Architect and product designer James Shen is founding partner at People’s Architecture Office, an award-winning practice with offices in Beijing and Long Beach, CA, known for engaging in urban issues through designs that straddle architecture and product design.

His firm developed the Plugin House, a prefabricated building system for urban regeneration and low-cost housing. James received his master of architecture from MIT and his bachelor in product design from Cal State Long Beach. He has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and MIT’s Department of Architecture. James is senior research fellow at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and was previously innovation fellow at MIT’s Future City Innovation Connector.

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