Download - Caitlin mccabe portfolio 2014

Architectural PortfolioRensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Bachelor of Architecture 2014

Caitlin McCabe

Student WorkB.ARCH 2014

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Architectural Portfolio

(845)[email protected]

10 Dwyer Lane Wappingers Falls, New York, 12590

Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteBachelor of Architecture 2014

Minor in Psychology

Caitlin McCabe

Adaptive Resiliency

Table of Contents

NUK II

Plein Air Tower

Center of Excellence

South Bund Redevelopment

Apartment Complex

Creating Space

Recycled Materials

Poughkeepsie, New YorkThesis

Spring 2014

Adaptive Resiliency

Architectural PortfolioTable of Contents

Lujbjana, SloveniaDesign Development

Spring 2013

NUK II

New York, New YorkCenter for Architecture Science and Ecology

Fall 2011

Plei Air Tower

RPI Campus, Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 6

Spring 2013


Shanghai, ChinaDesign Studio 5

Spring 2012


Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 5

Spring 2011

Apartment Complex

Design Studio 2Fall 2009

Creating Space


Recycled Materials

This was a group project in collaboration with Michael Mancuso and Tatianna Hart. In this studio, we started with the schematic design of Kamvari Architects for the National and University Library in Ljubljana, Slovenia and brought the design through to the design development phase. Our main concept was to extend the horizontal plane by lifting it and wrapping it vertically to hover over and preserve the roman ruins excavated on the site. The circulation strategy is a continuous spiral through the entire build-ing by the use of sloped surfaces. Along these sloped surfaces are the books stacks so that you circulate through the books as you wind up the building. The sloped surfaces create a staggered flooring pattern in section which visually connects all the different spaces with in the library.

NUK II


Spring 2013

NUK II

building forms a continuous spiral building circulation is orthogonalthrough slabs and cores

micro/macro spiral circulationutiliizing ramping and slabs

public garden circulation public urban circulation garden as urban extension

sectional visual connectivity across courtyard sectional visual discontinuity within building interior integrated interior physical connectivity and exterior visual connectivity

continuous longitudinal form comprises three distinct, rotated bars unrolled longitudinal form is primarily flat and consistent unrolled longitudinal form is dynamic, expanding, and iconic

improved pedestrain flow through site and ruins optimum (time-saving) public circulation avoids contact with site and ruins improved pedestrian traffic engaged with site and ruins

TUBE BOTTOM

TUBE TOP

STRUCTURAL TEE

NEAR RAMPs

FAR RAMPS

FLOOR

BAR DIVISION

CORE

CLEARANCE


Spring 2013

NUK II

Plein Air Tower

FIXED CONNECTION

SOUTHERN SUMMER WINDS

NORTHERN WINTER WINDS

INTAKE (CLOSED)

INTAKE (OPEN)

105

1 20

1 35

1 50

1 651 95

21 0

225

240

255

1 5

30

45

60

75285

300

31 5

330

345

3 m/ s

5 m/ s

8 m/ s

11 m/ s

14 m/ s

PLEIN-AIR TOWER

130local exposure

250regional exposure

400district exposure

COMPUTATIONAL PROCESS

towers twist to access panoramic views, accountingfor differences in floorheight & size

etfe envelope shrinks tocover program, leaving air gapfor updraft air circulation

etfe mullions mapped to skin.they become more dense atresidential areas to simulateglazing

full system accomodates mixedprogram while creating a varietyof environments tailored to the type of user

This was a group project in callaboration with Jessica Bristo, Elizabeth Walsh, and Josh Gerber.

Our design solution looks to optimize In designing a tall build-ing for the site at 8 Spruce Street (New York, NY), We intended to capture the wind and solar energies offered by the sites relative exposure, in an effort to reduce the need for mechani-cal systems. Specifically, we will accelerate the already preva-lent N-W winter winds into the building envelope to generate power, using the buildings overall torqueing geometry, cou-pled with a textured faade which will aid in creating surface turbulence during the summer.Additionally, the site occupies a busy pedestrian zone com-ingling students, commerce, and residents, as well as relative proximity to City Hall. The site will serve as a confluence of program, with the objective of providing a variety of meeting spaces and means of access between the site and neighbor-ing streets.


Fall 2011

Plei Air Tower

15

10

12

6

20

3

CLOSEDCONDITION

OPENCONDITION

PLAN

PLAN

SECTION

SECTION


Fall 2011

Plei Air Tower

This project was a Center of Excellence located on RPI Campus in Troy, New York. The building massing is one curve that is generating from the slope of the site it is on, connecting RPI Campus to the City of Troy. There is one grand curving staircase the leads all the way up the terracing floors of the building. The program switches from the North side of the building, allowing for maxium views looking back on RPI Campus, to the south side of the building, allowing for maximum views overlooking the City of Troy. The facade pattern was designed in Grasshopper, and it responded directly to the program with in the building. The more public the space was, the more open the facade was,and vice versa; the more private the spaces, the more closed the facade was.

Facade Iterations

Section 2 Scale 1:1/16

Plan 3 Scale 1:1/32

Plan 4 Scale 1:1/32

Section 3 Scale 1:1/16

Plan 5Scale 1:1/32

Plan 6 Scale 1:1/32

Facade

Unrolled Facade Elevations

SECTION

Facade Iterations

RPI Campus, Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 6

Spring 2013


This project was in collaboration with Xie Jie. This was a redevelopment of the South Bund to create a more public accesible uraban strategy. It was located on the Huangpu River front in Shanghai, China.The concept for this project was creating an urban stratagey that allowed people from all different backrounds to come and interact with each other.One thing that interested us the most was the changing of small to large scale program along Old Shanghai Street, from Yu Yuan leading towards our site. This urban stratagey took on the task of interconnecting these two types of spaces tosee them as one instead of as drastically different entities. From this idea, emerged a wave-like project: a mix of landscape and architecture, where you can be on the ground floor of one building and walk a few steps and be ont the top of another. There is a blurring of what is exterior and what is interior.

nodeA

nodeB

nodeC

nodeD

nodeE

nodeF

PUBLIC -----------more open to the citizens and tourists

PRIVATE----------less easy to get into

Culture Event

Yuyuan Shopping Mall

City TempleYu Garden(HuXin Pavilion)

Shopping Square

Old Town Art World

Low-income Residents Area

Tourists Bus Parking

Riverview Apartments

JiuShi Tower(Oce)

Riveerview Hotel

Tourists Bus Parking

Golden Bund(Resicents)

Shanghai Old Street

Tunnel Museum

Yuyuan small theater

Ferry terminal

Hotel Indigo

nodeAPrologue nodeBLINKING nodeCCONFLICT nodeDCROSSING nodeEWEAVING nodeEEpilog

parkin

g plot

large scale landscapes]+ programs under the ground

small scale of shops+programs above the ground

plaza2

plaza3

waterfront park

ferry terminal

tourist ship terminal

tower1

tower2

tower3

tower4

TERMINALL FOR TOURISTS FERRY TERMINALWATERFRONT PARK

x

x

s

s

0 2322212019181716151413121110987654321

1from old town 2from cross road 3from main road4from plaza 5from waterfront park 6from ferry

Large Scale vs Small Scale DiagramUrban Circulation Diagram Massing Diagram

PLANS AND SECTIONS

4from plaza 5from waterfront park 6from ferry

Shanghai, ChinaDesign Studio 5

Spring 2012


Apartment Complex

ANALYSIS DIAGRAMS

Summer Solstice

Winter Solstice

Spring Equinox

Autumn Equinox

Natural Light Inltrating the Crevasse

N

Expanding from Conned to Free

Extending the River view from the Street

Moving From the Open to the More Conned back to the Open

N

N

N

This project was based off a case study house, the Maison Aho by Alvar Alto. The program of this project was a 24 unit apartment complex for visiting and permanent scholars. The location was on the Hudson River in downtown Tory, New York. I took the idea of the confined breaking away to the open from the prilimanary study on Alvar Aaltos Maison Aho. It started out as one full massing and then started to break away from eachother and the site. The creavasse between the two buildings is a continu-ation of one of the main roads in down-town Troy. Not only does the building continue the idea of confined moving to the free but the continuation of the main road through the tight space between the buildings opening back up the the Hudson River holds that idea as well.


Spring 2011

Apartment Complex

STRUCTURAL DIAGRAM

PLANS

Third Floor Scale 1/8

Second Floor Scale 1/8

First Floor Scale 1/8

Third Floor Scale 1/8

SECTIONS


Spring 2011

Apartment Complex

Adaptive Resiliency

POLLUTION MAP IN POUGHKEEPSIE TOXICITY OF SITEPOLLUTION MAP ALONG HUDSON RIVER

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTIONSEXCAVATION CONSTRUCTION ACCRETION

SITE MAPPED WITH POLLUTED SPOTS

FIRST LAYER OF SCAFFOLD-ING IMBEDDED IN GROUND

MOST COVERED AREAS ARE THE MOST POLLUTED

SECOND LAYER OF SCAFFOLDING CONSTRUCTED

SCAFFOLDING IS RAISED UP HIGHER IN THE POLLUTED SPOTS FOR A GREATER POSSI-BILITY OF FULL ENCLOSURES

ACCRETION IS FORMED BY USING THE POLLUTANTS IN THE SOIL ALONG WITH THE HELP OF A 3D PRINTER BOT TO CREATE CRYSTAL STRUCTURES THAT ARE ABLE TO GROW IN RESPONSE TO THE INHABITANTS INTERACTIONS.















CONSTRUCTION

A lot of buildings are designed with one inten-tion. These buildings often become abandoned be-cause they served out their purpose and are no longer relevant to the community. A huge part of the reason their service is no longer needed is because of the advances in technology; the more advanced we, as a civilization become, the more large industries become irrelevant to the city and therefore become aban-doned. These abandoned sites start to put a strain on the city; they become holes in the city fabric. These blighted sites lower the economy of the city and have the potential to make surrounding buildings become abandoned as well leading to a decline of a once thriv-ing city. Designing for the future means designing a reactive and adapting building form. Is there a way to design something that reacts to its environment, so that it doesnt matter if we are no longer here and some other life form comes into existence, the design will be able to react and adapt to become relevant to them. My proposal will be able to assess the chang-ing environment and networks of people in the sur-rounding city and be able to adapt and change the buildings use and morphology without having it be abandoned. How can we revitalize and redesign the

already abandoned sites to allow them to adapt and keep adapting with the chang-ing networks surrounding it? The cause of this abandonment is because of the failing networks that arent resilient enough to with-stand when one node fails. We need to design resilient networks so that places wont fail, but will adapt and reorganize itself to the changing environment.

Poughkeepsie was a major hub for industry and commerce which helped it con-nect with other blossoming cities. During the Industrial Revolution, this site was an iron yard. It was a very important part of the growth of the city. Its location within the city and its large size allows for a greater potential of

community interaction, which is a key factor in a thriving city. I chose this site because the site itself isnt only a hole, but the surrounding but the surrounding roads are very seldomly traveled. This leads to abandonment of surrounding because there is no traffic flow. Since it is an industrial site, there is certain levels of pollution on the site. This leads to complications when trying to the reuse of the site usually, but for my proposal it cre-ates an opportunity for site adaptation.


Spring 2014

Adaptive Resiliency

SCAFFOLDING DIAGRAMS EXTERIOR SCAFFOLDING INTERIOR SCAFFOLDING PROGRAM PROJECTIONS

USE OF SPACE THROUGHOUT THE DAY

SITE USERS

SITE PROGRAM

DIFFERENT PROGRAMS ON SITE

LIVING LAB

CAFESPARK AREA

EVENT SPACES

RESIDENTS

DAY VISITORS

COLLEGE STUDENTS

TOURISTS

WORKERS

9AM 11AM 9PM1PM 5PM 7PM 11PM3PM 1AM7AM

CULTURE LAB

Because I am looking at specifically old abandoned industrial sites, these sites contain different levels of toxins through out the site. The scaffolding is placed on the site in two steps. Step one is scaffolding that gets imbedded in the ground. The more polluted the area, the more metal scaffolding gets placed on top of that area. The next step, the scaffolding is placed and lifted up, 18 feet where the pollution is the worst and 9 feet where the pollution is less. The raised scaf-folding allows the accretion in phase 3 to grow in between and create functioning walls and structure. Depending on how much the accre-tion grows, people would be able to inhabit or walk on the scaffolding and accretion.

As time goes on, and the feedback loop continues, body 2 can start to excavate more soil and more structure based on the maps and projections from body 1. It can also begin to extract parts of what body 3 con-structs if it becomes irrelevant again.

There are two existing buildings. One of them is programed to be a cultural lab and the other one is programmed to be an inno-vation lab. These programs will help the city become connected to a larger scale of net-works through the innovation in technology it is producing but also is able to strengthen its cultural networks on a local scale.


Spring 2014

Adaptive Resiliency

INITIAL STATE PHASE 1:PROJECTION PHASE 2: CONSTRUCTION PHASE 3:ACCRETION PHASE 4: ADAPTATION

SITE TIMELINE

The slow forming accretion works and reacts with the sites inhabitants. In the diagram of circulation over time, there are lines that show pure circulation and then larger dark spots, the larger and darker the spot, the more people stop there. This map then informs the accre-tor to start forming accretion in those spots because there needs to be seating and walls

NO GROWTH SOME GROWTH (SEATING) MORE GROWTH (WALLS) CONTINUAL GROWTH (ENCLOSURES)

for people to sit on when they stop. This newly formed accretion brings even more people to these specific spots and over time allows the accretion to form into completely inhabitable, semi-enclosed spaces for other possible pro-grams to take over.


Spring 2014

Adaptive Resiliency

Creating Space

This was a group project in collaboration with Elizabeth Walsh, Michael Stradley, Niraj Patel, and Nicole Christenson. We studied the various structures of architecture: the gridshell, the folded plate, the ruled surface and tensegrity. We were to take two of these struc-tural designs and combined them to create one structural element where both systems were depen-dant on each other. For our project, we chose the gridshell and the folded plate. The folded plate system is weaved through the gridshell to create very interesting lighting ef-fects. Also, the combination of the two systems gives the feeling of and enclosure.


Creating Space

Recycled Materials

This project was designed to create interesting space using recycled materials. I chose to use the bottoms of water bottles for my recycled material. To start to create space, I cut the bottoms of the water bot-tles into five sections and started to interlock them and tab them for extra support. When I started to interlock multiple water bottle bot-toms, the clear, transparent qual-ity of the bottle started to change. The more modules that were interlocked, the more opaque they became. I started to use this quality in creating space. Different spaces were more opaque and other spaces were very transpar-ent. This effect also created very interesting lighting qualities.


Recycled Materials