Leela Shanker
Design Lab with WAP Sustainability
Leela Shanker leads the Design Lab with WAP Sustainability. Synthesising architectural design, sustainability analytical frameworks and speculative material investigations, the Lab implements strategies that progress decarbonisation, circularity and material health in the built environment.
Based in New York, with collaborators globally, Shanker and WAP’s team develop pilot initiatives between leading stakeholders from design, manufacturing and real estate. Through the GreenLight Alliance – an international network of lighting professionals progressing industry-led standards, research and advocacy – she founded the Lighting Industry Life Cycle Assessment Incubator while practicing as a lighting designer with consulting engineering firm BR+A. She holds a M.Arch (Hons) and MFA – Lighting Design from Parsons School of Design and Bachelors of Law and Commerce from Sydney University.
Shanker continues to advise the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy) as technical expert to their Life Cycle Assessment and light research team and is a Steering Committee member of the American Institute of Architects’ Decarbonization Subcommittee and Carbon Leadership Forum NY chapters. As Founder of non-profit, Flint Collective NYC Inc, her work has been awarded by the IES with a Special Citation for Lighting as a Tool for Social Impact. She is a current member of the Social Architecture track of the New Museum’s NEW INC incubator.