Shovan Shah

Harvard GSD Spring Option Studio

Instructors: Jeanne Gang w/ Anika Schwarzwald

Project in collaboration with Angela Sneizynski (M.Arch.II. ‘21)

Location: Paris La Defense

Paris is attracting various start-ups and entrepreneurs from the field of technology, science and design; from Europe and around the world. The city has introduced a “French-Tech” to help facilitate the growth of these upcoming businesses. The government wants to grow in the technology sector and they are promoting or encouraging environmental and radical ideas. Thus we hope to achieve a TechHub and an Accelerator+Incubator space for these emerging start-ups.

We want to create a space that supports creativity, collaboration and community through a design that is nothing like La Defense but is affordable, walkable and inviting.

Harvard GSD Spring Option Studio 2019

Instructors: Moshe Safdie w/ Jaron Lubin

Location: Chicago, IL

Project in collaboration with Yuchen Zheng (MAUD ‘20) & Zhiyu Li (MAUD ‘20)

As the birthplace of the modern Skyscraper, the city of Chicago holds a place in history as one of great architectural innovation. From the first Skyscraper ever constructed, the Home Insurance Building by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884, to Skidmore Owings and Merrill’s Sears Tower (Willis Tower) of 1973, Chicago has seen some of the tallest structures ever built.

As a reaction to growing city populations, we build taller buildings, extending the Chicago innovation to places as far off as Dubai and Shenzhen. We have also moved beyond building singular towers, and now we build towers in cluster developments. The familiar tower-podium typology stacks multiple tower extrusions on top of basement level public transportation networks and street level multi-storey podium malls and parking decks. The plans feature a mix of programming-commercial office, residential, retail- with communal amenities like public parks and green spaces. Marketing slogans promise new neighborhoods to ‘Live, Work and Play.’ The promise of a diverse three- dimensional city is there, however many of these developments tend to be less than advertised, resulting in introverted settings.

In fact, as a whole we architects have advanced the tall tower typology very little in the past century, beyond our ability to grow it taller and more environmentally efficient. One would question why a building’s structural height would continue to hold such a primary value, aside from say other principles that affect more directly an occupant’s quality of life? As towers are deployed ever larger and taller, as multiples and as networks, human beings remain oddly enough, the same size. We have yet to understand these structures as building blocks appropriate to the human scale.

Cornell AAP Fall Option Studio 2017

Instructors: Marianne Kwok, Luc Wilson, Elie Gamburg and Timur Dogan

Location: Javits Center, NYC

This studio probes the potential of high-density mixed-use development as a catalyst for an architectural solution to urban development and environmental concerns.

The studio takes as its site a large tract of land presently the site of the Javits convention center on the western edge of Manhattan adjacent to Hudson River, the new neighborhood of Hudson Yards and two NYC parks. In the first part of the studio, students will learn parametric modeling as a powerful analytic tool to evaluate light, environmental factors, views and zoning. Concurrently, the students will analyze precedent mixed-use projects, using these existing models as references to develop a preliminary masterplan integrating residential, office, hotel and retail that will reposition the site as a catalyst for social and urban activation. The rest of the semester will be spent developing the masterplan to a single building, or collection of buildings that represents the vision of the urban mixed use project.

Harvard Urban Design Elements Core Studio 2018

Instructors: Rahul Mehrotra, Linda Pollak, Michael Manfredi

Location: Suffolk Downs, MA

Project in collaboration with Lanchun Z.

Harvard Urban Design Elements Core Studio 2018

Instructors: Rahul Mehrotra, Linda Pollak, Michael Manfredi

Location: South Boston, MA

Project in collaboration with Sarah Fayad (MLAUD ‘20)

Harvard Urban Design Elements Core Studio 2018

Instructors: Rahul Mehrotra, Linda Pollak, Michael Manfredi

Location: Woburn, MA

Project in collaboration with Yuchen Zheng (MAUD’20)

Cornell AAP Summer Studio 2017: Urbanism

Instructor: Felipe Correa

Location: Port Authority Bus Terminal

This project addresses two concerns i.e.; offsetting the size of the apartment units with amenity spaces for the tenants and second, creating a unique design approach to attract a culture of collective space and living.

Design Strategy:

The resident would purchase a unit (pre-fabricated), from a studio to a two bedroom.

The site which currently belongs to the Port Authority would be re-zoned to residential with an FAR of 15 (20% for public use).

Harvard GSD Urban Design Pre-Semester 2018

Data Mapping and Representation using ArcGIS

Location: Boston, MA

Project in collaboration with Firas Chamas (MAUD’20) and Saeb Ali Khan (MAUD ‘20)

Cornell AAP Summer Studio 2017: Ecology

Instructors: Tei Carpenter & Jesse LeCavalier

Location: Roosevelt Island, NYC

[W+E] or energy-from-waste is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste. WtE is a form of energy recovery. Most WtE processes produce electricity and heat directly through combustion.

Incineration, the combustion of organic material such as waste with energy recovery, is the most common WtE implementation. All new WtE plants in OECD countries incinerating waste (residual MSW, commercial, industrial or RDF) must meet strict emission standards, including those on nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), heavy metals and dioxins. Hence, modern incineration plants are vastly different from old types, some of which neither recovered energy nor materials. Modern incinerators reduce the volume of the original waste by 95-96 percent, depending upon composition and degree of recovery of materials such as metals from the ash for recycling.

Incinerators may emit fine particulate, heavy metals, trace dioxin and acid gas, even though these emissions are relatively low from modern incinerators. Other concerns include proper management of residues: toxic fly ash, which must be handled in hazardous waste disposal installation as well as incinerator bottom ash (IBA), which must be reused properly. Incinerators have electric efficiencies of 14-28%. In order to avoid losing the rest of the energy, it can be used for district heating (cogeneration). The total efficiencies of co-generation incinerators are typically higher than 80% (based on the lower heating value of the waste).

Cornell AAP Summer Studio 2017

Instructors: Michael Young & Kutan Ayata

Project in collaboration with Dana Muhsen (M.Arch.II. 2018)

Location: Central Park, NYC

“The “IkeaOne” is an abstraction of the real landscape vs the reflected landscape of Central Park across the mirrored façade.”

Residing amidst the famous Strawberry Fields, this monumental sculpture creates an illusion of the space around it.

Walking by this on a sunny day, one would wonder and question this “strange” presence in the park.

It is not until you get closer to the intriguing reflection, that you realize what it is. The elongated aesthetic is an intentional design component to prolong the presence of the real object in the natural sensual surrounding.

The design remains true to the principles of Ikea while enhancing the customer’s experience by introducing breakout spaces within the interior circulation making their visit to the store welcoming and pleasant. The light passes through the voids in the breakout-spaces onto the ground, making the structure appear like a floating mirror.

Reimagining the store design for a brand like Ikea required drastic, provocative and strategic interventions.

IkeaOne marks its dominant presence in the city in a way that the perspective of the importance of brand, logos and colors is questioned.

During the night the architecture reveals the inner labyrinth of a space. The mirage of the breaks becomes an image of the life beyond the reflected landscape. The night is the only time the true nature of this alien object in the park is exposed exhibiting the showrooms.

The interior spaces show invites the observer into the space to experience the gallery from within.

Like the MoMa, Ikea becomes a museum filled with a collection of art and interactive installations. The abstracted use of the spaces for display with the importance of an exterior environment in the circulation spaces, rebrands the identity of Ikea into Ikea One.

The exhibition Ports and Portals: Finding the Citizen Body, organized and supported by the Department of Architecture, is featured as partner programming of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on May 25 at 4 p.m. at Galeria de Arte Spazio Tempo, Venice, as partner programming for the U.S. Pavilion.

Curated by Luben Dimcheff (B.Arch. '99), assistant professor of architecture, the exhibition features work by architecture students enrolled in the spring 2018 studio The Citizen Body, taught by visiting critics Amanda Williams (B.Arch. '97) and Jonathan Stitelman. In accordance with this year's theme for the U.S. Pavilion — Dimensions of Citizenship — the studio explored new identities for both the occupants and spaces of often overlooked spaces in Venice, presenting an expanded understanding of what it takes to belong.

Primitive Hut Pavilion by CODA

Location: Art OMI, Ghent NY

CNC based production of wooden pieces put together to create this unique art installation.

Dream Catcher in collaboration with Arzan Khambatta

Location: Mumbai, India

This 6’ x 6’ installation is made up of over 500 mouse-traps. The installation was built for NGO SnehaSadan on their 50th Anniversary to celebrate the children.