Kevin Shapiro
Born and raised in Orange County, California, Kevin Shapiro has been skateboarding since an early age — a passion that has contributed to his attitudes towards architecture and design. He studied in Mammoth Lakes, Fullerton, and Costa Mesa, California before transferring to Portland State University where he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology. Following his two years in the Pacific Northwest, Kevin was admitted to the University of Southern California School of Architecture where he is currently a Master of Architecture 2018 candidate. As a designer at MADA s.p.a.m., Kevin worked closely with architect QingYun Ma to design and build the “Pole House,” a pavilion hanging from an existing electrical pole in Yushan Town, Lantian County, Xi’an, China completed in 2017.
As a MADWORKSHOP fellow, Kevin will be developing a collapsible plywood chair and table set. The chair was designed to collapse flat for transport, inspired by Kevin’s years consistently uprooting during his undergraduate studies. The table consists of glass and plywood to display and celebrate the coffee table book. Both the chair and the table were designed in a dialogue between hand sketching and 3d modeling. Sketching is vital to Kevin’s design development process in addition to being an avenue for communicating ideas with others.