PORTFOLIO | Sourav Kumar Biswas

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