Anita Kan

Firm: StudioPM
Location: Boston.
Year founded: 2013
Leadership: Megan Panzano (founder)
Education: B.A., Yale University; M.Arch., Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD)
Firm size: 1 (plus a trusted array of fabricators and collaborators as project needs require).

Experience:
I worked closely with both Bob Venturi, FAIA, and Denise Scott Brown, Hon. FAIA, at the former Venturi Scott Brown + Associates [now VSBA Architects and Planners], in Philadelphia, after college and then designed projects across scales at Utile, in Boston. I currently teach and coordinate terms in both graduate and undergraduate programs at Harvard GSD.

Mission:
Leveraging “the edge.” The practice consistently identifies projects that carry a degree of change and instability with them. These projects often hail from “the edge,” occupying physical sites of as-yet undefined space at the urban margins. The contingencies specific to each project are often rescued from what may be considered the periphery of architecture and are centralized as a primary architectural engine.

Interplay Philly, a submission in collaboration with Seher Erdogan Ford, AIA, to the 2016 Philadelphia Community Design Collaborative competition to invigorate the city’s underutilized urban sites, envisioned a space for play and community engagement that incorporates climbing structures, murals, and existing amenities.
courtesy StudioPM Interplay Philly, a submission in collaboration with Seher Erdogan Ford, AIA, to the 2016 Philadelphia Community Design Collaborative competition to invigorate the city’s underutilized urban sites, envisioned a space for play and community engagement that incorporates climbing structures, murals, and existing amenities.
courtesy StudioPM
courtesy StudioPM

Memorable learning experience:
In 2005, I learned how Bob Venturi really feels about landscape from a bold message he wrote to me in his classic, black Pentel Sign Pen on yellow ruled paper, the contents of which I cannot share here ...

Design tool of choice:
Adobe Illustrator. I am an old-school, what-you-see-is-what-you-get fan and often luxuriate in line-weight-heavy drawings that I sheet-feed print and layer up.

Designed to complement the style of its landmarked neighborhood in New Jersey’s Cape May, the Stowaway House will host both guests and beach gear, the latter of which will occupy storage spaces defined by the rhythm of the wood frame structure.
courtesy StudioPM Designed to complement the style of its landmarked neighborhood in New Jersey’s Cape May, the Stowaway House will host both guests and beach gear, the latter of which will occupy storage spaces defined by the rhythm of the wood frame structure.

Favorite project:
The Stowaway House, in Cape May, N.J., because it extends my research interests of the architecture of spaces for object collection and their potential perceptions into a real project.

The STS Master Plan+ for Save That Stuff, in Boston, uses shading to distinguish vehicular and pedestrian pathways and identifies neighboring space for future expansion.
courtesy StudioPM The STS Master Plan+ for Save That Stuff, in Boston, uses shading to distinguish vehicular and pedestrian pathways and identifies neighboring space for future expansion.

Second favorite project:
I did a series of small design charrettes for Boston recycling company Save That Stuff. Our collaboration is an enjoyable, ongoing evolution in scale, speed, and communication of its ethos through design solutions .

Skills to master:
Distillation (I’m trying).

BMW Inspired Housing was influenced by the shape-shifting BMW Gina Light Visionary Model car, skinned in elastic fabric in lieu of sheet metal. The modular walls of the living units can be stacked and customized, allowing variations in lighting, form, and apertures.
Courtesy Megan Panzano BMW Inspired Housing was influenced by the shape-shifting BMW Gina Light Visionary Model car, skinned in elastic fabric in lieu of sheet metal. The modular walls of the living units can be stacked and customized, allowing variations in lighting, form, and apertures.
Courtesy Megan Panzano

Architecture hero:
I’m re-obsessed with John Hejduk for his simultaneous smarts, originality, and clear commitment to personal evolution as a designer.

Special item in your studio space:
Heat-sensitive, hypercolor thinking putty.

The design for Harvard GSD’s fall 2015 exhibition “Living Anatomy” featured aluminum and plexiglass panels that let visitors see other sections of the gallery.
Justin Knight The design for Harvard GSD’s fall 2015 exhibition “Living Anatomy” featured aluminum and plexiglass panels that let visitors see other sections of the gallery.
Justin Knight
courtesy StudioPM

Morning person or night owl:
The morning is for idea concocting while the evening is for exploring the potential of those ideas that have been churning throughout the day.

Social media platform of choice:
Twitter for work, but Instagram for life.

Panzano was lead exhibit designer and contributor for graphics, layout, and production of the 2009 exhibit “Patterns: Cases in Synthetic Intelligence” at Harvard GSD. Though distorted with optical effects, the repetition of shapes still creates an aesthetic whole.
courtesy StudioPM Panzano was lead exhibit designer and contributor for graphics, layout, and production of the 2009 exhibit “Patterns: Cases in Synthetic Intelligence” at Harvard GSD. Though distorted with optical effects, the repetition of shapes still creates an aesthetic whole.
courtesy StudioPM

Superstition:
I have to listen to the song “In the Light” by Led Zeppelin before I give a presentation.

Vice:
Spying.