Destined to be a designer: Paavan Joshi

You might say Paavan Joshi was destined to be a designer. 

Growing up in a multigenerational household in Chandigarh, India — a city highly regarded for its urban planning and architecture — Joshi was surrounded by inspiration, within his home and around every street corner. His mother encouraged him to draw, and his father, an interior designer and architect, brought him along on site visits.

“That experience gave me a really clear understanding of what it meant to be an architect and a designer,” Joshi said. “I knew I wanted to make a positive impact in society.” 

Telling a story through design

Joshi was just 17 when he enrolled at Iowa State University as a pre-architecture major in 2013.

“It was obviously a cultural shock for me coming all the way from India,” he said, “but the College of Design community was welcoming.”

Joshi embraced opportunities for involvement in undergraduate student life, including serving as a Destination Iowa State team leader for incoming freshmen, an international student ambassador, an undergraduate research assistant for architecture associate professor Andrea Wheeler and a member of the DATUM, Student Journal of Architecture organization. 

In spring 2017, Joshi studied in Italy with the college’s Rome Program. That experience taught him to be more intentional with his architectural designs as a means of communication, he said. 

“The most valuable lesson I learned in Rome was understanding how to tell a story through design and architecture for an audience that may not speak the same language as I do,” he said. 

Demanding and creative

After graduating with his bachelor of architecture in 2018, Joshi joined Corgan in Dallas as an architectural intern. During his time with the firm, Corgan and Studio Gang won an international competition to design the first global alliance terminal in the United States at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The addition would integrate domestic and international terminal operations and enhance passenger and baggage connectivity.  

The O’Hare Global Terminal has a contemporary design with high ceilings, exposed beams, plants and trees, comfortable street furniture and open spaces for pop-up events, music and informal gatherings. Construction is scheduled to start in 2026. 

“I was the youngest member of the team, working alongside about 50 other people,” Joshi said. “It was very demanding, but the best part was that it was so creative.” 

A site visit to the airport would ultimately lead Joshi back to Iowa State.

“We were looking at phasing the construction of the three main columns supporting the terminal’s oculus and I wondered if we could digitally fabricate them on site, but I didn’t know how,” he said. “That pushed me to come back to school to learn digital fabrication.”  

Blending heritage with technology

Returning to campus in 2021, Joshi connected with architecture associate professor Shelby Doyle, cofounder of the ISU Computation and Construction Lab and Stan G. Thurston Professor in Design Build, and art and visual culture professor Ingrid Lilligren, who — together with associate professor and interim department chair Cameron Campbell — helped him bring his graduate research project to life. 

Joshi realized he could blend his Indian heritage with modern technology to apply digital design and fabrication methods to vernacular architecture. He did this by 3D printing a jaali – an ornamental, perforated façade or screen that works by cooling the air that flows through it — using clay. 

“India has a deep history of architecture that not many people outside the region know about,” Joshi said, including the use of jaalis, first invented in the early 14th century, to provide natural air conditioning in warmer climates. 

“Based on Bernoulli’s principle and the Venturi effect, when the air flows through a smaller crossectional area, the pressure drops, increasing the velocity, and compresses the air, making it feel cooler,” Joshi explained. “Some Hindu texts say it was also meant to keep positivity inside and negativity outside.”  

A jaali traditionally is carved from wood or stone. Joshi’s innovation was finding a way to 3D-print a decorative and functional version with clay, a process that involved countless design iterations, prototypes and glaze tests. 

Through a partnership between the Department of Art and Visual Culture and the CCL, Lilligren helped Joshi and students who enrolled in Doyle’s “Digital Clay” studio course learn about ceramics and the properties of clay and glaze. 

Once he had successfully printed, glazed and fired his jaali, Joshi collaborated with the aerospace engineering department to test the screen’s performance in Iowa State’s Aerodynamic/Atmospheric Boundary Layer Tunnel. 

“I was able to get four-and-a-half degrees of temperature change (from one side of the jaali to the other) in a wind tunnel, which is a lot,” Joshi said. 

He has since used the computational knowledge he gained while working on this project to design parametric façades for Microsoft. 

“It’s exciting to see students do work like this,” said Doyle. “To have a student come back, learn these technologies and integrate them into professional practice is all you could want as an instructor. You always hope these projects can have a life outside of the educational space.” 

Fulfilling career path

Joshi also discovered a love of teaching as an instructor for the Architecture 201 studio. He remains in touch with all 17 of his students, who are entering their final year of the undergraduate program this fall, and continues to serve as a mentor as they prepare to enter the profession. 

When he received his MS from ISU in 2022, Joshi continued teaching in a different capacity while working as a technical designer at Gensler’s Chicago office, where he facilitated the Gensler Apprenticeship Program, a two-year paid apprenticeship program for high school graduates seeking a path into the design industry that doesn’t require an advanced degree. 

The program allowed Joshi to “keep my passion for teaching and additive manufacturing alive,” he said. Using Gensler’s in-house fabrication shop, Joshi trained participants to effectively use digital fabrication tools to design and bring projects to life.

Now a design professional with architecture and planning firm HKS, Inc., in Chicago, Joshi is designing high-performance computing data centers with a focus on reducing their carbon footprint. He hopes to one day return to India to design affordable, climate-resilient housing or to his alma mater as a faculty member.

Wherever his future path takes him, he’s grateful for the one that led him to Iowa State. 

“Iowa State has made me who I am today,” Joshi said. “My experience on campus was truly unforgettable, and the wonderful community I became a part of played a crucial role in where I am now in my career.”

Contacts

Lauren Johnson, College of Design Communications Specialist, laujohn2@iastate.edu

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