Subu Bhandari Portfolio

design portfolio

2016 - 2020 shubhekshya bhandari

SUBU

CONTENT UNDERGRADUATE THESIS SPRING 2019 IDENTITY CRISIS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE FALL 2018 MAGNETIC ATTRACTIONS INTEGRATIONS STUDIO FALL 2017 THE CLOUD PROGRAMMING FALL 2016 ARCHIVAL SUBCONSCIOUS CULTURE-LAB SPRING 2016

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IDENTITY - CRISIS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS / SPRING 2019 / ADVISED BY JENNIFER AKERMAN + MARSHALL PRADO DISTINGUISHED DESIGN AWARD

The artificiality of national borders have generated cycles of displacement, violent encounters, and diplomatic conflict.

National borders are physical, political, contested, heavily guarded, and have unnaturally divided people in past and present histories. This investigation focuses on the spectrum of social injustices occurring within border landscapes and the generational identity crisis it has caused.

Borders are products of conflicts, agreements, and embody painful histories.

They are hybrid conditions existing between lightly occupied and completely abandoned.

Its a site of juxtaposing and similar identities. “Identity-Crisis’ questions the spatial language of national borders and considers potential opportunities for physical, idealogical, and economical changes creating an economy generated by those displaced.

This investigation speculates the IndiaPakistan border as a case study questioning the role of the displaced individual in reclaiming control of their land and identity and history. The absurd origin and ongoing debate of land ownership has implemented an unnatural duality to a once united region. The 2000 mile border is physically inconsistent, and has yielded moments of ecological, and generational trauma. Three episodes have been choreographed as a response to the speculation, imagining the border swellings as programmatic sites of exchange establishing civilian control and generating a new identity.

Left : Visualizing conflicts, unnatural divisions, split territories and altered histories. Thar, Punjab, and Kashmir are split, almost perfectly. One religion to the left and another to the right. Deadend roads are marked with an X and instances of recorded violence and sites of protest are represented in red with an increase in density as one moves north along the border.

Three locations were chosen as case studies to host such interventions that disrupt existing normality of military and political control, allowing the displaced to find agency to re-claim their identity.

Three speculative episodes with their own typology, program, and characters set and operate a form of exchange. Each scene considers a reclaim of ownership, and birth of a off-spring identity of those constantly at risk because of the border.

Each episode reflects its immediate conditions addressing themes of cultural collisions, political and religious tensions, cross border interactions, methods of filtrations and self resilience.

THE THAR DESERT is occupied by the displaced citizen who chose to stay in ancestral territory. They are oppressed, frequently overlooked by their respectful government and lack basic resources. The border landscape is occupied by military agents, methods of territorial claim, Camel agents, and the tourist attracted towards Instagram worthy images. This episode facilitates exchanges ranging from home goods, to services in order to establish a self sufficient economy.

PUNJAB is the gateway for illegal substances and the occurrence of displaced farmers due to the roughly 400 feet buffer set by India.

The inconsistent border thickness, as well as locations of highly regulated farm lands is the site for illegal exchanges disguised by advanced farming techniques. This scenario imagines a site where displaced farmers have adapted to their restricted access and have established advance farming techniques that not only provide for nearby communities, but also becomes the main facilitator for illegal exchanges.

A question of identity, nationality, and territory - KASHMIR is the episode of the Kashmir stage. A space existing at the site of conflict. A stage under global speculation houses safe exchanges of ideas, thoughts, arts and cultures. The watchtower grows and occupies the thickness of the border maintaining division but allowing methods of visual and verbal exchanges. Existing among a gridded field of adaptive bomb shelters, the tower is the meeting place, addressing separate spaces, shared spaces, and the much needed dialogue between.

EPISODE ONE

/ This episode addresses different forms of trading of objects, services, resources, and people. The site occupies no mans land with a marketplace operated by its immediate occupants.

Site : A marketplace in the desert within nomans land, the region between two fences.

Characters : The to co-exist with remains trapped. food, water, and

Thar Desert inhabitants unable its respective nationality, They lack resources such as education

Watch tower : The watchtower is a threshold of entry into the market. Different checkpoints serve as entrances to different markets.

Plot : Arrival by train only.

The existing two-train system facilitates the arrival and departure of civilians. All participants of the trade must proceed through the appropriated watch-tower transformed into a threshold of entry.

Level 1 : the common marketplace with tents, stalls, and vendors with mobile goods to sell or trade.

Level 2 : a semi-permanent structure able for claim by the slightly powerful. Possible programs include tailors, artists, poetry chief, salon.

Level 3+ - a system and form that has a radial organization system, allowing for future growth.

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LANDSCAPE SCALE

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WATCHTOWER SCALE

The program becomes a growing process that reflects immediate needs. Form is unpredictable and structure acts as the only evidence of permanence. It is the foundation that welcomes vendors, healers, priests, shoppers to establish their market, build something permanent or dissemble any evidence of habitation.

A possible future exists with programs arranged by types of trade and the nature of its occupancy. Temporary markets with a daily clock lack organization and is spatially allowed to regroup on a daily basis. Permanent services and practices are able to exist within a structured space.

This is not any end result, it is a moment in time that reflects the current state of the market.

All of the program floats above the natural desert landscape to allow existing pathways of wildlife to flow through. One character, the camel exist as main agents of transportation across borders bringing supplies to military personnel.

EPISODE TWO

/ Punjab is the gateway for illegal substances and the occurrence of displaced farmlands due to the roughly 400 feet buffer set by India.

The inconsistent border thickness, as well as locations of highly regulated farm lands is the site for this episode.

This episode imagines the border thickness condition as a adaptive farming region facilitated by illegal exchanges. An economy generated by overlooked networks, illegal systems, and landscape misreadings. The role and influence of authority if overlooked as the farmer adapts to political obstructions resulting in a region of “adaptive farming.”

The result is an alternate economy operated under post-displaced farmers retaliating against the systems imposed against them. The farmer, whose farmlands exist within the border has established methods of secret trade, using the watchtower, which was once a tool for power is transformed into anchors of resistance.

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LANDSCAPE SCALE

A program initiated to adapt to restrictions grows into the controller of border transactions.

Farming machines, and other low maintenance practices occupy the border and is read as a normal condition benefiting landowners, however underground networks, usually overlooked are the main actors and facilitators of multiple underground exchanges.

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WATCHTOWER SCALE

Methods of Distraction / Center pivot irrigation systems, reflection methods, and underground channel networks are all main agents facilitating and surveying illegal movements and trade.

Watchtower Skeleton / Existing watchtowers become foundations for re-appropriating to function towards the needs of the displaced farmer.

As the watchtower transitions into opportunity for inhabitation, programs are introduced replicating traces of normality within a absurd landscape is implemented through single plots for inhabitants of the towers.

EPISODE THREE

/ This episode addresses the weaving of issues occurring in Kashmir in relation to youth identity, freedom of existence, and mending of broken communities through a series of stages of different scales and programs. The site exists around the border at locations surrounded by political tensions. It becomes a site of speculation under the global microscope. Those displaced can be seen and herd.

Characters such as youth protesters, military personnel, and displaced families migrate to the site as tensions climax, as a method to actively participate in their own representation to battle the systems of oppression against them.

The watchtower, when occupied represents escalated tensions between India and Pakistan and when abandoned remains as memorial of the conflict. During occupation, the structure and its immediate landscape is a zone of safety. Bomb shelters become homes, and the tower becomes a beacon of stages for expression and communication.

Occupation is a direct reflection of the political relationship between India and Pakistan and the effects of it on the Kashmir civilian.

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WATCHTOWER SCALE

Military authority is challenged as the watchtower grows under the global spectacle. Traces of normality is introduced through bomb shelter homes, “temporary” markets and other forms of leisure. It is a place of constant tension and stage vocalizing struggle and violations to human rights.

The resulting architecture “designed” by the civilian. The result memorializes the conflict and struggles that are faced on a daily basis.

The watchtower is isolated from its landscape, however a duality is still expressed through different methods of building and adapting. Existing traces of military occupation has been transformed into methods of vertical circulation.

A systematic chaos exists by the nonarchitects choices based on necessity.

Methods for sustainable habitations in a war zone, stages for representation, methods for cross border communication and infrastructure to allow speculation from global audiences are programmatic elements of the watchtower.

MAGNETIC

ATTRACTIONS

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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE STUDIO / FALL 2018 / ADVISED BY ANDREW MADL / IN COLLABORATION WITH FERNANDO TURPIN

TENNESSEE ASLA MERIT AWARD

- GENERAL DESIGN

Magnetic Attraction frames a spatial intervention and an habitat introduction to recalibrate the movements and nesting sites of sandhill cranes, steering them away from urban sites and towards ‘ideal’ locations within Ocala National Forest.

Pine Castle bombing range, its peripheral landscape and weekly military test bombings plays a major role in reshaping the landscape.

It is a collision zone where micro-controlled military regimes collide with unpredictable bird migration patterns. By embodying this dynamic relationship, the atmospheric volume engages with the landscape in a choreographic system of habitat growth cycles.

Florida’s exaggerated landscape is molded and reshaped by retooling these military regimes to strategically bomb “ideal” zones, reforming the landscape into ideal attractions for Sandhill crane.

left : a map of potential collisions between migratory bird patterns, the pilot community of central Florida and density of noise pollution.

Three year Ocala Marshland - Dormant to activated s

Three year Ocala Forest burning, restoration, and c

succession plan

clustered delineation plan

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phases of planting and regeneration

The landscape evolves into a living system of cycles constantly rotating in state with burning, planting, and habitat regenerations.

The drawings to the left show how this new regime is integrated into the existing landscape and how it will grow over time.

Phase One _ Using grasshopper proximities, land between bodies of scattered water marshes are strategically bombed through re-calibrated military pathways. Through repetition and time, water-channels are formed resulting in a large network of water bodies.

Phase Two _ With the extraction of land mass, mounds are formed and planted with appropriate vegetation to sustain and provide ideal foraging conditions for sandhill Cranes.

Phase Three _ After the manipulation of the landscape and plantings, the new vegetation is maintained through existing maintenance methods such as controlled burning to regenerate plantings.

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in-process site The instance shown is one moment in time of a repeated cycle. Water networks have been developed through constant bombings, mounds have been formed due to the extraction of land mass, and controlled burning routines have been established.

While infrastructure has been implemented for maintenance purposes the question of introducing the spectator came into play. Opportunities for observations exists however is there a need to introduce an audience to witness the composition?

the cloud - a l

ab for cisco

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INTEGRATIONS STUDIO / FALL 2017 / ADVISED BY JAMES ROSE COLLABORATION WITH E.OTT + S.BROWN Inspired by physical and metaphorical qualities of a cloud, the design for this laboratory is focused on creating a beacon to a disregarded site on the peripherals of University of Tennessee. “The Cloud” is a transparent laboratory space focuses on introducing new levels of transparency between the scientific community at the University of Tennessee and the people of Knoxville.

Cherokee farm, a newly acquired research park near the University of Tennessee lacks a sense of identity and attraction. The design intent acts as a lantern attracting a crowd outside of the usual research family.

The Cloud has a double enclosure system with a interior curtain wall surrounded by a perforated aluminum facade to minimize heat gain and fully embody the cloud aesthetic. Perforations of the facade vary according to levels of sight, allowing an appropriate amount of light into the exterior as well as views out onto the Tennessee River.

Multiple layers of transparency and identity is reinforced with a celebrated circulation system.

Two ribbons of yellow stair tunnels circulate around the exterior. Although hidden by the facade during the day, at night it illuminates the area.

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site relations

To encourage spectators into the area, we pushed back the first level enclosure and minimized the footprint. A shaded plaza with seating becomes anchors for social engagement.

Few key moments of punctures are placed, highlighting hierarchy of spaces, and connecting the interior with the exterior landscape.

Typical Floor Plan

Relationships between the main office space, the core, and the 5’ cloud circulation.

ARCHIVAL S

UBCONSCIOUS

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PROGRAMMING STUDIO / FALL 2016 / ADVISED BY MARK STANLEY

An investigation revolving around the human subconscious reactions towards daily visual encounters. The “blur” in relation to memory is defined as the realms of all our daily forgotten interactions, our long term forgotten memories, and the manipulation of past memories shaped by older generations.

Archival subconscious archives all human memories on Pier 57, a void within the southwest edge of Manhattan. As a living system, human memory is stored as data and virtually transformed into a visual gallery of interactive projections.

The design creates multiple experiential sequences. As a spectator enters the archive, they are led towards specific circulation pathways that frequently collide and intersect. Layouts are organized to allow wandering and getting lost.

The longer the system is ran, the more information gets collected, as those who once were spectators, become the subject of observance.

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SEQUENCE relations

The form of the archive focuses on few “strands” hat intersect one another at critical points.

The weaving form mimics the interactions of different memories coming together into one.

All data is extracted. All data is saved. All data has chance to become manipulated, and reformatted.

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N63 E931

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CULTURE-LAB

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ADVISED BY B.AMBROZIAK + D MATTHEWS COLLABORATION WITH K.JOHANNES + O.MONROE + A.GREEN

Can armor be a cage?

Can a cage act as a protective shield?

Is the second skin a form of protection from the exterior or fragmented residue representing the interior?

“Fragmented Enclosure” is a series of containment prototypes constructed to study relationships between predictable controls and unpredictable natures. Is it better to completely cage elements or to embrace the “free spirit” within? Multiple studies were constructed to better understand relations between the object, the mold, and the interactions that occur between them.

Same form. Same body, A exterior skin is introduced as armor, contouring the natural figure. This forged defense responds emotionally and physically to the body. A firm shell keeps the spine upright an unable to freely move.

Vulnerability is masked and the identity within, whether ugly or beautiful is expressed.

RESTRICTIVE PROTOTYPES