guidelines that affect design practice. Collaborating with FuturArc and BCI Asia, he has created new platforms for reporting green projects and sustainability in Asia. His book, Greening Asia: Emerging Principles for Sustainable Architecture (ORO Editions, 2012) was the first to critique the green building movement in the region and Ecopuncture: Transforming Architecture and Urbanism in Asia (BCI Asia, 2019) advocates the repair and regeneration of human-made and natural systems.