Nehansh Saxena - Architecture Portfolio - Cal Poly B.Arch 2023

NEHANSH SAXENA

DESIGN PORTFOLIO 2019-2022

NEHANSH SAXENA

EDUCATION EXPERIENCE

California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly -SLO), San Luis Obispo, CA, USA | B. Arch | 2018-2023

Major: Architecture

GPA: 3.10

Accolades: Cum Laude, Deans List, President’s List

Affiliations: American Institute of Architects (AIA) - Associate, National Organization of Minority Architects (Student Chapter), Alpha Rho Chi (former member)

The Doon School, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India | 2012-2018

Diploma: Indian School Certificate

Responsibilies: School Swimming Captain, Community Service Coordinator, Senior Editor at The Doon School Weekly, Head at Art Club

Seasonal Intern | The Haskell Company, Jacksonville, FL, USA | July 2022 - Sep 2022

Supervisor: Nikhil Shah (nikhil.shah@haskell.com)

Returning Summer Internship at 1800-employee large Design-Build AEC Firm in Transportation and Infrastructure (Aviation and Aerospace) AE Team. Key contributions included:

- Schematic Design for a 70K SF Multitenant GSE Airport Facility at the PHL Airport through AUTOCAD Schematic Plans, Client Meetings, Leasing Signoffs, and Civil Co-ordination.

- 90% CD Set for a 30K SF Multinant GSE Facility at the Fort Myers Airport on Revit.

- 60% CD Set for JEA H20 Purification Facility and Experience Center on Revit, and created certain specialized Parametric Structural Components and millwork on Rhino+Grasshopper to Revit

- 90% CD Set for APCI’s Corporate Hangar (70K SF) on Revit.

- Revit development of Schematic Design for a Private Jet Hangar and Repair Hangar for Jet Manufacturer.

- Attended Job-site visits and sent out drawings for building repairs through Bluebeam markups and Revit drafting.

Architectural Intern | City Design Studio , Los Angeles, CA | April 2022 - June 2022

Supervisor: Farooq Ameen(farooq@citydesign-studio.com)

Development of a 3D Model, drawings, and renders using Rhino 7, Adobe Suite, and Enscape for King Solomon Village, a homeless center in the heart of LA as part of AIA’s Next LA Contest.

Architectural Intern | Gregg Maedo and Associates , Anaheim, CA | Jan 2022 - March 2022

Supervisor: Gregg Maedo(gregg@gmaarch.com)

Contributed to 3 Skilled Nursing Faclity projects in Construction Administration, RFIs, DD and CD Sets on Revit and Bluebeam. Developed renders on Lumion and cleaned Revit Model for a completed project for archival. Created brochures for marketing and client presentations on Adobe CC.

Seasonal Intern | The Haskell Company, Jacksonville, FL, USA | Jun 2021 - Dec 2021

Supervisor: Nikhil Shah (nikhil.shah@haskell.com)

Summer and Fall Internship at 1800-employee large Design-Build AEC Firm in Transportation and Infrastructure (Aviation and Aerospace) AE Team. Key contributions included:

- Conceptual Design for a 70K SF Multitenant GSE Airport Facility at the PHL Airport through AUTOCAD Schematic Plans, Client Meetings, Leasing Signoffs, and Civil Co-ordination.

- Schematic for a 30K SF Multinant GSE Facility at the Fort Myers Airport on Revit.

- 30% Set for APCI’s Corporate Hangar (70K SF) on Revit.

- Revit development of Series of Proposals for updating various community libararies in Duuval County, FL in collaboration with library consultant

- As-Built Render for PHL Airport Building C-2.

- Millwork RFI for a Science High School.

EXPERIENCE

Summer Intern (Remote) | Heusch Inc, Beverly Hills, CA , USA | Jun 2020 - July 2020

Supervisor: Gerhard Heusch (gheusch@me.com)

Assisted with generating construction set including structural, product selection for a commercial project and a single family luxury home.

Architectural Engineering Research Assistant | Cal Poly-SLO | Oct 2019- Feb 2020

Supervisor: Ed Saliklis (esalikli@ccalpoly.edu)

Contributed to 2 student design teams set up by Cal Poly Arch. Eng Professor Dr Edmond Saliklis:

- International Association for Shell and Spatial Structure (IASS) Annual Symposium and 7th International Conference on Spatial Structures: Collaboratively designed stressed folded surfaces generated through Grasshopper ( and analyzed on Karamba3D) for a lightweight metal shell structure and worked out the digital fabrication methods.

- Collaboratively designed a proposal for a permanent sculptural installation for University of Surrey (UK) for a competition. Explored the possibility of the form of a parametric Kuen Surface into metal fabrication. Came up with a method of crisscrossed panelization, fastened by riveting, plasma-cutting in metal, water-jet cutting.

Summer Intern | Heusch Inc, Beverly Hills, CA , USA | Jul 2019 - Sep 2019

Supervisor: Gerhard Heusch (gheusch@me.com)

Created Renders for client for an under-construction Single Family Home in Beverly Glen through Sketchup and Lumion and helped with AutoCAD details for the same project.

SERVICE

Volunteer | Green Schoolyards America, Berkeley, CA, USA | Oct 2020- Feb 2021

Supervisor: Kelle Brookes (kbrook10@calpoly.edu)

Assisted Green Schoolyards America [a 501(c)(3) non-profit] with Cal Poly Professor Kelle Brooks to design permanent and temporary outdoor infrastructure for Creston Elementary School, California schools in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic:

-Collaboratively Designed Site Model AND Conducted Solar Shading Analysis on site for design options

AWARDS AND COMPTETITIONS

Awardee | Best Sculptor - The Doon School | 2018

Team Member (Result TBD) | Next LA - AIA | 2022

Participant | ACSA Steel Design Comptetition - Open Category | 2021

Participant | ACSA Housing Competition | 2020

Team Member | Design Village Competition | 2019

ABOUT ME

Hello! I am Nehansh Saxena, a 5th Year B. Arch student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I consider myself to be a really passionate architecture student and a keen learner, interested in the overall realization of a project, facade design, building performance strategies, digital fabrication, formal design and hyper-realistic representation. At the same time I do believe design is always to be seen from the eyes of the users. In my thesis exploration underway, I am conducting extensive research on an indigenous artisanal fishing community living on the Mumbai coastline that has been pushed to the edges and livelihood extinction by faulty urban planning and colonial-era land reclamation. I have researched on issues such as the overarching urban issues, environmental problems, amenity access, the community’s structure and their issues and am planning to propose a more sustainable redevelopment for a multi-housing strategy to preserve and future-proof the existing community to the ever-expanding Mumbai. Discovering innovative approaches and sophisticated solutions to design problems both are part of my drive to be interested in the field of architecture. Beyond that I feel my approach is also deeply rooted in creating unique spatial experiences for the end user. My philosophy is to always keep myself updated with fresh perspectives and new technological advancements in design and in fact that is how I got my current teaching assistant job at Cal Poly where I educate students about newer digital tools. Similar to KTGY, my goal is to remain on the cutting-edge of advancements while also producing designs that make a difference. I am a collaborative team player who is always searching for opportunities to impart valuable insights from what I have learned in my explorations in my student projects and professional work. At the same time I am also an eager learner. With these qualities, I am able to facilitate positive change and impacting outcomes.

I aim to get professional NCARB accreditation about a year from graduation. I consider myself to be a practitioner of regenerative design and am also aiming to gain LEED AP credentials upon graduation. I am very interested in being part of your growing team and share my innovative design solutions. It would be an amazing opportunity and a dream come true.

CONTENTS 01 02 03 04 05 06

CLUSTURED INTERSECTIONS

MCARTHUR PARK, LOS ANGELES, CA | MIXED-USE HIGH-RISE | SPRING 2022

SFMCA

MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA | FUTURE OF ART MUSEUM | FALL 2020

DUALITY AND MOVEMENT - CABCU

TERMINAL ISLAND, LONG BEACH, CA | LIBRARY& UU + CAMPUS | WINTER+SPRING 2021

POST-ANTHRO PAVILLION

CONCEPTUAL SITE | INSTALLATION DESIGN | FALL 2020

PANDEMIC RETROFIT

SAM LUIS OBISPO, CA | STUDENT APARTMENT RETROFIT | SPRING 2020

HUTASH CENTER

PALM SPRINGS MOUNTAINS, CA | HIKING AND GEOLOGY EDUCATION CENTER | WINTER 2020

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA | SWIMMING POOL- INTERIOR RESTORATION | WINTER 2020

TALARIA

PARAMETRIC PROSTHETIC DESIGN | WINTER 2020

VARIOUS FIRMS

CLUSTURED INTERSECTIONS

Mixed Use High Rise | 1 Million Sq Ft | McArthur Park, Los Angeles, CA

Instructors: Stephen Philips, Ismael Soto, Pavel Getov, Teddy Slowik

Spring 2022

Clustured Intersections is a 1 million sq ft mixed-use high rise project proposed as a redevelopment of a major portiion of an existing city block that consists of McArthur Park Metro Station and two commercial towers. Located in the historically and culturally significant area of McArthur Park in Los Angeles, this project hopes to lay the seeds for the appropriate kind of redevelopment for it. The area has been one of LA’s core neighbourhoods and currently houses a major chunk of the city’s growing Meso-American population. As property rates get more inaccessble, this project tries to incorporate various levels of housing to balance the scales of cost and living and provide for not just the rich priviliged but also the honest and hardworking sections, whether it is an older resident or a newly moved in immigrant.

The idea is to make 3 clustered towers come together, and make their intersectional volumes provide an opportunity to unite the occupants communally and create oppurtunity. The commercial and public spaces closer to ground are arranged using the principle of clustering to maximize opportunity.

The room or housing units cluster in a way that each resident at a different level ends up encountering the other. The commercial space and vertical farming make way for a circular economy ecosytem. Thus project hopes to lay the seeds for a co-evolved growth in a vibrant urban landscape.

GROUNDSCAPE

[METRO ENTRANCE AND SHOPPING COURTYARD]

[COMMUNIITIES IN THE SKY]

[WORK AT THE VERTICAL FARMING VOID ZONES]

[CURTAIN WALL PANELS]

[METAL PANEL WALL WITH PUNCHED WINDOW]

[GRASSHOPPER PLUGIN USED SKIN DESIGNER]

WOOD FRAME WITH GLASS PANELS

IMP WALL WITH PUNCHED WINDOW OXIDIZED COPPER

CURTAIN WALL PANELS PERFORATED METAL PANELS

TYPICAL STOREFRONT PANELS

[GRASSHOPPER PLUGIN USED SKIN DESIGNER]

PHYSICAL MODEL (1/32”=1’0”)

DUALITY & MOVEMENT (CABCU)

Library/UU+Campus Concept | 1 Million Sq Ft | Long Beach, CA

Building California’s First Black College University

Instructors: Thomas Fowler | Campus Design Partner: Parmesh Govind

Spring 2021

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie (by Mark Bradford) serves as a cultural palimpsest for the area of South Los Angeles and brings out the story about the vibrant life of the area’s black demography in the nearby areas of South Central LA.. The black demography in Los Angeles has progressed and evolved, inspite of the disproportionate imprisonment rates, police brutality, low school and college graduation rates. This college campus design aims to further the the rise and prowess of the black community in the area while celebrating their core nature of duality and movement against the waves thrown at them. The painting helps interpret the internal battles of the African American that give way to a duality from within, and how the resilience makes way for movement and motions to move out of that struggle. The building and campus design hopes to celebrate the music, the movements that made a difference, and pave the way for an environment that elements of the African American past embedded into its memories with doors of oppurtnity that never “close roughly*” on those who need it the most.

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie by Mark Bradford, used for site cultural plaimpsest

SFMCA

Art Museum | 30,000 SF | Mission District, San Francisco, CA

Instructors: Umut Toker

Fall 2020

We are living in a future where the way we experience art has massively evolved. and so has the character of the art we used to experience. This calls for a re-evaluation in the way we design spaces for that art to exist. Art has gone far beyond the capabilities it used to have and we are at a point we can do much more with it. We are at a point where any new art museum we create must try to adapt to the changed form of art.

SFMCA tries to tackle this issue at an intimate and nuanced level, whether it is through delicate light aptertures, its’ own Gundam design language, and the kinds of spaces it houses. SFMCA stands in its most evolved form and stands in the Plaza as a sinister and enigmatic figure to invite people to unravel the mysteries of the new and evolved form of art.

Through LED Lighting, Galleries Double Ceiling Height Galleries, an activated exterior screen, and various spaces for learning SFMCA comes loaded with different types of experiences to try. There is no bar on who should come and experience this museum, and access was a key for the msuem’s ground level.

LEVEL 7

LEVEL 5

GALLERIES

LEVEL 4

GALLERIES

LEVEL 3

GALLERIES

LEVEL 2

LEVEL 1

1. MASS AS PROGRAM BLOCKS

4. ADDED FLOATING HEAD

2. CUT AND SLICED MASSES

5. EXTERNALIZED CIRCULATION

3. SHAVED MASS AND DEFINED APERTURES 6. SUITED UP

RAMP TO L2 SCULPTURE GARDEN

STAIR

RAMP TO L (-1)

[Level 1 Cafe and Common Space]

A Gundam(ocene) Era

Digital Art Pavillion and Experience Space

Instructors: Umut Toker

Fall 2020

As the way we exprience media shifts into the more digital, we need to start creating experiences and spaces in art. Reimagining our world as part of the gundam universe, this pavillion is meant to leap into this new reality.

TALARIA

Prosthetic Leg Concept

Designer: Nehansh Saxena | Renderer: Mehul Sathya Narayan

Instructors: Umut Toker

Fall 2020

Talaria is an attempt create a prosthetic limb that goes beyond the pure mechanical function a typical prosthetic limb is designed to create: It is a device that aims to harness the feeling of having more to make up for what’s absent, allowing for the user to have a heightened sense of confidence in themselves.

The inner mechanical component is a flexible ankle system foot attached to a shin connected to the ball of the knee. The feet are modelled to have soft impact to the ground.

The outer shell or the component that breathes life into the Prosthetic is suggested as the aesthetic portion which breathes life into the leg. Named after the Greek Messenger God, the aesthetic for this beauiful object derives from the winged shoes of this Greek God and hopes to give the user the same feel.

PANDEMIC RETROFIT

Student Apartment Retrofit | San Luis Obispo, CA

Instructors: Zahra Rasti

Spring 2020

The year is 2030, and it is imagined that the COVID-19 Pandemic has become a feature of our lives we have to account for. There is still no cure for the disease and the only way to prevent it is to create a system of living that allows for better natural ventilation, a culture that tries to mitigate the mental effects of the social distancing idealoogies through people watching, and more oppurtunities to interact solitarily with nature.

Pandemic Retrofit is a demolition and addition to an existing Student Apartment Building in Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where the new retrofit person would prove to be a Phase 1 in the change of the functioning style of buiildings on Campus, especially the student apartment buildings. There would be more spaced out social, open air corridors, a direct connection to the surrounding hills, and a very activate vertical circulation network. The increased transparency in the building adds to the building’s connection to the views of nature.

Another thing it tries to do is provide students various types of apartments to choose from and define their own social bubble.

MASSING STRATEGIES

Creating Externalized Corridors for better Ventilaton to dissipate viruses

Creating Externalized Corridors for better Ventilaton to dissipate viruses

Adjusting to the massing for people watching and ample sun exposure

HUTASH CENTER

Hiking and Geology Learning Center | Palm Springs Mountains, CA

Instructor: Kelle Brooks Winter 2020

A proposal for a hiking and education center in the Palm Springs Mountains in California with a focus on the study of the sensitive geology of the area and hiiking. The project is titled “Hutash” to commemmorate the Chumash Earth Goddess as it hopes to inculcate similar values of the appreciation of the abundance of natural beauty to whosoever visits it.

REINTERPRETING ROCK GENERATED VOID

CABLE CARS AND PATHS

NESTLED ROCKS

GLIDING THROUGH THE ROCKS

A POOL OF NECTAR

Interior Retrofit (Swimming Pool) | Downtown San Luis Obispo, CA

Instructors: Casey Benito

Fall 2019

This is a proposal for a community swimming pool that unites people in an exciting way. Designed as a social honeycomb. The adjacent pools, each meant for different use, feel connected into one another; the tiles define the flow of the energies. As the user slowly decends down through the ramp into the pool space, they are transported to a new reality. The skylights in the roof add life as well.

DUALITY: DESIGN VILLAGE

Design-Build Temporary Structure | San Luis Obispo

Team: Nehansh Saxena, Will Kepler, Bella Che, Grace Eaton, Bella Che, Nicole, Lexi Renee, Jordan Brook, Cassidy Sutton, Jack Radovan

Proffesor: Emily White

We did this project as part of the annual Design Village Competition. The idea was to use membranous form with light steel structure to come up with a portable yet monumental structure that would stand for 3-4 days in the hills of the Central Valley California.

We wanted to create a form which balances itself out and jugsaposes reality. Our aim was to create a form which makes an interior an exterior and an exterior an interior. The beauty of our form lay, like a desert rose, in its inviting yet hidden bloom which led to a central hearth inside.

slide rods through fabric pockets

gradually bend the joints

slide rods through fabric pockets

fasten edges to ring

make taut through guide strings

TRANSPORTATION

KING SOLOMON VILLAGE

Homeless Shelter| Interior Reuse | Normandie, Los Angeles

Firm: City Design Studio | Team: Farooq, Pariya Tabar, Nehansh, et al

April-July 2022

Winner: AIA Next LA 2022 | Temporary Shelter | Citation Award

The King Solomon Village is the adaptive reuse of an aggregate of vacant industrial buildings to provide a Temporary Shelter for a hundred homeless individuals in the heart of South Los Angeles. The project is located along the Rail to River bike and walking path along Slauson Avenue that will connect South L. A to the Los Angeles River in the east and the City of Inglewood in the West.

Homeless Shelter| Interior Reuse | Normandie, Los Angeles

ALTO CEDRO RESIDENCE

Single Family Home| Beverly Glen, Beverly Hills

Firm: Heusch Inc | Team: Pablo Guerri, Nehansh Saxena, Gerhard Heusch

Summer 2019

These renders were created by me and Pablo under the supervision of Gerhard for a client who Heusch Inc was designing and doing CA for in the Beverly Glen area.

JEA H20 PURIFICATION CENTER

Reception Desk Proposal

Project Architect: Natale Andres Santandru | Concept Architect: Studio Yves

Summer 2022

As part of JEA’s (Jacksonville Electric Authority) new project, a water experience center has been planned and my contribution there has been in collaborating with the Interior Design Team to come up with a few design options for the Reception Desk.

ICSS 2020 SUBMISSION

Reception Desk & Shading Structure | Jacksonville, FL

Project Director Dr Edmond Saliklis (Cal Poly ARCE)

Team: Yuran Liu, Nehansh Saxena, Sydney Ngyugen, et al

Winter 2020

The focus of this project was to come up with a structural piece emblematic of the department of Mathematics at the University of Surrey. To come up with the object, we came up with a Kuen Surface. focused mainly on illustrations, mock up joints, and diagrams as the need arose in the project.