Anthony Acciavatti works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the history of science and technology. He is interested in experimental forms of scholarship, pedagogy, and design afforded by humanistic inquiry. He is the author of Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River (Applied Research & Design, 2015), which is the first comprehensive mapping and environmental history of the Ganges River Basin in over half a century. He spent a decade hiking, driving, and boating across the Ganges to map it and to understand the historical conflicts over water for drinking, agriculture, and industry. Combining fieldwork with archival research, the book is an atlas of the enterprise to transform the Ganges into the most hyper-engineered landscape in the world. In 2016 Ganges Water Machine was awarded the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize.
Along with the book, Acciavatti designed his own instruments to map the choreography of soils, cities, and agriculture across the Ganges River basin. In 2023 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired these instruments, along with his drawings and photographs, for the permanent collection. His work has been exhibited at the Milan Triennial, biennials in Venice, Seoul, Rotterdam, Quito, as well as at the Nehru Science Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, and Columbia University.
Building on nearly two decades worth of research, Acciavatti currently leads Ganges Lab at Collaborative Earth. Composed of a trans-disciplinary group of scientists, engineers, and designers, the lab is developing new forms of civic infrastructure that integrates the rhythms of the monsoons with urban growth and agricultural production.
He is currently Diana Balmori Assistant Professor at Yale University.