Shan: CV + Portfolio 2021

SHAN

PORTFOLIO 2021 CV + 10 SELECTED WORKS chewshanwei@gmail.com www.shan.studio +44 7562 206 713

EDUCATION 2021 - 2023 University of Bath M.Arch

In progress: Placement semester

2017 - 2021 University of Bath

First Class Honours

BSc (Hons) Architecture 2020

SHAN

Passivhaus Institut Passive House Designer Course

Passive House Consultant certified

2015 - 2016 A versatile thinker and tireless doer. Has

Singapore Armed Forces

Officer Command School

Military service

Sword of Merit (Top 5%)

a perpetual urge to learn, lead, explore and create. Optimistic about the human potential to solve problems, and a big believer in getting cities right.

2013 - 2014 Hwa Chong Institution GCE-Cambridge A Levels

SketchUp Vectorworks AutoCAD Revit Rhino Photoshop InDesign Illustrator

LANGUAGES English First language

www.shan.studio +44 7562 206 713

A for all subjects Top in year for Geography

SOFTWARE SKILLS

chewshanwei@gmail.com

Four H2 subjects + H3 Art

Chinese (Mandarin) Basic command Japanese Beginner

WORK EXPERIENCE

Jul - Sep 2020 • 2 mos Intern Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore

Feb - Jul 2020 • 5 mos Architectural Assistant Hawkins\Brown Architects London

Mar - Aug 2019 • 5 mos Architectural Assistant Van der Architects Tokyo

2014 - 2020 • 6 yrs Illustrator & Graphic designer Freelance

Mar - Nov 2018 • 8 mos Marketing Specialist Animenz Productions Ltd

Feb - Sep 2016 • 8 mos Deputy Head of Social Media National Day Committee 2016 Singapore

Jan - Dec 2016 • 11 mos Platoon Commander Singapore Armed Forces Singapore

I was embedded in two planning departments, where I learnt extensively about public planning methodology in Singapore.

Tasks included the drafting of two publications for public engagement, laying out a masterplan strategy to fulfil a green standard, and a public art installation.

As part of the Urban Design studio, I supported a total of eleven masterplan projects across London. My role included first-hand urban surveys, urban design, and extensive work in producing drawings, visualisations and publications.

I was part of an office of six and involved heavily in eight interior projects and two architectural competitions. My work involved design, drafting, and coordination with contractors.

I also pioneered more efficient Vectorworks workflows and graphic standards for the firm.

As a solo practitioner, I fulfilled about 20 commissions and three in-house corporate stints over the years, giving me extensive experience in image-making and in managing clients.

Working part-time, I developed the publicity strategy and graphic design for two pianists with a combined following of 15 million. I was the on-site Concert Manager for two shows in Berlin and London.

I led a team in publicity and PR for Singapore’s annual independence celebration. Given a six-figure budget, I strategised and executed content creation, corporate collaborations, digital marketing and the inaugural VR livestream.

I was accountable for the discipline, proficiency and morale of 27 fellow soldiers in peacetime training.

01

FÁBRICA Status

ACADEMIC

Award for Best Visualisation: Runner-up Year

2021

Location

BROOKLYN, NY, USA

BSc thesis project that investigates designing for an infinite and unknown future. The first-life programme is a hatchery for sustainable innovations. A fabrication floor and hotel are composed from an austere industrial tectonic, with impermanent and demountable internal components. The scheme weaves into the area’s industrial history to create a new creative and leisure focal point along the Brooklyn waterfront.

STUDIO The studio spaces morph and adapt to any conceivable manufacturing activity.

FLOOR The structure takes on the role of a ‘container for activity’ that forms a hardworking backdrop to the innovative work within.

PLAZA A sheltered plaza on the waterfront hosts the nexus of activity between hotel, fabrication, and public realm.

DEVELOPMENT

PROGRAMMATIC

CONTEXTUAL

Service cores

Outwards projection

Clusters of function

Semi-permeable membrane

Porosity to exterior

Cores as anchors

Occupied walls

Extrude and puncture

Shelter and enclosure

Public-private division

Ring massing

RELATIONSHIP TO STREET A steel gantry skin forms an “intelligent membrane” that mediates the public-private relationship, creating a zone of spill-out activity and breaks up the otherwise austere facade.

Sliding walls permit the studios to merge with the public realm.

ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY The thermal envelope is specified as airtight and robust, but operable to allow generous natural ventilation.

Conditioned air is passed through thermally massive slabs, using their inertia to slow heat loss or gain.

North light and south shading are optimised to provide well-lit, no-glare conditions for all types of work.

TECTONICS A palette of austere materials is composed into a celebrated industrial “shed”. The sawtooth roof form evokes a powerful cultural association with production. An unconcealed, delicate labyrinth of service ducts and structural members veils the spaces.

PUBLIC REALM The scheme is wrapped in a steel mesh gantry that mediates activity between interior and street. A series of interventions in the surrounding landscape give the harbourside a new, generous public realm - a pedestrianised street, plaza, naturalised coastline and boardwalk.

CONSTRUCTION DETAIL The structure is optimised, exposed and free of interference by non-structural elements.

The palette of steel, concrete, polycarbonate and aluminium frames constitutes a “new vernacular” of found industrial materials. Thermally massive floors moderate heat exchange with the exterior despite frequently opened doors and windows.

02

WORLD LIBRARY Status

ACADEMIC

Featured: Archisource.org Year

2020

Location

MANHATTAN, NY, USA

The brief was for a building that housed the United Nations’ historical material, with offices and public libraries. The archive, carrying extremely rich symbolic and literal value, and was housed in a windowless, tightly controlled volume. Visitors to the building take a vertical journey in glass lifts: beginning in the cavernous undercroft of the building, passing through the visual spectacle of the archive and offices, and emerging in the public library that crowns the 33-storey building. This was a group project with civil engineering and architecture students.

CONCEPT SKETCHES From top, counterclockwise: building character zones, ground conditions, public library view.

Because of how varied the functions of the building are, each space (foyer, archive, offices, library) had distinct characters defined by light, geometry, and materiality.

These were unified by circulation and structure.

THE LAWN The building footprint is pulled back to give a public green space activated by retail - a site of respite and revolt, picnics and protests, inspiration and insurrection. It is technically terra nullius, international land, and voices of global causes are welcome. Structurally, the lawn is the result of the building avoiding a road tunnel, and a setback from future southern, shadow-casting development.

CORE • • •

Concrete-walled service core houses toilets, escape stairs and services Lends lateral stability to structure Supports lift capsules

COLUMNS •

Four concrete-filled steel columns run through all floors to transfer vertical loads

DIAGRID •

•

Triangulated steel frame expressed on the outside of the building, bears most loads Leaves floor plates free of structural interference

STRUCTURAL FLOORS •

Thick floors under spaces with heavy loads to control deflection

STRUCTURE

PLANTS

The diagrid system creates flexibility and openness to the floorplate, and defines the external expression of the building. The structural skin acts as a container unifying the distinct spaces of the building.

Plant rooms are sized and allocated across the building according to occupation and usage level needs. The four spaces have different heat and ventilation requirements which are achieved through various strategies.

Rainwater

Downward gradient of roof

GREYWATER TANK

Flushing and irrigation

CONDENSATE RECOVERY FROM AHUs

Bioswales capture, filter and delay rainwater

GROUND LEVEL RAINWATER COLLECTION Flushing and irrigation

Booster pumps BREAK CISTERN Mains

WATER The building makes use of rainfall on its roof and surrounding landscape, as well as moisutre removed from air, to supply its water needs.

Overflow to wastewater

TECTONICS The archive (top) reads externally as a monolithic, opaque concrete block, reflecting its protective function for the contents within. Each climatic zone is passively sealed and insulated.

The office (right) is treated in white monolithic surfaces, producing a visually calm environment, and allowing the views, geometry and vegetation to define the character.

THE JOURNEY From bottom left, clockwise: view from lift into archive, view from lift into office atrium, public library.

The massive, dimly lit archive contrasts with the light-filled spaces above it. Each lift journey presents a minutelong spectacle that forces the viewer to come to terms with the weight of human unity and achievement.

03

BOUWKUNST Status

ACADEMIC

Oculus Prize (Best in Studio) Year

2019

Location

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

The brief was to design a gallery and artist’s residence for the prospective client of Hauser & Wirth. Inspired by the philosophies of Louis Kahn and Tadao Ando, I sought to create a geometrically harmonious intervention that curated the revelation of light through its forms. The scheme revolves around a circular external courtyard, which contains the main staircase. This is bounded by a ring corridor, off which the programmatic spaces radiate. A series of concentric circles was chosen as the guiding ‘grid’, with each ring in golden proportion to the next innermost ring.

SPACE AND MATERIALITY Walls are semi-exposed everywhere through the use of a mortar slurry wash, giving sharp, tactile shadows to light bouncing off the curved walls.

The spaces interlock to create a labyrinth of spaces without a clear immediate logic, revealing its spaces as visitors work their way up the spiralling circulation, led by light continually gleaming off surfaces ahead.

QUALITATIVE SITE STUDY I spent a few days at the site observing and sketching.

It was clear that this place wanted to be a respite from hectic Amsterdam life. I found it appropriate to describe it as radiating peace and tranquillity, like a water drop causing gentle ripples in a pond - this went on to inspire my explorations of the circle as a means to express the phenomenology of the site.

LIGHTING STUDIES Top right: analysis of a space in Tadao Ando’s Chichu Art Museum, which I had visited a few months before the project. The transition from darkness to light, claustrophobia to openness, creates a sensation of awe.

Right: a sequence of gallery spaces compressing visitors through a dark corridor before releasing them into a light-filled triple height space.

Top: ground floor and first floor plans. Interlocking radial spaces create unexpected views and plays on light.

Facing page, clockwise from top: view of meditation garden, front entrance, and worm’s eye view from courtyard. The idea of sanctuary is reinforced with a heavy entrance that again funnels visitors into smaller, sheltered lobbies before revealing larger, calm spaces sheltered from the rest of Amsterdam.

04

PURLEY WAY MASTERPLAN Status

IN CONSULTATION

Year

2020

Location

CROYDON, LONDON, UK

This masterplan was commissioned by the London Borough of Croydon for a roughly 450-hectare area encompassing a 3km stretch of Purley Way. The purpose was to develop a design-led masterplan and delivery strategy for the area, providing increased housing delivery, industrial intensification, and enhancement of physical, social and cultural infrastructure. The design process was deterministic and evidence-based, revealing the urban condition as a complex web of past development patterns, socio-economic conditions, and geography. Main consultant team: Hawkins\Brown and We Made That.

ANALYSIS & PROPOSAL Right: qualitative surveys of the area and its dwellers conclude with an identification of key character areas which have potential to be celebrated.

Below: Six capacity testing sites were chosen to make notional proposals to see what level of intervention is appropriate to meet industrial and housing targets while enhancing the area.

05

EARLS COURT MASTERPLAN Status

BRIEF PREPARATION

Year

2020

Location

LONDON, UK

This competition for a large site in the heart of London was won by Hawkins\Brown and Studio Egret West in mid-2020. The changing levels of the site and tube infrastructure posed an obstacle to connectivity; the proposal bridges that severance with a “table” that sits above the railway. The urban fabric on both sides are invited to this table through gradually sloping axes. A series of generous pedestrian avenues criss-cross the site to create a celebrated public dwelling space for London. My role was to communicate the team’s iterative ideas through drawing, translating them into aspirational yet human-scaled terms.

06

BRUNEL BRIDGE Status

ACADEMIC

Year

2019

Location

BRISTOL, UK

The brief was to design a footbridge that connects across Bristol’s Floating Harbour. A bridge has strong symbolic power and drastically shrinks the distance that needs to be traversed between the two banks - in this case, a historically rich square with a cosy, residential quay. A structurally elegant connection, stripped of excess and light in its footprint, is to act as the impetus for both banks to develop off each other’s footfall. This project was done by a team of three architecture and two civil engineering students. The structural resolution of the bridge was a key emphasis of the brief.

MASTS Two ‘A’ frames suspend cables which hold up the lightweight deck. From the side, it mimics the masts and sails of historic ships moored in the harbour.

Viewed by a pedestrian crossing the bridge, the forked cables create the illusion of voluminous space.

ITERATIVE SKETCHES Form-finding and iterative testing were done through extensive sketching.

07

GUANGMING CENTRE Status

IN CONSTRUCTION

Year

2019

Location

SHENZHEN, CHINA

This project is intended to kick-start the creation of a business park in the local area, which is 26km from bustling Shenzhen but still retains an agrarian character. The programme included offices, function rooms and retail. The linear, low-lying building was conceptualised as a beacon that signified the entrance into the surrounding valley. The polycarbonate volume reveals hints of activity unfolding within at night, and reflects a linear piece of sky, descended onto the ground, in the day. My role was in concept design of the landscape and production of communication visuals.

08

NORFOLK CARE HOME Status

ACADEMIC

Year

2019

Featured: illustrarch Illustration of the Week Location

BRISTOL, UK

Located on a sensitive site on a crescent in the picturesque town of Bath, this care home was to provide a place of respite for older people, as an alternative to living alone. Given its context, the project was an exercise in designing rationally and sensitively to the needs of the users as well as the environment. The design followed a series of rational shaping factors that resolved into a serene scheme. The design process was about seeking a balance of being porous to the surrounding views and community, versus offering a sense of peaceful shelter.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

ADOPT SITE GEOMETRY

CORE AND WINGS

SERVICE SPACES

MAIN ENTRANCE

Mimic the triangular shape of the site to relate to context.

Central space flanked by two blocks.

Ancillary functions are grouped and pushed to the ends.

Main lobby relates to primary axis to the north.

HIERARCHY OF SPACES Bedrooms grouped and elevated to give daylight and importance.

WIDENING CIRCULATION Corridors widen towards the heart to create centripetal energy and activity.

CREATE GAPS Accommodation interrupted to create communal spaces of varying scales.

EXTEND LANDSCAPE Building geometry is extended to create landscape forms.

SPATIAL CONCEPTS

Mimic geometry of crescent

Porosity to light & air

Centripetal energy: taper corridors towards ends

Village-like clusters

Multiple circulation routes

Every space connected to nature

Inhabited circulation

Community at various scales

09

WEWORK SHINJUKU Status

IN USE

Year

2019

Location

TOKYO, JAPAN

Van der Architects were commissioned to design several of WeWork’s data-driven workspaces, of which this was one of the largest ones. The tectonics, layout and materiality created an environment meant to foster inclusivity and deep work. My role was in detail design. An obsessively high build quality was demanded and achieved. The architects’ office fostered a culture where the boundary between architecture and furniture was dissolved, and every element was subject to equal consideration of detail and its influence on the experience of the space.

10

IMMORTAL: 120 HOURS COMPETITION Status

CONCEPT

Year

2019

Location

SVALBARD, NORWAY

This was an entry for the 120 Hours competition. The brief was to propose a settlement for someone relocating to Svalbard, one of the remotest locations, yet with one of the fastest internet connections, on earth. Our identities are now defined by far more than physicality, but by our online footprint and digital history – an alter-ego of bits and bytes. Even the identities of the dead change as people attempt to revise history through misinformation. Capitalising on this and its remote location, a complex of modern pyramids for megalomaniacs who can afford it - assures that their digital identities are preserved forever.

UNIVERSITY HALL / ARCHITECTURE / 2018

MOBILIA / ARCHITECTURE / 2017

JULY HOUSE / ARCHITECTURE / 2019

LETHABY SCULTPURE HOUSE / ARCHITECTURE / 2019

30 HOUSES / ILLUSTRATION / 2018

30 HOUSES / ILLUSTRATION / 2018

11

OTHER PROJECTS Selected works in architecture, illustration, graphic design & craft

BOXER’S HOUSE / ARCHITECTURE / 2017

ASCOTT LIVING MAGAZINE / ILLUSTRATION / 2016

GORILLA JUICE PRESS / BRANDING / 2017

IMPACT HUB MURAL / ILLUSTRATION / 2017

KEZU CITY / ILLUSTRATION / 2014

SETTLERS OF CATAN / ILLUSTRATION & CRAFT / 2021

SHAN

chewshanwei@gmail.com www.shan.studio +44 7562 206 713