Selected Works 2024

YIFAN SHEN Selected Works 2022-2024 Syracuse University B.Arch '25

Yifan Shen (Ivan)

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

EDUCATION

Syracuse University, School of Architecture Syracuse, NY GPA: 3.99/4.0 | Design GPA: 4.0/4.0 | Bachelor of Architecture '25 | Music History and Cultures Major Syracuse Architecture Florence Center, Spring 2023 | Syracuse Architecture London Center, Fall 2023 Renée Crown Honors Candidate | Music Performance Minor

WORK

Architectural Intern, SalazarSequeroMedina Working with the three partners of SSM on a public space rennovation proposal for the Concéntrico Festival in Logroño, Spain.

Dec. 2023 - Feb. 2024, Madrid, Spain. Working remotely & Syracuse Architectural Intern, General Architecture Collaborative Working on exhibition drawings and worked on competition diagrams for GAC, a nonprofit practice doing equitable and educational projects for the Rwandan people.

Aug. 2023, Jan. 2024, Kigali, Rwanda on site and Syracuse Design Intern, Material Archi-Tectonic Research Lab Working in a team on developing modular dwelling unit in "tetrahedron" geometry.

May 2023 - present, Remote Architectural Intern, Workshop/APD Worked on design development and construction administration stages of single-family and mid-rise residential projects. NCARB 664 hours completed.

Jun. 2022 - Aug. 2022, New York City, NY Architectural Intern, Virtuarch Co., Ltd Worked at the conceptual design stage on multiple educational projects in China. Participated in the full process of the Taizhou Cathedral Renovation.

Jul. 2020 - Jan. 2021, Shanghai, China Photographer, MILLIONS Architects Summer 2022, Los Angeles, CA, remote

RESEARCH

Research Fellow, the SOURCE Project titled "Re-Imaging the Informal Settlements in Kigali." Included a one-month field survey in Rwanda.

2023-2024, Syracuse University Sponsored Kaish Fellow, Syracuse University Art Museum Recipient of the annual research and artistic fellowship to curate an exhibition at the SU Art Museum 2023 - 2024 Research Assistant, Syracuse Center of Excellence Assisted Professor Bess Krietemeyer on a net-zero housing retrofit strategy development project.

Collaborated with senior architects, structural engineers, contractors.

June 2022 - June 2023, Syracuse, NY Research Assistant, Biodiversity Corridor Assisted Julia Czerniak, Dean of University in Buffalo Architecture, on a biodiversity research project.

Summer, 2022, Syracuse ,NY

SKILLS

Proficient: Revit, Rhino, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Twinmotion, Acrobat, Microsoft Suite, Cubase, Adobe Audition, QGIS Intermediate: Sketchup, Enscape, Vray for Rhino, Bluebeam Revu, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, Premier Pro, Procreate, ArcGIS, Grasshopper Craft: Lasercut, 3D Printing, CNC Milling, Casting, Basic Woodwork Native or bilingual proficiency: English / Chinese Working Proficiency: Italian

POSITIONS

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen Design Team Chair, The National Organization of Minority Student (NOMA), Syracuse Chapter 2022, 2024, Syracuse University Global Ambassador, Syracuse University June 2023 - present Editor, Architecture Media Team Independently managed the official instagram accounts of Syracuse Architecture (Main, London, Florence) Sep. 2021 - present, Syracuse, Florence, and London.

Elected Representative, DEIA Committee 2021-2022, Syracuse University

EXHIBITIONS & PUBLICATIONS

Exhibition at The Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) Contributed to the drawings and videos of an exhibition titled "Net Zero Energy Retrofit Living Lab Exhibition."

Nov. 2023 - Jan. 2024 Syracuse, NY Journal Article, The Crown Research Essay titled "The Regime and the Opera House" published in the inagural issue of Syracuse student research journal, The Crown.

December 2023, Syracuse, NY Le Isole, Exhibition at Palazzo Donatello Curated a brief public exhibition of student projects related to Islands with a four-person curatorial team.

May 2023, Florence, Italy Resonating Landscape, Exhibition at Syracuse University Art Museum (forthcoming) An individually curated exhibition as part of the Kaish Fellowship. The exhibition will showcase music interpreted from landscape paintings in the Museum's collection.

May 2024, Syracuse, NY Housing in Rwanda, Slocum Hall (forthcoming) Contribute to a composite illustration about Rwandan history as part of an exhibition curated by General Architecture Collaborative led by Professor Yutaka Sho. Spring 2024, Syracuse, NY

AWARDS

Honorable Mention (4th Place) NOMA Student National Competition Led a 10-people design team and submitted a proposal titled "Between the Land and Memory."

Oct. 2022, NOMA, Nashville, TN Honorable Mention LA Affordable Housing Challenge Feb. 2024, The Bee Breeders Recipient Peter J. Moore Award for excellence in architecture sketching, 2023-2024 Recipient Doug Whitney '80 School of Architecture Global Experience Award, 2023-2024 Finalist Timber Pavilion competition, The Buildner, 2022 Finalist The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial Competition,The Buildner, 2021 Finalist Humble Architecture: Public Bathroom for Mount Everest Climbers, The buildner, 2021 Recipient Maxwell Citizenship Scholarship, 2020-2024

TEACHING

Undergrad. Teaching Fellow, Second-year Architecture Studio, Architecture Theory Fall 2022, Spring 2024, Syracuse University Teaching Assistant, Summer College Led a 15-student session in an architecture foundation course. Delivered desk-crits and tutorials.

Summer 2023, Syracuse University Academic Tutor, Building System I & II, Arch. Representation I & II, Arch. History I & II 2021 - present, Syracuse University

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

SELECTED PROJECTS 01

FARMING DEPOT CITY December 2023 | Syracuse Architecture London Studio Instructor: Amber Bartosh and Vanessa Lastrucci

02

CO-HABITAT for REFUGEES AND THE VOLUN-TOURISTS May 2023 | Syracuse Architecture Florence Studio Instructor: Luca Ponsi from Studio Ponsi

03

HOUSING for LA 2028 May 2023 | Syracuse Architecture Florence Studio Partners: Nicholas Chung, Peiyu Luo

04

INFRASTRUCTURE for BIODIVERSITY May 2022. Second-year Design Studio Project.

Instructor: Laura Salazar from SalazarSequeroMedina

05

PROFESSIONAL WORK SalazarSequeroMedina | MATR Lab (Daekwon Park) General Architecture Collaborative | Workshop / APD

The Collective Urban Farming Depot is conceptualized as a radical solution and a contested urban fantasy. Through provocatively choreographing the food system and public participation on a limited site footprint, the project attempts to open up a discussion regarding London's food insecurity, machine production, and human relation to land.

The farming depot collapses the whole food production process from a territorial scale to our site. Using the vertical farming strategy, we turn an abandoned site into a food production machine to make urban farms a considerable

food source. The form is optimized to maximize the growing area. Sowing, growing, harvesting, retailing, and composting are all integrated into the megastructure.

With the capacity of the farming depot structure, the site becomes a landmark, just like the British Museum and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, attracting citizens and tourists across the city. Farming becomes a mass recreation activity alongside visiting art galleries, museums, and theatres.

Highgate, London, UK. December, 2023. In Collaboration with Yue Zhuo, Fei Xiong.

FARMING DEPOT CITY

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

01

Map of London's Food System. Lower-Left: Map of food transportation in Highgate Neighborhood.

FARMING

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

QGIS+Grasshopper Visualization of London's demographics/farmland distribution

01

Map of food transportation in Highgate Neighborhood.

FARMING

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Left: Circulation to the bottom of the Valley goes before and behind the farming decks Right: Bottom of the valley is a public ground where people can operate on their planting modules.

01

The Monumental Urban Farming Valley

FARMING

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Behind the Farming Decks, Machines Supports the Operation of the Farming Depot.

01

The implementation of machine and digital technology makes managing the farming depot as easy and enjoyable as online shopping

FARMING

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

A critical montage, imagining the scalability of this proposal throughout different parts of the city - in this case, attached to a facade.

01

Co-habitat for Refugees and the Volun-Tourist is a provocative response to a current day crisis - the increase of refugees and the neglectance to the refugees. We decide to Operate on a pre-existing infrastructural typology: Hotspots, which is the first arrival facility in which refugees are detained for weeks to months waiting to be censored and obtain a legal status. The poor condition of ‘hotspots’ lack of privacy, hygiene, cultural activity and public space.

Given the strong duality of Tourist / Refugees, this project serves as

an attraction for both, a space for short-term stay for both the two groups, maintaining the original function of a hotspot but also allowing cultural exchange between the two groups. It is conceptualized as a self-sufficient machine, culturally and economically. As a cultural center and a hotel to tourist, they will voluntarily pay for the lodging for a short period of time, which generates revenue to support the hotspot’s operational cost. The tourist and refugees will spend a short amount of time, ranging from days to one or two weeks and enjoy a decent and enriching quality of life in this transitional time.

Marsala, Sicily, Italy. May, 2023. In Collaboration with Tianchonghui Fang

CO-HABITAT FOR THE REFUGEES AND TOURISTS

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

02

The Voyage

The Arrival

Life in a "Hotspot", the censorship facility

Top: Collages showing the journy of the refugees to Italy across the sea.

Bottom: A conceptual triptich imaging the encounter between the refugees and the volunteer tourists.

CO-HABITAT

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Refugees' Arrival Portal from Sea

Shared Check-in Desks to the Living Space

The volunteer tourists arrives from a separate entrance facing the city, also need to be registered to become a paid transient resdient of the Co-habitat.

Entrance for Tourists

Within the Co-Habitat, identities are blurred to create a sense of equality, as the two groups will share the exact same public space and service, and they live in the same standard of dwelling units.

Multi-Faith Chapel

The refugees arrives from the sea and goes through necessary Registrations, but then immediately provided with medical care.

Hospital Beds for the Refugees

Performance Venue

Library & Immigration Archive

Modular Living Units, to be expanded

Sports Venue

Within the Co-Habitat, multiple cultural infrastructure are in place to foster interactions between the refugees and tourists. The two groups are provided with opportunities to learn from each other.

Classroom for Cultural Exchange

Public Bath

Communal Kitchen

The refugees are provided with legal workshops and instructive sessions on how to make a living after exiting the cohabitat. Eventually, the tourists and refugees share the same exit, both need to go through the border control to leave the facility..

One-on-one Legal Consulting Room

Check-out Security Counters for both Refugees and Tourists

Exit of the Building, Entrance to the EU

02

Top: Cross Section, Cutting through from the left to right: The Public Facade, Dwelling Units, Private "Wall" Bottom: Floor Plan Mimicing a Dock

CO-HABITAT

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Physical Model, photo taken by Yifan Shen in Florence

02

Section as a re-interpretation of the typical PLAN of Refugee Hotspot

CO-HABITAT

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

02

Tectonic Study Physical Model

CO-HABITAT

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Render, View upon the Refugee's Arrival

02

Located in Inglewood, LA, this scalable proposal is adjacent to the So-Fi stadium, which will host the Olympic Games in 2028. Addressing the gentrification as a result of the new urban developments in the neighborhood alongside the Olympics, our proposal provides an alternative housing model that is affordable, co-operative, and adaptable.

Affordability does not only refer to a design and construction process that adheres to economies of scale, but also extends into the

building’s post-occupancy life cycle through a sustainable standard of living. Each module has 32 residential units and 8 shared spaces for living rooms, recreation, and locally owned businesses. By isolating elements and services that residents could share, they can be taken out of the individual units and placed in the communal spaces. This generates organic interaction whilst lowering cost of living, allowing for both existing Inglewood locals to remain and young people to enter the housing market (there are numerous universities and colleges nearby in Westchester).

Los Angeles, CA, USA. December, 2023. Team: Nicholas Chung, Peiyu Luo

HOUSING FOR LA 2028

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

03

changing character

unaffordable reduced belongingness renewal

er

unaffordable reduced belongingness renewal

ordable wal ness

stment, rasa, ement, ainable

disinvestment, tabula rasa, displacement, unsustainable

increased risk of displacement

existing demolition

“gentrification” disinvestment, tabula rasa, displacement, increased risk of displacement unsustainable

construction embodied carbon

histori

existing disinvestment

“re historic conditions

“gentrification” +

“renewal”

+ Type 1 + 5 Mixed Use

RD5

One-Family Dwellings, Two-Family Dwellings, 1. Olympics 2028 & K Line Apartment Houses, Multiple Dwellings, Inglewood and Westchester, neighborhoods in greater Home Occupations Los Angeles, are experiencing gentrification driven by the RD5 completion of the So-Fi Stadium in Inglewood. The latter, One-Family Dwellings, predominantly occupied by depots and warehouses slated Two-Family Dwellings, for demolition, is crucial for the new K-Line, which enhances Apartment Houses, connectivity with downtown Los Angeles. However, concerns Multiple Dwellings, arise as these developments may displace at-risk communities.

Home Occupations

amily Dwellings, amily Dwellings, ment Houses, e Dwellings, Occupations

C1

2. Displacement & “Gentrification Building” In 2021, Inglewood proposed rezoning its periphery for a transit-oriented development near Westchester/Veterans Station. The plan aimed to transform auto-industry warehouses into mixed-use residential zones, including a Commercial Corridor. This shift signals the start of gentrification in a historically low-income neighborhood, often seen through ‘Type 1+5 Gentrification Buildings.’ These structures, prevalent in many U.S. cities, feature a concrete base for commercial spaces (Type-1) and engineered mass timber for residential areas (Type-5).

limited commercial

C1

limited commercial

extension

commercial

stand-alone 3. Reuse (1) + Inserted Module (5)

4. + Community

“gentrification building” 1+5 atrium

generic 1+5 typology: concrete base with wood frame construction above

Proposing an affordable housing model as an alternative to the One of the major challenges of transplanting existing communities Gentrification Building, our 1+5 design suggests adaptively reusing into a new site is the loss of their material urban node, as such we “gentrification 1+5 elements that residents warehouses for a reinforced commercial base. The housing propose the addition building” of architectural module, which is a freestanding superstructure of engineered can orbit around in recreating a sense of belonging. These nuclei 1+5 typology: concrete mass timber, offers a cost-effective and sustainable solution. The includegeneric vertical circulation, shared base balconies, common amenities, with wood frame construction above structure mimics the aesthetics and tectonic efficiency of stadium open commons, and recreation programming.

As an alternative to spaceframe designs that are popularized in the area. Open floor ‘+community’ into the ‘1+5’ scheme, the freestanding housing module plans around an atrium enable flexible modular interiors, responding can also attach onto or be implanted into existing communities. to changing demographic needs. Combining these modules creates “gentrification prop a promenade, connecting city blocks. This innovative 1+5 strategy building” 1+5 counters gentrification while destigmatizing ‘Type 1+5’ buidlings. generic 1+5 typology: concrete base upcyc with wood frame construction above structure re

HOUSING

“gentrification building” 1+5

proposed alternative

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

The Public Atrium

03

2B2B

Public Facade

HOUSING

hostel

Communal Living Room

gym

bodega

Configured as a Private Room

Olympics Village

e

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

garden

clinic

resturant

retail

1B1B

swap

Domestic Hearth + Kit of Parts

Sustainablity, Affordability & Hybrid Use

03

The project is conceptualized as an infrastructure for wildlife and human as well as a piece of land art. It is located at Catskill, New York. Catskills. The project challenges the idea of a 'wildlife preserve' as a closed-off system. It promotes the co-existence of benign human activities and a safe migration pathway of multiple wildlife species.

Catskill, NY, US. May, 2022. Individual Work.

The infrastructure crosses over the railroad, providing a bridge for both migrating animals and humans. Soil is piled on top of the roof to form a wildlife overpass. The form of the building softens the steep curve of the slope to encourage animals to go outside or inside the preserve.

INFRASTRUCTURE FOR WILDLIFE CROSSING

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

(deciduous trees)

Amtrak Maple Leaf Express

Rogers Island Wildlife Management Area (shrubs)

Wildlife funnel area dock Hudson River Skywalk

corridor / wall

04

Illutrated Cartographies, Showing the Separation of Landscape by the Railroad.

Top: Wildlife Reserves in Catskill as Fragments. Bottom: Site Situation

INFRASTRUCTURE

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Top: Conceptual Collage of Bridging Landscape / Tectonic Study Bottom: Massing Model, with wood, earth, plaster.

04

Top: Cross Section Model. Bottom: Physical Interior Model

INFRASTRUCTURE

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Top: Axonometric of the Territory. Bottom: Ground floor plan/upper level plan

04

Proposal for Concentrico Festival 2024. in collaboration with the principles of SSM.

SalazarSequeroMedina, Madrid, Spain Time: December 2023 - Febuary 2024 Work Type: Long-term Urban Rennovation Competition

Drawings and renders for a primary school in collaboration with Yue Zhuo

General Architecture Collaborative, Rwanda Time: June - December, 2020.

Work Type: Long-term Urban Rennovation, Design Research

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

yshen02@syr.edu | issuu.com/yifan_shen

Dulwich International School Beijing Campus

Altar of Taizhou Cathedral. Designed independently, built.

Virtuarch. Co, Shanghai, China Time: June - December, 2020.

Work Type: Educational, Religious

Apartment Rennovation in Miami. Plan drawn in Revit.

Tent prototyping in Rhino and Grasshopper

Workshop / APD, New York City

MATR Lab, Syracuse, NY

Time: June 2022 - August 2022 Work Type: Residential

Time: June 2023 - Present.

Work Type: Micro Architecture, supervised by Daekwon Park