sourav kumar biswas
sbiswas@gsd.harvard.edu +1 857 253 1477 82 Beacon Street Somerville, MA 02143
Academic
2013 - 2015 HARVARD UNIVERSITY The MLK Way
Fall 2015 | Professor: Daniel D’Oca
Precision Conservation
Spring 2015 | Professor: Iñaki Echeverria
Flux City Jamaica Bay
Spring 2014 | Co-ordinator: Chris Reed, Professor: Sergio Lopez-Pineiro
Topographies of Risk
Fall 2013 | Co-ordinator: Pierre Belanger, Professor: Luis Callejas
Professional
2014-2015 SLA A/S Mercedes Centre | Copenhagen Mall | New Panum Copenhagen | 2014 | Supervisor: Rasmus Astrup
2009-2010 SERIE ARCHITECTS Hinjewadi Township
Mumbai | 2009 | Supervisor: Christopher Lee, Kapil Gupta
KUWAIT
1992-2005
2012-2013 DIG ARCHITECTS The Cloud | Spiretec Mixed-Use
KOLKATA 1986-1992
Mumbai | 2012-2013 | Collaborator: Advait Potnis
AUSTIN
2005-2010
AUROVILLE 2007 | 2008
DALLAS
Research
Urban India Atlas
Summer 2015 - Ongoing | Advisor: Rahul Mehrotra
2010-2012
Ag-urban Water Transfer in Pueblo
BLACK ROCK CITY 2010
MUMBAI BOSTON
2013-2015
2009 | 2012
COPENHAGEN 2014
Summer 2015 - Ongoing | Advisor: Scott Campbell
Water & Wetlands in the Ganges
Spring - Fall 2014 | Advisor: James Wescoat, Richard Forman
Cover image and background image are stills from my inter-media film project - ‘Ornaments’
Watch the movie: vimeo.com/10732250
[Co-founded with Andrew Danziger] - Selected to be part of the U.S. Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2012: ‘Spontaneous Interventions | Design Actions for the Common Good’ - Published on Fast Company, Chron, Indian Express, Business Standard - Participant of art festival Encounters 2013: ‘Power Play’ in Mumbai - Runners-up at ‘Design Build Challenge’ in New Orleans
www.redswingproject.org
Started as an exercise for playful urban interventions in Austin, the Red Swing Project grew to become a dedicated project to celebrate spontaneity in cities around the world. Through our own efforts and the help of friends from near and far, more than 200 swings were hung in 7 countries including India, Brazil and Italy
academic projects |
Harvard Graduate School of Design Fall 2013 - 2015
the MLK way
St. Louis Planning Studio
Fall 2015 | Instructor: Daniel D’Oca
The studio worked with a St.Louis non-profit ‘Beloved Streets of America’ whose aim was to make streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King to live up to the ideals he represented. The communities in north St. Louis are disproporationately poorer, and black while the neighborhoods around MLK in particular, displays signs of high vacancy, high tenancy, and a general aversion to interact with the street. Thus, the street is characterized by vacant lots, blank walls, shuttered facades, abandoned structures, fences, and auto-oriented businesses. Yet, the character of the street is not representative of the active communities in many neighborhoods. RACIAL COMPOSITION IN ST. LOUIS CITY & COUNTY
POPULATION DENSITY by Neighborhood Mark Twain I-70 Industrial
Belfontaine
Mark Twain Penrose Park
North Riverfront
O'Fallon Park
Wells Goodfellow
Penrose
5895
O'Fallon
Kingsway West
3441
Hamilton Heights
3105
Kingsway East
3542
Academy
2816
Visitation Park
1484
Near North Riverfront
Fairground Park Hyde Park
The Ville
1868
Fountain Park
960
College Hill Fairground Neighborhood
Greater Ville
6189
West End 6574
Lewis Place
1673
Skinker DeBaliviere DeBaliviere Place 4077
Jeff Vanderlou Vandeventer
3466
St. Louis Place
5557
1682
2939 Old North St. Louis
1916
Covenant Blu -Grand Center
Central West End
3562
14471
Wydown Skinker
Carr Square
2774
Columbus Square
Forest Park
1869 Midtown
5652
Downtown West
Hi-Pointe Kings Oak
Clayton-Tamm Cheltenham
3940
Downtown
Forest Park South East
3721
Botanical Heights Tiffany
Franz Park
The Gate District
The Hill Ellendale Clifton Heights
Southwest Garden Shaw Missouri Botanical Garden
Compton Heights
Lafayette Square Peabody Darst Webbe LaSalle Park Kosciusko
POPULATION DENSITY (persons per sq.km) 806
998
1181
1587
0
2525
0.5
1
2
3
Kilometers 4
POPULATION CHANGE by Neighborhood 1747
719 898
969 1726
1770 821
232
581
421 427
498 1603
447
255
981
897
630
734 1192 647
123
231 145
POP. PERCENTAGE CHANGE (1990-2010) -593
POPULATION CHANGE
VACANT LOTS IN ST. LOUIS
-125
-72
-46
-20 to 0
72
0
0.5
1
2
3
VACANCY on COMMERCIAL ZONING
28
-14
-8 -21
-21
0
-23 -16
-5
-41
0
-13 -11
-19 2
-7 -26 -18
-9
-31
-26 -43 -21
-8
-17
-12 -15 -7
-2
-2 -87
100
-3
19
362
18 63 -8
-17 -29
-19 -19 -10
-11
VACANT LOTS IN WARD 4 and WARD 22
-4
79
6 -9
-10
-5
28
29 28
-7 -5
-15
-29 -14
-24 2
29
-9
-37 -27
-24
-17
1 0
-11
-19
-18
-10
8
0
-7
-8
-8
-10 0 -3
0
-3
-10
0
1.5
3
6
9
Kilometers 12
0
1.5
3
6
9
Kilometers 12
Kilometers 4
VACANCY & INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP IN WARD 4
The project speculates on how the act of building can bring the community together and form a coalition to adopt the MLK as their ‘Main Street.’ By way of small interventions within and near vacant lots, these spaces may be transformed into physical and cultural “bridges” between existing retail and social institutions along MLK Drive. Leveraging the assets in organizations of the Ville that focus on after-school programs, adult education, technical training and community health, the simple act of building furniture prototypes to activate vacant lots becomes an act of commitment and hope for taking ownership of a street that can reflect the cultural richness of a historically vibrant neighborhood. The map below identifies community organizations that can collaborate with Beloved Streets to act as catalysts to activate the objects in select lots.
CONSTRUCTING THE MAIN STREET By deploying simple, easy-to-build objects in monumental, intimate, or dramatic configurations
STRATEGIC TACTICAL INTERVENTIONS 2. EDIBLE GARDENS
1. SUNDAY BRUNCH CLUB
4. EDIBLE FOREST
5. HARLEM BLUES ROOM
3. THE VILLE DINER
6. BELOVED MOVIES
VEGETATION STRATEGY: Seeding zones for lush, colorful patches with low-maintenance plant palette
TREES White Pine
Honey Locust
Red Maple
SHRUBS Apple
Pear
Joe Pye Weed
Frost Aster
Rough Goldenrod
GRASS Sumac Rhus typhina
Pussy Willow
Lupine Lupinus x hybrid
Mugwort Artemisia vulgaris
Tansy Tanacetum vulgare
Tickseed Coreopsis lanceolata
precision conservation
Agora MML: Mexico City Studio Spring 2015 | Instructor: Inaki Ichaverria Collaboration: Flavio Sciaraffia
- Recipient of ASLA Student Award 2015 in Analysis & Planning Category Project honored by ASLA 2015 Student awards in Planning & Analysis Category
Modern agriculture is sustained by enhancing degraded soils through irrigation and fertilizers. In doing so, natural water systems have been disrupted. Agriculture accounts for more than 70% of the global water footprint. Agricultural runoff also continues to be the most threatening non-point source of pollution for water bodies. Thus, conservation of ecosystems and water systems have to involve management of farms. The planning studio project looked at the ways in which agriculture can transition to help in the conservation of soil, water, and the integrity of the landscape.
Ninety-two percent of Mexico’s waterfootprint is used by agriculture. A mapping of agricultural lands in Central Mexico reveals a correlation between irrigated croplands and stressed watersheds. Mexico City’s water supply system spans 3 basins: Cutzamala, Rio Lerma and Mx.C basin. 26% of its water demands is met through trans-basin diversions that depend on 150km-long water networks over a 1000m leveldifference. 74% percent of its water demand is met through underground water from depleting aquifers. With the largest water-right holdings in Mexico, community farmers will be crucial to the city’s water security.
CROPLANDS IN THE MEXICO CITY REGION Using remote-sensing to identify sites for the introduction of precision conservation agriculture
PLANT TOOLKIT Cataloging herbaceuous covers, shrubs, and trees that ecologically complement cash crop cultivation while ensuring long-term conservation of water, top-soil, and soil nutrients
PRECISION FARMING TOOLKIT Cataloging highly-precise farming tools that can plough, sow, and harvest in patterns uploaded by a farmer informed by conservation needs and digital surveys of soil quality, water availability
AGRO-CONSERVATION TOOLKIT Cataloging agricultural practices that preserve soil, water quality and enhance biodiversity Drip irrigation
Agro-forestry
Inter-cropping / Productive fallowing
Riparian buffering
TOWARDS SMART FIELDS | PARAMETRIC PLANTING Utilizing ‘agricultural printing’ & smart irrigation, monocultural crop-fields can transition towards structurally diverse practices of inter-cropping and agro-forestry with little labor as different planting patterns can be uploaded & seeded. The color of each dot in the plan represents a particular species and the radius signifies size for trees, density for herbaceous cover / shrubs. and productivity for crops
PLANT LEGEND Each color corresponds to a particular species on the plan
SITE STRATEGY
CORRIDORS | MANAGED FORESTS Agricultural areas interspersed with trees, herbaceous cover, and other forms of vegatation that encourage biodiversity, movement of species, and soil-water conservation
PATCH | SUCCESSIONAL FORESTS Areas of minimally-managed drought-resistant vegetation with higher herbaceous ground cover serving as ecological sources or sinks
CLEARINGS| PLAZAS Food trucks, small-box food factories, and community groves activate public spaces
TRANSITION SCENARIOS - From Monoculture to Agro-forestry to Resilient forest-system
2070 Managed + Successional
2020 Agro-forestry
2040 Silviculture
2070 Catastrophic drought scenario
2070 Fully-developed forest areas
SCALING UP: RESILIENT PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES FOR MEXICO CITY REGIOIN By introducing structural diversity within a network of agricultural fields and protected forest patches, the Mexico City region is more resilient to impacts of extended drought, soil degradation, and food-water scarcity.
flux city - jamaica bay - Selected for Platform 7 publication & exhibition - Nominated for ASLA Student Awards 2014
Harvard Graduate School of Design Core IV Landscape Studio Spring 2014 | Co-ordinator: Chris Reed, Professor: Sergio Lopez-Pineiro
The project proposes a model of urbanization driven by a detailed understanding of ecological processes and land-water linkages by laying out a landscape infrastructural field that can respond to fluxes over multiple spatial and chronological scales. The design addresses the apparent conflict between urbanization and ecosystem services by proposing a model of urban form that emerges from an understanding of hydrology, and finding opportunities within the ecological thresholds of Jamaica Bay. The project is a compact, mixed-use development with landscape infrastructures that combine social spaces with on-site stormwater & natural spaces with sewage treatment. Collaboration: Flavio Sciaraffia
topographies of risk
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Core III Landscape Studio Fall 2013 | Co-ordinator: Pierre Belanger, Professor: Luis Callejas
The regional landscape planning studio explored the future of the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR) in Cape Cod. Sited atop a sole source aquifer, a series of soil and groundwater remediation operations is systematically implemented to create a network of clearings and corridors. The surveillance logistics of the military inform a taxonomy of landforms that generate hydrological patterns to influence vegetal growth. Landscape is conceptualized as a warning system, and vegetation as topography. A civic-military effort in reforestation and landforming lays the framework for the Cape Cod State Forest, where topography and vegetation helps negotiate the presence of multiple programs with varying compatibilities. Team: Xingun Gu, Mckenna Mcketty
- Selected for Platform 7 publication & exhibition
Landscape agents: Platanus x acerfolia seeds + Wind
Cape Cod is vulnerable to hurricane landfalls, coastal erosion, while the aquifer systems are threatened by contaminants from military testing, saltwater intrusion, and nitrogen loading.
A history of weapons testing in the Central Impact Area mandates a surveillance operation for detecting UXOs and an excavation /landforming strategy that complements the remediation process
Remediation operations strategically target contaminant plumes of RDX to create a network of clearings that are connected by corridors designed to be recreational trails. In times of hurricane warnings and flood risk, these corridors become conduits for military evacuation operations and the clearings become sites for emergency shelters and disaster response units. CAPE COD EVACUATION INFRASTRUCTURE
INDEXING RISK - A surveillance system to inform topographic and vegetal operations
CAPE COD STATE FOREST
Sites for recreation, research, emergency response training
Risk Response Unit and Coastal Resilience Lab
Otis Airfield
GRID GENERATION + LAND FORMATION
A gradient of risk parameters and forest cover index is laid upon the site with a resolution of 64x64m. A grid of diamonds is generated within a square acre. The directionality and size of diamonds responds to site-specific variables informing the micro-topographic landforms as well as macro-topographic planting operations. The risks and conditioins currently visualized are the following:
Landform + Hydrology + Vegetation
Micro-topographies generate specific hydrological conditions for the proliferation of wind-resistant trees introduced to the site. Landforms influence successional patterns after clearing to re-inforce patch, boundary, or corridor conditions.
The generation grid for landforms in sites for remediation matches the grid system for insertion wells and pumping wells
Post-remediation plnating: The topography encourages the growth of Liquidambar styraciflua in the valleys and platanus x acerfolia along the ridges
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
Corridors of Collaboration: The Cape Cod forestation efforts aims to revive the ethic of Civilian Conservation Corps from the New Deal era for a territorial planting effort around the MMR boundary. Arms of forested corridors extend from the Cape Cod State Forest towards the coast, weaving around residences who co-operate in the effort to create a resilient forest ecosystem and a corridor network that serves recreational hikers, evacuation operations and forestry/ coastal research.
Corridors of Resilience
Tall and wind resistant platanusxacerfolia and liquidambar styraciflua line the evacuation corridors and surround patches of the hardwood oak forest
VEGETATION AS TOPOGRAPHY
Milled model explorations of forest corridors as topography for wind circulation, hurricane protection and recreational wanderings (Next page) Laser cut model of how an extended Cape Cod Forest corridor would materialize upon civic-military negotiation
professional projects |
SLA A/S, Serie Architects DIG Architects
concept design process
Selection of concept sketches for Mercedes Benz Cultural Center, Beijing and Carlsberg Plads, Copenhagen Tracing paper is my most potent design tool and I enjoy going through rolls of iterations by hand before developing the concept with digital tools
mercedes benz cultural centre
SLA A/S with BIG| Fall 2014 | Supervisor: Rasmus Astrup
Competition proposal for a multi-purpose cultural center in Beijing placed the building in the middle of a multi-functional landscape designed around the idea of cleansing micro-climates and a paving pattern that accentuated the experience of moving across the site by peeling away in places to form islands of lush green spaces. Involvement: Designed and developed site plan and worked on landscape features on renderings | Team: Rasmus Astrup, Martin Voelkle (BIG)
fisketorvet copenhagen mall
The project offered the challenge of dramatically transforming of an overlooked public space with small interventions. Conceptually, a massive single tree is brought to the site and cut into monumental trunks that are carved into benches along the water’s edge with the remaining parts dispersed across the plaza to create an intimate atmosphere. Trees as planted strategically as wind breakers to create an ideal micro-climate during winters. Involvement: The project was my sole responsibility from concept design to design development and presentation with inputs from Rasmus Astrup
maersk building, new panum
SLA A/S with C.F.Møller| Fall 2014 | Supervisor: Ulla Horsynd
Involvement: Worked on the design development of the bike park+entrance plaza, mock-up of the elevated bicycle ramp and underground bike parking for a mixed-use building near a university campus. Team: Tobias Thiel Konishi, Sebastian Andersen
the cloud
DIG Architects | Fall 2012 | Collaborator: Advait Potnis
An ambitious renovation for a club in Hyderabad created distinct levels of entertainment and access all activated by a parametrically designed ceiling structure inspired by a cloud. Consisting of 14,200 aluminun rods lit up by LED lights, the ceiling creates an animated atmosphere. Project is under construction Involvement: Concept design, design development of ceiling Team: Advait Potnis, Gaganjit Singh, Amit Arya, Neha Momaya
SECTION-01
SECTION-02
THE CLOUD_HYDERABAD
spiretec mixed-use
Involvement: Part of a 2-member team for a schematic competition entry. Only drawings made by myself and included. Team: Advait Potnis
DIG Architects | Spring 2012 | Collaborator: Advait Potnis
The competition called for a mixed-use proposal between 6 existing office buildings. Our proposal sprinkled public programs playfully along a central spine and inserted pillars of institutional program that activate the ground level and support the linear buildings above. The green-roof blanket integrates all the masses, opening up in places and allowing programs to pierce through. The proposal maximizes public space by creating a new public ground while the massing of the tower and office blocks are organized to accommodate generous communal/mixing spaces.
research projects
patterns of urbanization in india
Research Project
Ongoing | Advisor: Rahul Mehrotra & Neil Brenner
An in-depth study of emerging patterns of urbanization will focus on the evolution of planning paradigms in India, the growth of small-towns, the emergence of ‘large villages’ and the extended impacts of urbanization. The project critiques contemporary categories of ‘urban’ to highlights the territorial nature of issues such as migration, water, industrialization in country that has been largely agrarian thus far.
Stressed Watersheds
Stressed Aquifers
WATERSHEDS OF INDIA
landscape planning for ag-urban water transfer Pueblo, CO Research Project
Ongoing | Team: Sourav Biswas, Scott Campbell, Flavio Sciaraffia Summer 2015 | Advisor: Scott Campbell, Richa Shukla Research project at Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructures
A collaboration with Loeb Fellow Scott Campbell and Palmer Land Trust investigates the issue of water-rights sharing between municipalities and agricultural communities in Colorado. The landscape assessment study utilized spatial mapping and landscape planning frameworks that can inform various strategies to satisfy the competing water demands of farmers and the municipality while meeting conservation goals for the Lower Arkansas River valley. The framework seeks to identify priority areas for native ecology preservation, riparian conservation and continued farming.
LAND OWNERSHIP + IDENTIFIED CONSERVATION AREA
LANDSCAPE CHARACTERIZATION | The study area zooms into the farms served by the Bessemer Ditch to identify crop, irrigation and soil type. 28% of the water rights in this area have been purchased by the Pueblo Board of Water Works
LANDSCAPE DIAGNOSIS | A spatial overlay of datasets reveals priority areas for: (1)farm dry-up / revegetation (2)testing water-conservation agriculture (3)testing efficient irrigation techniques (4)return-flow management (5)ecosystem conservation
water & wetlands in the ganges
Aquatic / Urban Ecology / Water in Policy
Advisor: Betsy Colburn / Richard T.T. Forman / James Wescoat Research funded by South Asia Institute
The ecological health of a river is an indicator of the extended effects of urbanization as the river system is abstracted and diverted for agriculture, industry, and cities. As a rapidly urbanizing country that is still largely agrarian, the river basin faces dual stresses of sewage influx from urban regions and water scarcity as most of the river water is used for irrigation. The pollution of the river has to be understood as a basin-wide issue that cannot be resolved by city-specific technological fixes as pursued by the Ganga Action Plan.
An interest in finding alternate means for sewage treatment for small towns of the Ganga basin led me to a focused study of peri-urban Kolkata where part of a sprawling wetland ecosystem has been turned into the largest sewage-fed aquaculture system. Responsible for treating more than 1400MLD of Kolkata’s sewage, the East Kolkata Wetlands is recognized as a protected zone by Ramsar Convention and the State. However, this wetland is part of extensive unprotected wetland system that acts as a buffer between the Sunderbans and a metropolitan region.
East Kolkata Wetland’s protected boundary comes upto its edges leaving the buffer zone of this remarkable system highly susceptible to Kolkata’s eastward expansion. The project aims to push for the recognition of the land-water linkages in the immediate sub-basin as a conservation zone much bigger than the protected area. The recognition of the larger wetland system can help push for a metropolitan land-management plan and a holistic wetland policy. To this end, preliminary hydrological modeling and geo-referenced mapping of the wetlands has been done. Topography
Land use
Drainage patterns
references
[Contacts available upon request] 1. METTE SKJOLD and RASMUS ASTRUP, Principals, SLA A/S 2. DANIEL D’OCA, Principal, Interboro Partners 3. SCOTT CAMPBELL, Conservation Planner / Loeb Fellow 2015 4. RAHUL MEHROTRA, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Design 5. DAVID VAN DER LEER, Executive Director, Van Alen Institute 6. STEVEN A.MOORE, Director, UT Center for Sustainable Development 7. SUDHEENDRA KULKARNI, Chairman, Observer Research Foundation 8. AINSLEY LEWIS, Head of Department - B.Arch, KRV Institute of Arch 9. SANTOSH THORAT, Senior Project Architect, Serie Architects 10. MARK LOBEL, Vice President, Corgan Associates Inc.
Image from Independent research
2013 | Publisher: Observer Research Foundation
An exploration of how children in informal settlements utilize spaces for play led to site-specific instigations and a comprehensive publication on tactics and strategies for the design and planning of public spaces or institutions for self-built neighborhoods. Publication can be found here:
http://issuu.com/skb347/docs/play_and_the_informal_city_hq_issuu