Architecture Portfolio

P O R T F O L I O

NITHYA BALACHANDAR IYER

SELECTED WORK

1. THE CHICAGO CONFLUENCE

Graduate Excellence Awards, Honorable Mention High Rise Design, Chicago

2. INHABITED LANDSCAPES

Collective Urban Habitats- Spring 2023 studio 95th St., South Chicago

5. UNDER[surface] UPCYCLE

ACSA COTE Top Ten for Student Awards Upcycled Urban Shelters, Austin

4. THE APERTURE

Richard A. Williams ARCHON Award, First Place Graduate Excellence Award, Honorable mention Essential House, Volterra, Italy

3. DHRUMA

Undergraduate Architectural Thesis Award, Third Place Center for Traditional Sports, India

6. BLOCK 16 Gensler

Summer Internship 2022 Office Tower, Downtown Austin

7. AVIAN OBSERVATORY Gensler

Intern Project with Pease Park Conservancy Bird Blind, Pease Park, Austin

8. HIGHLIGHTS

Sketches

CHICAGO CONFLUENCE

High-Rise Mixed Use Tower, Fall 2023 Studio Honorable Mention, Graduate Excellence Award

Location: Streeterville District, Chicago

Project: Fall 2022 Studio project with Prof. Paul Armstrong

Design Team: Anushree Parkhi, Hrushikesh Chavan

Contributions: Diagrams, Renders, Research on structure and curtain wall systems, Axonometric vignettes, 3-d modelling of tower, Podium and Core planning

The Confluence is a 110 storey mixed-use tower in the Streeterville district of Chicago along the Riverwalk. The design is an attemot to create an iconic landmark and a create a gateway while approaching the city from Lake Michigan. The riverwalk is a dense urban area with a constant influx of people and activity. The base levels of the tower intends to enhance this experience and carry this energy upwards with quality living spaces. Confluence is 1462ft high and has 110 floors with 434 hotel units and 210 residential units. The residential portion of the tower has one and two bedroom units. The hotels are closer the the base of the tower and have combination of standard bedrooms, deluxe and luxury suites. Weaved into the tower are atriums and public amenity spaces that allow visual connection to every corner of the tower. Some of these spaces include gyms, saunas, dog parks, restaurant and bars, harvest gardes, winter gardens and community markets. The amenities specifically cater to the younger population that makes up the demographic of the Streeterville area.

The tower’s curved shape and orientation allows expansive, unhindered views and does not take away from the views of its neighborsthe NBC tower and the Sheraton. Confluence steps up from the riverwalk area to the road level forming terraces and continues in a gradual sweep up to its pinnacle. The shape allows a fluid transition between the publics amenities at the podium level. The podium then transcends through terraces into the riverwalk reating public plaza spaces. It houses the ballroom, a pool, outdoor cross-fit terrace, gyms, restaurants, bars and other garden huddle spaces. At the pinnacle is an observatory with a winter garden and a sky lounge and bar to capitalize on the breathtaking views of the entire city. The long floor plates at the hotel levels allow a second set of low-rise elevators that connect start at the podium level. The glass elevators look over large atrium spaces in the hotel portion of the tower that adds to the experience of visual interrelation. The start and end of these atriums have double height amenity floors that allow the light to trickle into the atrium wells.

Overall, the tower would be a slender and elegant addition to the Chicago skyline while also positively contributing too the urban context of the city.

Residential

Ballroom Entry Riverwalk Landscape

Hotel Lobby River

Base steps up from the plaza creating terraces. Base sweeps up to form hotel floors with atriums Tower tapers and accommodated hotel luxury suites.

Residential towers occupies the section of the tower with expansive views.

The top few floors step back to create the observatory. The skin drapes around the tower forming a canopy over the terraces.

Hotel/ Residential Dropoff

Ballroom Dropoff Escalator to Riverwalk Level and Ballroom

Hotel Entrance and Reception Riverwalk Plaza

Entry and Lobby Plaza stairs to riverwalk

Hotel Elevators

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

CORE OUTRIGGER & BELT TRUSSES FLOORS DIAGRID AND INTERIOR COLUMNS

Thecanopyforthepodiumisacable-netstructurethatdrapesthefloorplatesandcreatesagentle,fluidcanopyoveritsinteriorspaces.Thelightnessofthesystemprovidesunhindered viewsoftheriverandtheRiverwalktotheusersfromwithinthepodium.ThecablenetsaresupportedbyarchesatthebaseandtheMechanicalleveloutriggersatthetop.

Thelongfloorplatesatthehotellevelsallowasecondsetoflow-riseelevatorsthatconnectstartatthepodiumlevel.Theglasselevatorslookoverlargeatriumspacesinthehotelportionofthetowerthataddstotheexperienceofvisualinterrelation.Thestartandendoftheseatriumshavedoubleheightamenityfloorsthatallowthelighttotrickleintotheatriumwells.

The curtain wall system for the whole tower is a simple unitized system while the podium curtain wall is supported by the cable-net structure. The transparent drape over the terraced floors of the podium expose the users to uninhindered views of the River on one side and lake on the other. The clean glazed facade accentuates the fluid and elegant form of the tower only lifting dramatically at the bottom to form entrances and chamfering at the top to form the crown.

SECTION: N-S

INHABITED LANDSCAPES

of

INHABITED LANDSCAPES

Collective Urban Habitats, Spring 2023 Studio in-progress

Location: 95th St. South Chicago, 7th Ward, Chicago, Illinois

Project: Spring 2023 Studio project with Prof. Sara Bartumeus

Design Team: Shamika Patil, Nithya Iyer

Contributions: Diagrams, Urban Analysis, community outreach, 3d modelling, topography and natural spaces analysis, Site planning, presentation.

How can a long forgotten segment of greenery within the South Chicago urban fabric be reappropriated so that the residents of Jeffrey Manor and Calumet Heights can maximize the 95th Corridor for their needs while also attracting new individuals? Inhabited Landscapes explores this possibility by taking various programmatic spaces such as an amphitheater, community services, co-housing, and artist live and work spaces and integrating them directly into the existing and (occasionally exaggerated topography. By doing so, interesting sectional relationships and a pedestrianized zone is created for all who live within the area to engage with.

Inhabited Landscapes aims to focus on the need for natural spaces from the Ward scale to the zoomed-in site-level. On the ward scale, the design proposes a Green ring with anchor points marked by the Trumbull Park on the South, a Natural reserve park on the West, an empty wooded plot on the East and finally crowned by the site beside 95th Street. These anchors are proposed to be connected by ‘Green links’ as means of way-finding to these anchor points. The Green links are pedestrianized residential streets which are revamped to accommodate sculptures, biking lanes, expanded green buffers and more street lighting to increase safety.

At the site level, the design intervention intends to retain the existing trees as it is the only line of defense against the noise from the railway lines immediately north of the site. Furthermore, the site slopes down by 12 feet from the railway line to the 95th st. Our proposal intends to let the landscape dictate the building form and not the other way round. As a result, a mixed-use program like commercial, artist/ sculpture workshops, housing, creches, civic/community centers, open airt theatres, plazas for flea markets or farmers markets and so on, are spread out over the 1.8 mile length creating smaller community living clusters within themselves. As the site ascends from the 95th street and moves closer to the railway line, the buildings are tucked under the topography to further protect the living spaces from the sound. Light wells bring light into these living units.

This project is an attempt to encourage living with nature while also planning activites and amenities that encourage a younger population to add to the exisitng aged community who have voiced that they would appreciate the feeling of activity and safety.

greenery within the South Chicago urban fabric be of Jeffrey Manor and Calumet Heights can maximize while also attracting new individuals? Inhabited Landscapes various programmatic spaces such as an amphitheater, and artist live and work spaces and integrating them directly exaggerated topography). By doing so, interesting sectional zone is created for all who live within the area to engage with.

PERSONAL CARTOGRAPHY: EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEN RING

An intentional analysis of the natural systems of Chicago and the neighborhood revealed opportunities to treat the 95th Corridor as a pinnacle to the North within a larger green ring that surrounds the neighborhood and connects key community spaces such as a park to the South, a nature reserve to the Southeast, and additional untamed green spaces that could continue to develop into other community zones to the West. This green ring would not only connect these critical community spaces but also provide safe and comfortable paths for leisure and movement. Elements within the design of the 95th Corridor such as the “Paths to Play” as seen below could be applied to the design of the greater green ring to establish wayfinding along the route and provide comfort for rest. The borders of the site are mounted with small billboards which serve the dual purpose of maintaining the privacy of the homes from the roads but also as an important source of revenue from the advertisers to maintain the site.

WARD-7 PROPOSAL: THE GREEN RING

Green Ring Green Buffer on 95th St.

Embedded massing as noise buffer

Slowing down 95th st. Mixed-use to promote community

B. AMPHITHEATRE FOR ALL

The topographical play within the 95th Corridor was largely informed by the intention of providing careful moments for the built environment to coexist with the natural space and conditions which exist. This intention to coexist with the topography, tracks, and linearity of the site led to a design which morphs from highly repetitive lines which inform the “EMERGING” built elements to organic undulating paths which bend and shift based on the topography which inform the “EMBEDDED” built elements all while providing interesting paths and planes to enjoy the outdoors on hardscape as well as softscape such as the Ergonomic Mounds.

SITE PLAN: THE GREEN RING

EMERGING HOUSING RESIDENTIAL + COHOUSING APARTMENTS

STAY-PLAY-CREATE: HOUSING AND WORKSHOPS

TYPICAL UNIT PLAN: EMBEDDED HOUSING

The Embedded housing takes on many of the same characteristics in terms of adjacencies and sharing of spaces as the Emerging housing while adjusting better suit the nonrectilinear and partially embedded nature of the typology. As a result, instead of two units sharing a loggia, they share an internal courtyard which serves a double purpose as a lightwell and back entrance. Rather than having slatted “Inhabited windows” like the Emerging Housing, slat walls are present along the living room to provide privacy and shading. These units are specifically designed for artists who share the workshop spaces just across the pedestrian path. These workshops and Embedded units have a forward facing relationship and create a small community for creativity within this larger neighborhood oriented development. GROUND

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INTERIOR VIEW: EMBEDDED HOUSING

SECTIONAL ELEVATION: EMBEDDED HOUSING

EMERGING HOUSING RESIDENTIAL + COHOUSING APARTMENTS

The Emerging housing can be classified into two categories distinguished by their levels of shares (as denoted in the diagrams above and below in red). The Residential Apartments are typical apartments which are carefully calibrated so as to have some shared loggias which form opportunities to connect with neighbors as well an additional façade. The Cohousing Apartments take these shared loggias and scale them up in order to form large communal spaces for shared activities such as gathering and dining.

TYPICAL UNIT PLAN: RESIDENTIAL UNITS

TYPICAL UNIT PLAN: COHOUSING UNITS

One Bedroom

Two bedroom

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INHABITED WINDOWS

UNDER[surface] UPCYCLE

Upcycled Shelters under Austin’s Flyovers, Fall 2021 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students 2022 Award

Location: Austin, Texas

Project: AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition studio with Prof. Erik Hemingway, Fall 2021 Individual Project

The design is aimed at creating safe shelters and rehabilitation for the homeless under the Flyovers of Austin. The chosen site covers one such portion of the unused area under the flyover of over 68,000 square feet. In Austin, Texas incoming tech companies have led to many workers moving into the city leading to rising real estate prices and thereby rendering many people from the lower-income homeless.

Plastic panels and used steel scaffolding are used as a building material in the project. Apart from shelters for the homeless, pop-up clinics, cafeterias, workspaces, volunteer kiosks, a public gallery showcasing the history of the city, the country’s struggle with plastic and its use in the site, and small-scale recycling plants make the project self-sustainable. It also serves as an important education tool not only to the inhabitants but the visitors as well. Workspaces with required infrastructure serve the educated sections making up the homeless as useful resources while seeking jobs. Volunteer kiosks can be used for goodwill distribution of goods, to organize free workshops for the users, and various other purposes that will help bring the public and the homeless together. This is an important step in instilling trust in the homeless and giving them a role in the betterment of society.

Another overarching problem that the country is dealing with is the amount of plastic that is being dumped in the oceans. The floating mass of plastic that is twice the size of the state of Texas in the Pacific Ocean led to the research of using plastic as a building material. Numerous energy-saving strategies like heat pumps, kinetic tiles, water recycling, solar panels, solar tubes, and passive cooling methods are used to further the self-sustenance of the site. At the neighborhood level, ATES (Aquifer Thermal Energy Systems) are proposed at various spots to save heat underground. This can be used during the winters to power not only the site but the neighborhoods as well. This project’s goal is to transform what is considered waste into useful elements in society. It is an attempt to transform the derelict into desirable.

Juror Comments: Under[surface] Upcycle makes a playful yet earnest argument for using recycled materials as building elements. The project’s innovative and hopeful perspective carries through from its attention to detailing and integrated analysis to its inventivesolutionsforgeneratingenergyandeconomicdevelopmentfortheentireundersurfacecommunity.Theresultantapproachto reinvestinginundervaluedlandandpeoplefeelsfresh,originalandcompelling.

The shelter-less in Austin have always taken shelter under flyovers. The design brings their home to them instead of displacing them to a site elsewhere thereby decreasing carbon footprint. The diagram shows how resources can flow to and from these shelters and be self-sufficient. The design strategies to empower the community and recycle its resources are depicted through “envelopes”. These envelopes encapsulate each courtyard that is surrounded by shelters performing one or two functions. Each of these “envelopes” become a “Culture court” with shared functions and the people living around these courts become a community.

This site under the flyover has a walk score of 77, a transit score of 89, a bike score of 68, 82 covered parking spots (48% reduction by code), and 140 bike parking within the site. On-site food production for the cafeterias, goodwill clothing distribution by volunteers, and pop-up clinics are some of the other measures taken to create an equitable community. Billboards are erected on the sides of the site as privacy and a source of revenue from the advertisers. Pop-up clinics and volunteer organizations help in the empowerment and rehabilitation of its users.

THE APERTURE

First Place, ARCHON Award

Essential House in Volterra, Italy, Spring 2021’

The city of Volterra is a walled town on a mountainin Tuscany, Italy. Itss history dats to the 8th Century BC and has a rich collection of structures from the Etruscan and Roman eras. The city’s most noted place for sightseeing is the Roman Theatre, built in the st C, and was excavated in the 1950’s. Located on the Southwest side of the Roman Theatre is the site naturally raised at 15ft. above road level. The access to this road is through the Rossi family House on the West and the Florentine Gate on the East. the road between these to gates is mainly used by pedestrians to visit the ruinson the other side of the fort wall. The essential house attempts to preserve the ancient wall and the existingn vegetation on-site to firther the visual and phenomenological experience of the site.

The aperture is a home designed for a photographer on an elevated site, facing these Roman Ruins. The design takes advantage of being sevred an unhidered theatre view ona pedestal while also preserving its privacy and opening up large picture windows at different vantage points. The essential house works across three different levels in order to provide its user with three different view cones. The highest mass hovers over the site and encompasses the living and dining, the middle mass sits on the elevated site that has a bedroom with a orivate courtyard and the circulation stem. To further accentuate the floating mass above, the walls of the circulation stem and the bedroom are made transparent. This also creates an experience of moving amidst nature given its proximity to the courtyard. The lower mass sits underground, below the level of the pavement, and emerges on the other side serving a closer and more intimate view of the Etruscan valley and the ruins. This composition is encapsulated by the ancient wall that flanks the iste and folds in to guide the viewer’s eyes into the site and to the floating mass above.

The journey into the house begins at the circulation stem which then takes you up to the Living room or down to the studio. Both end with an expansive picture window and kinetic apertures serving views of the Roman ruins: one more panoramic, and the latter more intimate and grounded. The bedroom is given an intimate view of the private court which is flanked by the encient wall on the opposite side.

Location: Volterra, Italy

Project: Spring 2022 studio project with Prof. David Chasco Individual Project

Honorable Mention, Graduate Excellence Award

Three vantage points from elevated site

Extruded volumes facing these views.

SITE SECTION: SHOWING VIEW TO ETRUSCAN RUINS

Etruscan wall wrapping and anchoring floating volumes

Shutters opening up the solid volumes

Preliminary sketch of the aperture

ELEVATION: FROM ROMAN RUINS

ETRUSCAN WALL - WRAP

The highlight of the design, however, is the skin of the top and the bottom masses that disintegrate to provide panoramic views of the valley through the use of movable shutters. These shutters help in preserving the privacy due to their angles and provides the freedom to control the entry of natural light just like the shutters of a camera, thereby increasing or decreasing the aperture.

DHRUMA

Center for Indian Traditional Sports, Thesis 2019 Third Place, Architectural Thesis Award

India is home to a large multitude of cultures and festivals. These festivals are celebrated with large processions. Vernacular sports play a big role in these events but have been losing their importance in the country’s large cities. Many of these sports have potential to grow and the sportsmen have the capacity to master any modern-day international sport that is similar to the vernacular version.

‘Dhruma’ in sanskrit means ‘roots’. The thesis design is a training, housing and research facility that goes back to the roots of sports inIndia and expresses its importance to the visitors and users. Its location, Mysore, is a tier-2 city in Southern India that calebrates one of the country’s biggest festivals: Dussehra. A ten day long processional route that has a variety of sports events starts at the Mysore palace and attracts tourists from worls over. Dhruma is situated at the tail of the processional route to mark the end of the journey with an exaggerated entrance plaza.

The center attempts to empower and promote talented sportsmen from the villages and lower sections of the society and asserts the importance of the traditional sports played in India in order to popularize them again. The training center has indoor and outdoor sports complexes for training sportsmen and holding national tournaments. Its amphitheatre rises from the underground gymnasium’s green roof . The curved profile of the green roof that transitions into the seating for the amphitheatre allows greater seating capacity and a more informal setting for the users to relax. The hostel complex is designed in the tarditional step-well concept of Hindu temples to tie the geometric Indo-Sarcenic influence used in the sports complex.

Location: Mysore, India

Project: Undergraduate Thesis project with Prof. Pushpa Devanathan and Prof. Meghana K. Raj

Site Palace Water body NH33 State Highway

Chamundi Hills

Railway station Development Authority

Residential Commercial Parks and Open Spaces

Bus stops Railways Park pathways

Site Processional route Memorial Parks Museums

Road (18m)

Landscape

Pathway

Surroundings

Site Boundary Lake

The site’s backdrop is a beautiful lake and the majestic Chamundi hills. It is located at the center of all amenities. Dhruma is planned to have a central axis that starts with a pedestrian plaza and ends with one as well. An elevated main circulation road at the netrance and an elevated view point ensurethat pedestrian movememnt is not hindered. The planning and architecture follows an Indo-Sarcenic and Hindu temple architectural language

Indo Sarcenic Traditional Style Greco-Roman French Colonial Gothic Style

VIGNETTES: KEY SITE VIEWS

BLOCK 16 Gensler

Office Tower in Downtown Austin Gensler Summer 2022, Austin, TX

Location: San Jacinto Blvd. and Second Street, Austin

Design Team: David Lynch (Studio director), Christopher Curson (Project Architect), Luis Santi-Merayo (Design-director), Than Ly (Associate), Ximena Alayo Reyes (Architectural Designer)

Contributions: Drawings and specifications for curtain wall systems, ADA accessible restrooms, Revised drawings and preliminary renderings for discussion with consultants, 3D printed tower model, Graphic presentations and site observation.

The Block 16 is a 43-story office tower on the Eastern Edge of downtown Austin. Located on the North side of East Second Street and between San Jacinto Blvd. ad Trinity Street, the block is home to eateries. The project is expected to be completed in Spring 2026. The tower will feature a fitness center, meeting spaces, Food and Beverage spaces, a dog park among other amenities distributes across three levels. The design aims to provide an almost column-free workspace with 10’ high ceiling heights.

My role in the project involved testing curtain wall iterations and test different spandrel conditions to increase visibility. ADA accessible research and all-gender restroom layouts were tested on floor plates instead of regular stalls and gendered restrooms. We got in touch with curtain wall consultants to test different samples for the curtain wall. Revised drawings, and preliminary renders were made to test different interior and exterior treatment options. A 3-D printed model of the tower was also executed for the client. Other tasks included helping the team put design presentations together for client and consultant meetings, Graphic presentations and site observations of other ongoing Gensler high-rise projects to understand the design and scale.

The following work was completed during by Summer Internship with Gensler, Austin. All work is attributed to Gensler

AVIAN OBSERVATORY Gensler

Bird Blind /Pavillion in Pease Park Conservatory, Austin Intern Project, Gensler Summer 2022, Austin, TX

Location: Pease Park, Austin, TX

Design Team: Kais Bhandari, Chloe Jones, Sydney Heard

Contributions: Client meetings and site visits conducted, 3D model and Planning, Research on Energy efficient and cost effective materials, water conservation and recycling techniques, Presentation on Adobe Suite and concept diagrams.

The Avian Observatory is a Bird Blind in the West site of Pease Park. The park is home to migratory birds that come from South America in the winters. This park is hence home to several avian observers from children to retired people. The Conservancy expressed their need for a pavillion that not only serves as an observatory but also as a space that educates its visitors about the birds that make a home in the floodplain. Since the park has several Latin families as neighbors, a LatinX influece on the deisgn was also desired.

The pavillions were organized into pods of different sizes and housed different functons like education, meditating and observing. These individual pods that had a combination of slatted and solid walls helped maintain privacy and prevent the gathering of large number of people that in turn affects bird sightings. As the site lays on a floodplain, code required us to raise these pods on stilts giving the project a natural lotus-bud form. Each pods was connected by a winding bridge made from corten steel. This revealed interesting vantage points at different spots.

Materials like concrete with stained aggregates and corten steel were used to mimic the earthiness of Adobe and wood in Spanish architecture in South America. The interiors were made of mosaic ceramic tiles in vibrant colors reflecting the rich LatinX culture. In order to invite the birds closer to the pavillion, large umbrella tree-like canopies with vegetation covered each pod. These canopies were also combined with cisterns to store water that in turn helps feed the creepers on the canopy and the rain gardens.

The following work was completed during my Summer Internship with Gensler, Austin. All work is attributed to Gensler.

PLAN: OBSERVATORY LAYOUT

SOLID WALL

SLATTED WALL

PANORAMIC WALL HALF WALL

SLATTED WALLS

SECTION: CISTERN AND WATER CIRCULATION

The site’s backdrop is a beautiful lake and the majestic Chamundi hills. It is located at the center of all amenities. Dhruma is planned to have a central axis that starts with a pedestrian plaza and ends with one as well. An elevated main circulation road at the netrance and an elevated view point ensurethat pedestrian movememnt is not hindered. The planning and architecture follows an Indo-Sarcenic and Hindu temple architectural language