Shawn Lam - Resume + Design Portfolio

SHAWN LAM DESIGN PORTFOLIO

SHAWN LAM

bio

Shawn is a third-year NUS Architecture student. His passion in design is to create meaningful works that intrigue and evoke emotions. He believes that architecture is about carving out spaces that inspires. He is interested in creating human-centric spaces that positively connect people and communities.

Shawn believes in giving back to the community with design works and has produced and led numerous projects with this aim. He currently pursues this interest by serving as an Internal Vice President of The Architecture Society (TAS).

In his free time, Shawn enjoys cycling, photography, and Lego.

PROFICIENCY

EDUCATION

National University of Singapore (NUS), Aug 2020 - Present

> Bachelor of Arts in Architecture

o Expected Date of graduation: May 2025

o Dean’s List for AY 21/22 Semester 1 & 2

Taipei European School, Aug 2007 – Jun 2018

> International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, Jun 2018

o Achieved 39 points

o Attained grade 7 for HL Economics & SL Chinese B, and grade 6 for HL Physics, HL Information Technology in General Society, & SL Mathematics

- Each subject is graded on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest)

> International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), Jun 2016

o Achieved A* in Art & Design, Economics, Physics, & Computer Science, and A in Biology, Chemistry, & Mathematics

Work Experience

Arc Studio Architectural Intern, Nov - Dec 2022

> Experimented & visualised innovative design concepts. Support and assisted with visualising design elements through renders and 3d prints. Co-ordinated and led the development of final submission design models both digitally and physically.

Paper Plane Architects Architectural Intern, May - Aug 2022

> Co-ordinated and assisted in existing and new design projects. Brainstormed and visualised innovative designs through digital and 3D printed models. Developed and amended design drawing sets for submission.

> Notable projects: Cult Design Flagship Store @ 48 Club Street, 83 & 85 Keong Saik Road Development

Freelance Graphics Designer & Film Producer, Jan – Aug 2020

> Tailored & conceived customized digital content to assist with delivering each client’s personal message

NexWave Telecoms Technical Officer, Jul 2020

> Dispatched and aided with the technical troubleshooting for the 2020 General Elections E-registration devices

SAF Infantry Training Institute Training & Co-ordination Specialist, Oct 2018 - Jul 2020

> Assured and maintained all SAF regulars and NSF proficiency requirements within the institute

> Supervised operations and debugged malfunctions at the institute’s IPPT electronic fitness testing centre

> Co-ordinated and acquired training resources - spaces, equipments, ammunitions, vehicles, drivers, transportaion and medical equipment & staffing for active and re-service batallion training exercises

Extracurricular Activities

The Architecure Society (TAS)

TAS Vice President Internal, 2022 - Present

> Champion and support the welfare and interests of all architecture students by ensuring the well-being of students is cared for & to have professional development opportunities.

> Lead NUS & TAS Archifest 2022 Pavilion Designer

TAS Education Director, 2021 - 2022

> Initiate and organise activities to support and sustain an active and supportive education environment in NUSArchitecture Community such as through an Academic Feedback session held on Zoom with the lead tutors from all B.Arch and M.Arch cohorts which discussed students mental well-being and education challenges

TAS Events Director, 2020 - 2021

contact

ADDRESS

Woodlands Drive 14, Block 517, #10-231, S730517

PHONE

+65 96471460

EMAIL

shawnlamjy@gmail.com

PORTFOLIO

https://tinyurl.com/shawnlamjy23

> Planned events of student interest through collaborative efforts, such as a Joint Career Fair conducted with SUTD Architecture’s student body (SUTDIO)

> Co-ordinated and campaigned for a physical NUS Architecture Open House

> Initiated and led the first Architecture and Landscape Architecture (AKILA) Freshmen Orientation Programme under strict Covid restrictions

TES Editorial Team Director & Founder, 2017

> Rejuvenated the school’s media team into an editorial team that provides students a platform to show off their talents, provide media coverage, and maintained social-media pages to disseminate school related news

> Organised community events, such as a film festival, to encourage student interest in the arts

> Spearheaded programs that encourage the upbringing of new leaders & talents

TES Student Council Executive Member, 2016 – 2017

> Elevated student welfare and community bonding by planning and organising a variety of events and projects such as discos, a haunted house, and food sales

> Helped successfully raise funds to purchase new media equipment and make improvements to studying areas within the school

Volunteer Experience

People’s Association, 2020

> Assisted with the distribution of essential resources and support grants for the community during COVID 19

> Developed and designed visual graphics to facilitate and assist grassroot leaders on available support schemes for the community during COVID 19

CONTENT

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

PLAY FOR ALL

HOW CAN WE INSPIRE AND CELEBRATE PLAY THROUGH DESIGN?

CULT DESIGN SINGAPORE @ 48 CLUB STREET RÉUNION THE BRINGING TOGETHER

A PLACE FOR ALL

REBINDING & RENEWING THE SOCIAL FABRIC OF OUR DOWNTOWN

URBAN REHAB MEDIATING THE URBAN LANDSCAPE WITH THE THERMAL COMFORT OF PEDESTRIANS JARDEN DES PAIN SHOPHOUSE IN DUXTON HILL

PLAY FOR ALL

HOW CAN WE INSPIRE AND CELEBRATE PLAY THROUGH DESIGN?

“True play knows no propaganda; its aim is in itself, and its familiar spirit is happy inspiration.”-Johan Huizinga. Huizinga argues that play is central to civilization. A loving environment is playful - where one finds pleasure and delight, laughter and creativity.

The pavilion is an exploration of design purity under real-world constraints, with the goal of inspiring and celebrating “play.” As we emerge into a post-COVID era, the pavilion invites people from all walks of life to engage in a melting pot of play, creating spaces that spark conversations about how our surroundings can encourage love through play without barriers. Incorporating material purity and activating our inner children presents a challenge as we bring people together to celebrate “play.”

The pavilion’s thesis is that through spatial sculpting and gamification, we can create a space that inspires people of all ages to embrace physical and non-physical activity as “play,” breaking down age boundaries. By encouraging people to go beyond their comfort zones, we hope to create a shared experience of joy and love.

The modules used in the pavilion are repurposed and re-imagined from existing NUS Architecture exhibition modules, defying the expected form of modular structures to become a collective entity that is larger than its parts. The resulting meaningful spaces encourage varying levels of “play,” where people of all ages can transform and bond. Whether it’s defying gravity or planar norms, the pavilion strives to explore an aspect of love by enabling “play for all” and sharing our joy for play with the public.

Physical-Digital Elements

CULT DESIGN SINGAPORE

COMPLETED

UNDER PAPERPLANE ARCHITECTS

Nestled in the bustling Chinatown district of Singapore, the Australian furniture firm has opened its first physical store in Asia. It was crucial to showcase the firm’s Australian roots while seamlessly integrating with the local conservation shophouse.

To honor Australia’s natural beauty, the ceiling feature is inspired by the Blue Mountains, the country’s tallest range. The topography of the range is captured through fabric elements, creating a beautiful contrast between the harsh rock contours and the soft textile medium. This design choice establishes a reciprocal link between the firm’s Australian heritage and its furniture.

Despite the limited space in the shophouse, the store offers spatial flexibility with the use of movable fabric screens. These screens can be effortlessly adjusted to create a different spatial experience, adding versatility to the store’s display.

The store design perfectly embodies Cult Design’s ethos, which interplays the traditional, contemporary, and timeless. The once-worn shophouse is now a beautifully re-imagined space that merges with the surroundings and celebrates the firm’s identity.

BLUE MOUNTAINS TOPOGRAPHY

ABSTRACTED FORM

FINAL FEATURE CEILING FORM

RÉUNION

THE BRINGING TOGETHER

The concept for this project was derived from the study of a unique shape found in nature, an octahedron deformed by the Fibonacci ratio. The geometry was explored in all its possible permutations, and an aggregation of the shape was used to develop a cluster form, which was then broken down into habitable apartment spaces. The module and cluster circulation were studied and refined to create a functional form.

The design of the cluster was then tailored to suit the site’s features. With few residential developments and many modern high-rise buildings in the surrounding area, the project aimed to bring back the lively kampong spirit of old Singapore into the city. The goal was to create a community-oriented design that reflects the unique properties of the shape studied.

The final form of the building is a cantilevered structure composed of aggregated clusters that form three distinct circulatory levels. The cantilevered design allowed for the creation of a park at the bottom level and two upper habitable levels. The upper levels feature a unique circulatory and spatial composition, made up of a myriad of pathways and communal spaces that encourage community interaction and increase the chance of residents meeting one another in these areas.

Overall, the design aspires to be a reunion of the kampong spirit and modern city, with a community-oriented approach that reflects the unparalleled properties of the unique geometry studied.

A PLACE FOR ALL

REBINDING & RENEWING THE SOCIAL FABRIC OF OUR DOWNTOWN

Our society is an intricate web of social connections and relationships that bind people of diverse backgrounds together, forming an intangible social fabric. Despite the ideals of creating a “place for all” in our urban downtown areas, stark divisions between the rich and poor persist, running parallel to one another with little cross-interaction. One might ask whether the very edges of our social fabric have begun to fray, succumbing to the dogmatic pressures of capitalism.

However, this project remains hopeful that we can repair our torn social fabric. It seeks to re-imagine the design of spaces in a way that encourages cohesion and provides for all. Through an innovative urban living room concept, individuals can form their own personal spheres while still engaging with others. The externalization of spaces is aimed at promoting spontaneity among users, situated along existing pathways and transparent to pedestrian traffic, with an unobstructed central axis that permits a synchronous view of all active spaces, fostering a greater sense of unity.

Spaces operate like pixels that can adjust to changing needs and evolve with the community over time. The project’s goal is to provide a shared platform where all individuals are treated as equals, promoting engagement and dissolving existing barriers between diverse groups. Its longterm vision is to patch up the social fabric’s frayed edges through an architectural “re-stitching,” creating a truly inclusive “place for all.”

https://youtu.be/TJ7xaL1SnD8

Hive Plaza

Site Observations

Section B

URBAN REHAB

MEDIATING THE URBAN LANDSCAPE WITH THE THERMAL COMFORT OF PEDESTRIANS

Traffic islands are unshaded, transitory spaces where people want to spend as little time as possible, due to poor thermal comfort during the day. Usually made of concrete and surrounded by asphalt, the surfaces have high emissivity, therefore absorbing a lot of the sun’s energy in the daytime and releasing it as heat throughout the day. With ground temperatures reaching up to 44 degrees in the day, long waits can be nothing short of biological torture. Thus, the project aimed to redesign traffic islands to prioritise pedestrian thermal comfort.

In the course of our research, we came across a junction which was well-used and thermally comfortable because of the shade and evapotranspiration of trees. There are many benefirts to a tree, it improve both air and water quality by absorbing intercepting particulates, releasing oxygen, reducing ozone levels, and reducing soil erosion; plus, they increase the biodiversity of the space by providing a habitat to secondary organisms such as birds, ferns, and orchids. Best of all, trees do not need much space to grow so long as there is sun, water, and some soil!

Ultimately, after researching widely, we realised that trees is the perfect solution in the long term. The only issue is that trees take time to grow. Therefore, the project’s intervention is to provide an intermediate solution that emulates some of a tree’s ability to provide thermal comfort, with a rapidly deployable, unobtrusive, and safe to use form. Once the tree has grown, the intermediate solution can be removed and shifted to a new location to spur on the rehabilitation of a new island. In time, the island will become a space that people actively choose to go to, a net benefit for the local environment and pedestrians.

1. Pre-Rehab State

2. Treatment Phase

3. Recovery Phase

4. Cured State

A DESIRABLE SPACE FOR ALL

Beyond the performative aspects of the design, the intervention imbues the traffic island with a sense of identity and comfort. In contrast to the once-transient space that one would actively avoid and pass by without

a second thought, the space becomes one that people actively choose to go to. The intervention can help renew our traffic island into a desirable space for all.

JARDEN DES PAIN

SHOPHOUSE IN DUXTON HILL

Henri Labrouste, a visionary of his time, manifested an extraordinary fusion of classicism and 19th Century innovation through his distinguished style. In his architectural oeuvre, Labrouste employed a discerning approach to buildings’ scale and context to create compelling spaces that leave an indelible impact on their beholders. Drawing inspiration from Labrouste’s enduring legacy, the design at Duxton fashioned a bakery that embodies the same ethos and sensibilities.

Just as Labrouste’s libraries were the epitome of the Gardens of Babylon for Books, the Duxton bakery aims to be a temple for bread, a veritable paradise where baking and living in perfect harmony are the order of the day. This blissful state is achieved through a masterful integration of nature, and well-conceived spaces designed to accommodate the client’s schedule, with the central oven’s chimney as the fulcrum.

The building’s life is centered around the central chimney, which seamlessly interconnects the public and private spaces through a double helix staircase. The innovative structure enables the two spaces to interact with each other while maintaining their distinctiveness.

Spatial Relationship

Vegetation on Site

Massing

The Hearth

Section B1

Section B2

SIRIUS

MATERIAL & TECTONICS GROUP PROJECT

The projact explored the concepts of modularity and parametricism with wood sticks for a pavilion and bridge structure. An innovative module, composded of six interlocking sticks, formed the invidual modular components of both structures. The module takes advantage of the tension and compression forces within a module to form a strong component that can be connected with one another at the six corners of the module. The unique design was the result of comprehensive studies made with the material choice and reviews on existing strcutural systems.

PAVILION

The pavilion, situated in front of SDE3, can be seen as a gateway to the rest of the faculty. Here, we wanted to introduce a space for guests and students entering or leaving the building. The shifting transparency of the structure draws people into the space, while sufficiently secluding and shading them while inside.

WEIGHT (g) 350

NO. MODULES 140

SUPPORTS 2KG DISTRIBUTED

SUNDAY NIGHT WITH SPRING FLOWER

COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN THINKING

Every Sunday evening my grandma tunes in to Channel 8 to watch what is supposedly the greatest epic of our lifetime - 春花望露 (Spring -Flower). The show is about the family affairs of several families which are followed over the decades. The controversial events are often small domestic affairs between these families. Each episode of the show is an hour-long and contains many long dialogue scenes. I often find watching these shows with my grandma very sluggish and repetitive. However, I find the corresponding interaction between my grandma and the show fascinating. Throughout an episode, my grandma would be making comments to express her feelings towards a certain character. As such, I was interested in mapping the interaction between my grandma and the show. Through observing my grandma watch the Taiwanese soap opera - Spring Flower, I collected data on her interaction with the show. Data points on her facial emotion, body posture, sound, and verbal reaction were collected and coded into a form through methodical, systemical translation in rhino.

31 MINUTE

FINAL MODEL

Four curves were picked to be developed into physical forms. They were selected based on the key focal points of the show and the amount of interaction my grandma had with the show.

4 MINUTE

8 MINUTE

27 MINUTE

ZRAC

SHORT FILM

Zrac explores the dynamic relationship between our emotions and body language. The film reflects this relationship through a micro lens on the physical motions of a hand. The film examines a small fragment of one’s body to show how expressive limited movements can be. Through the technique of green screen and manipulation, this relationship is animated out in the film.

tinyurl.com/ZRAC-film

DON’T CALL BACK

MUSIC VIDEO

The music video is a reflection on the experience of a one sided relationship. It tells the story of a beaten up and depressed girl hallucinating about the person she loves. The visual narrative ventures goes from reality into fantasy to emphasize the exhilarating feelings experienced by the girl. This state is further accentuated by the the heavy contrast in colour between segments. The film ultimately does not aim to define the emotions experienced, rather it tries to resonate with nostalgic experiences of relationships.

tinyurl.com/dontcallback-musicvideo

PEAK STUDENT

MAGAZINE

In 2016, Shawn took the initiative to revamp his high school’s Media team by founding a new school editorial team (TES Editorial Team). With the mission to engage students with student life at the school via digital media, Shawn and his team have done various community-based projects and services. This includes a quarterly Student based magazine, school news dissemination through social media pages, providing live coverage of sports games and performances, running school-wide writing, arts, and film competitions, and helping to provide media coverage for school events. The team is now one of the largest clubs in the school and it provides students with a platform to show off their talent in writing, art, and media. Shawn has also helped ensure organizational sustainability by running training programs for various roles in the team to bring up new leaders and members for the team.

tinyurl.com/PEAK-Issue1-magazine

tinyurl.com/PEAK-Issue2-magazine

FOCUS PHOTOSHOOT

This series was taken in response to a series of terrorist attack on France in 2015. The series serves as a reflection of the humanpsychological impact of these events by exploring the themes of vulnerability and desolation amidst chaos.

PEAK SAN FRANCISCO

BRAND CAMPAIGN

This series was taken to help promote two brands - PEAK & TES Editorial Team. The shoot attempts to blend the brands in an urban context by utilising the city as a frame.