About CEPT University

Established in 1962, CEPT University, a 50 year old institution in Ahmedabad, India, focuses on understanding, designing, planning, constructing, and managing human habitats. Its teaching programs aim to build thoughtful professionals and its research programs attend to the deepening of the understanding of human settlements. CEPT University also undertakes advisory projects to further the goal of making habitats more livable. Since the very beginning the University has functioned as a collaborative between academics and professionals, with support from philanthropic civil leaders and the government.

CEPT started with the establishment of ‘School of Architecture’, in 1962 at a time when the country was going through a transformative phase to establish institutions of modern India. Balkrishna Doshi, Rasu Vakil and Bernard Kohn initiated this institute with the support from Kasturbhai Lalbhai and Ahmedabad Education Society. In 1972, the Faculty of Planning was established as the ‘School of Planning’ with key inputs from Christopher Benninger who set up the first curriculum in collaboration with Y K Alagh and Doshi. Rasu Vakil, the then dean of CEPT in collaboration with G N Tambe and S N Banker helped set up the Faculty of Technology in 1982. Then known as the ‘School of Building Science and Technology’, it was focused on engineering and construction. In 1991, Krishna Shastri helped set up what was then known as ‘School of Interior Design which deals with habitat related interiors, crafts, systems and products. Recently, CEPT has also established the Faculty of Management which focuses on Urban Management. Started with one school and 30 students in the early sixties, the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology or CEPT became CEPT University in 2005.

Our ethos reflects most clearly in our liberal pedagogic regime that integrates the departments of the University and expands learning options for our students by making it possible for them to easily move across faculties and programs and to explore different intellectual worlds while allowing each to go deep into respective areas of focus and expertise. Programs at CEPT allow potent cross pollination of ideas among disciplines through choice based curriculums and a vast array of electives.