Role: Alumni

Nathan Shakura designs systems components and manages production at the LASG studio. Nathan is currently completing a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design at OCAD University. As a designer, he is interested in small scale woodworking and wood construction, and design as a tool for social change.

Ellie Hayden is the Operations Director at the LASG, steering and overseeing grant applications, project leads, LASG partner and studentship relations, and administrative affairs. Before joining the LASG team, Ellie worked for three of Toronto’s Business Improvement Areas where she liaised with local business owners and city officials to orchestrate a series of community-based public art and streetscaping projects. Ellie’s academic background is in Civil Engineering and Sustainable Development, though her passion lies in community engagement with public space. She holds a BASc in Integrated Social Science and Engineering from Lehigh University, and hopes to pursue a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture in the future.

In his past work with the LASG, Nathanael worked mainly on the industrial design of sculpture components as well as their manufacturing. A main area of focus was updating LED light housings and developing robust heat sinking to extend their lifespans. He also worked on redesigning existing stainless steel cutting patterns of sculptural components for use in permanent installations. In particular, Nathanael developed new forming tools which expedited production.

Nathanael completed his Masters of Architecture at the University of Waterloo in 2021, undertaking thesis research that explored how people interact with the things around them and how we can better teach repair, maintenance, and troubleshooting skills, as well as design items that defy planned obsolescence. Through taking things apart, making tools, and unifying both of those activities to make ‘good stuff’, he lays out how we can change modern material culture for the better.

Thesis: Let’s Make Good Stuff: Combatting planned obsolescence and junk by relearning repair, maintenance, and personal agency over the things around us

Nikola Miloradovic has worked on a variety of permanent and temporary test-beds around the world including Meander, Chun Long Tiao ‘Spring Dragon Tail’, Sentient Chamber, Transforming Space: Aegis and Noosphere, Anthozoan Veil, Aletheia, Futurium Noosphere, Threshold, and Nebula Prototype: Liminal Architecture. Nikola is involved in many steps of the design process including modeling, prototyping, fabrication, visualization, and installation. He is a graduate of the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and is completing his Master of Architecture at the Architectural Association in London, where his research focuses on the leftover spaces of London and potential counter-values to the highly commercial inner-city built landscape.

Mark Francis was responsible for the on-site direction of installations for the LASG/PBSI studio. Along with numerous smaller projects, he carried this responsibility for Amatria at Indiana University, Transforming Space at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Noosphere at the Futurium in Berlin, Germany, Radiant Soil in Daejeon, South Korea, and Meander at Tapestry Hall, Cambridge, Ontario. His training includes an M. Arch. degree from UBC and a B. F. A. from York University. He continues to maintain an independent art practice in parallel with his professional work.

Muhammad Tahir Pervaiz served an extended studentship with the LASG during which he produced a thesis that focused on the underlying geometric form-language currently used within studio scaffolds. His thesis Mediation: Resonating Between the Organic and Inorganic at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture includes historical references that expand the context of LASG research-creation. His academic research focused on evolved geometries and form languages, and the relations ‘in-between’ inherent polarities in nature; the organic and the inorganic, conceiving of deep relationships between individual parts and wholes. His work included a focus on the visionary mid-twentieth-century designer Jekabs Zvilna, contributing to LASG coursework and a folio publication, New Geometric Systems: Jekabs Zvilna and Integrative Form-Languages. 

Expanding his studies, Tahir became a designer at the LASG. He has contributed to LASG projects Meander, Threshold, and Le Frout. He graduated with distinction from the National College of Art and is a licensed architect in Pakistan under the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP).

Lisa Jiang is an Experimental Design Manager at the LASG, having previously worked as Creative Projects Assistant at Iris van Herpen Studio. Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Design Womenswear from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. In addition to a design role in sculptures such as Meander and Threshold, Lisa also leads material experiments and facilitates collaborations with Iris van Herpen Studio. These collaborations include periodic exchanges based on the LASG’s specialized knowledge of parametric design software and 3D printing, which have resulted in the creation of flexible meshes that expand, drape and twist around the body. Lisa has been involved in the IvH shows Sensory Seas, Shift Souls, Hypnosis, and Aeriform.

Stephen Ru is a Design Lead at the LASG, overseeing the staffing of large-scale sculptures and website projects. Stephen has led team members in the design of Meander in Cambridge, Threshold in San Jose, and a series of custom fabricated, parametrically-designed sculptures for a large luxury fashion brand. Stephen is interested in automation and creating technologies related to building construction and responsive architecture. He holds a BAS from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture.

As Design Director at the LASG, Timothy Boll has led teams in the design of Meander at Tapestry Hall, Cambridge, Amatria at Indiana University, and Nebula Prototype: Liminal Space for the travelling exhibition The Beauty Project. He has led workshops at the Delft University of Technology and the University of Manitoba, and his design work for Iris van Herpen collaborations has been featured in collections such as Sensory Seas. He has also been involved in speaker and sound design projects in collaboration with 4DSOUND. Timothy’s interests and expertise lie in computational design and interdisciplinary synthesis, especially in the crossover between engineering and design within the studio. Timothy holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Bianca Weeko Martin manages publications for Riverside Architectural Press and leads web development, graphic and video editing special projects in addition to designing components for complex installations such as Meander at Tapestry Hall, Cambridge and Threshold at San Jose Airport. She was also involved in the CAST-LASG Workshop at the University of Manitoba and Grove at the 17th Venice Biennale of Architecture. Bianca holds a Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo. Her thesis work looked at contemporary forms of architectural emplacement, representation and publishing, framed using her father’s ancestral house in the Philippines. She brings a variety of experiences—from curatorial work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, workshops and education with Shad Canada, the Goethe-Institut Toronto, Xpace Cultural Centre and the Alfredo F. Tadiar Library in the Philippines, as well as internships completed at architectural firms in New York City, Melbourne, and Mexico City. Bianca enjoys exploring different methods of communication in the studio including writing, user interfaces, and quick sketches.