Sonit Bafna studies the principles that shape the built environment and govern its relationship with social, cultural, and imaginative aspects of life. His work has largely focused on developing techniques to describe features of built space that predict behavior and attitude of occupants, and on historical and critical explanations of design. A particular focus of his research is to understand how organization of space in buildings can shape social life in buildings and their health outcomes. His work on these issues has been sponsored by the General Services Administration, Steelcase, Ascension Health, and Kaiser Permanente. An associate professor in the school of architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology, he directs its PhD and MS programs.

Publications

• Bafna, Sonit, Ruth Kanfer, Yeinn Oh, Jennifer Egan, and Mansi Shah. 2023. “Invited Symposium Workspaces Reexamined: Implications for Design, Management, and Employee Wellbeing.” Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 67 (1): 762–66.

• Bafna, S., Maitra, K. K., Lim, Y., Shah, M., & Chen, Y.-A. 2021. Association between home layout connectivity and cognitive ability in community dwelling older adults: Implication for occupational therapy. Journal of Design for Resilience in Architecture and Planning, 2(special issue), 18–33.

• Chambers, E. C., Bafna, S., & Machry, H. 2018. The Association between Apartment Layout and Depressive Symptomology among Hispanic/Latino Residents in Low-Income Housing: the AHOME Study. Journal of Urban Health. 95:51-60

• Bafna, S. and Chambers, E. 2014. "The influence of spatial organization of the home on social sedentary (inhabitant) activities." A|Z ITU Journal of Architecture Faculty 11 (2): 31-46.

Conference Presentations

• Bafna, Sonit, Kinsuk Maitra, Yoonjeong Lim, Winifred E. Newman, and Manasi Shah. “The Home as a Therapeutic Environment.” In Proceedings of the 12th Space Syntax Symposium, 257.1--257–14. Beijing, 2019.