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
Center of Excellence
Shanghai, ChinaDesign Studio 5
Spring 2012
South Bund Redevelopment
Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 5
Spring 2011
Apartment Complex
Design Studio 2Fall 2009
Creating Space
Design Studio 1Fall 2009
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
Lujbjana, SloveniaDesign Development
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
Lujbjana, SloveniaDesign Development
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.
New York, New YorkCenter for Architecture Science and Ecology
Fall 2011
Plei Air Tower
15
10
12
6
20
3
CLOSEDCONDITION
OPENCONDITION
PLAN
PLAN
SECTION
SECTION
New York, New YorkCenter for Architecture Science and Ecology
Fall 2011
Plei Air Tower
Center of Excellence
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
Center of Excellence
South Bund Redevelopment
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
South Bund Redevelopment
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.
Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 5
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
Troy, New YorkDesign Studio 5
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 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 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.
Poughkeepsie, New YorkThesis
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.
Poughkeepsie, New YorkThesis
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.
Poughkeepsie, New YorkThesis
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.
Design Studio 2Fall 2009
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.
Design Studio 1Fall 2009
Recycled Materials
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