Megan Gahlman_ Portfolio

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Glass Blowing Community Center

1

Ephemeral Touch

2

Live Work Studio

3

Pimp My Ride

4

Subterranean Duality

5

SALA Prize Recipient

Glass Blowing Community Center Critical Programming Instructor: Nina Ebbighausen “As art can shatter barriers, empower a community, and give a voice to the voiceless, so is true for architecture. This glass blowing studio breaks conventions by serving as the foundation for a more comprehensive program, unifying art and education to empower individuals and unite community.”

The assigned program was a glassblowing learning center (with encampment as the word pairing). The North Minneapolis site was selected for its complex history, disadvantaged population, and creative culture, which were important drivers for expanding the given program into something more complex: a combination glass-blowing, little library, and flexible-use community center.

Glass-blowing is a specific and timeconsuming art form. It seemed unjustified to limit the program in North Minneapolis, in a community that can benefit from more. Taking inspiration from Juxtaposition Arts, nearby worship centers and Cookie Cart, which proactively seek to uplift community through social engagement, I began to ask how art and education could best come together in this building.

The glass-blowing studio is located below ground, anchoring the facility and removing it from unwanted daylighting (which can distort perceptions of color when the glass is molten). A steel-clad flue from the “glory hole” furnace roots itself into the earth and grows upward through the building, extending beyond the roof structure to touch the sky. In the truest sense of hearth, it provides heat to the spaces above ground and a focal point for the gathering spaces. Community can come for the programs or simply warm up or find shelter.

Converging: The art of glass blowing (hands-on learning) and education (obtaining knowledge) converging in one communal space for all people of the community

Library + School Proximity: The site has a close proximity of public schools (one to two blocks away) but lacks nearby libraries (the three nearest are 25-minute + walks away). This created an opportunity to push the boundaries of the proposed program, supplementing the team-oriented, hands-on learning of glass-blowing with the more individualized educational opportunities of a small library.

West Broadway Urban Conditions (left diagrams): (top to bottom) Converging, Reaching + Access. The last diagram breaks down the parcel conditions and programs of the immediate area

B A

Process sketches: Exploring multiple programs in section + questioning how they are dispositioned around the hearth and to each other

A

B Breaking Boundaries: Several architectural elements, including the flue, begin to break through boundaries of the enclosure. The flue creates a spatial connection between floors and a social hub as the hearth of the structure.

Breaking Through: How the form reacts to environment and community by breaking the box + reaching its facade out to the people

Process sketches: Exploring multiple programs in section + visual connections from grade to underground

Structural Dialogue: A deep gridded structure extends beyond the glass to form habitable sidewalk spaces. This same structure becomes bookshelves inside the little library. The tectonic of the second floor breaks through the north and south facades, creating roofs for both a residential and commercial entrance.

Transparent and colored glass allow the first floor to extend spatially to the sidewalk outside, welcoming people into the building. The architecture begins to say, “What is mine is also yours.�

Hearth:

At night, the learning center glows from within like a lantern. Art, as its foundation, seeps light from underground, lighting an urban corner that once held its identity in drugs and crime and giving it back to the community a source of light.

Ephemeral Touch Catalyst Instructor: Nina Ebbighausen “The installation rises out of reach to dissipate into thin air. However, the shadow and light cast onto the audience from the installation is yet another form of touch... ephemeral touch”

Catalyst was a short but rigorous project implemented to get us thinking about how three different words can work together to function as one program for an installation. The three words assigned to me were bar (spatial relationship), performing (social activity) and touch (embodied experience).

The main approach to this project started with discovering tensions between bar, performing and touch. Through sketching and recalling unconventional definitions of the words, I was able to formulate a question about the relationship of bar + touch and performing + touch. Each pairing had a physical barrier where touch is just out of reach. I began to explore “the space between” and what it meant in a spatial experience and as a human interaction.

I used this project to explore how architecture can create a sense of ephemeral touch.

The installation at first envelopes the users by having people contorting ones body to accommodate the installation. As the installation wraps around the corner and embeds itself into the windows, the installation becomes out of reach and eventually dissipates into a thin enough wood material to where the sunlight from the windows causes the installation to essentially disappear. What is left is the touch of the light and shadow from the installation onto the user and remnants of the installation through the reflective concrete surface. .

“An installation that is ever descending and ever eluding grasp�

Touch without the physical action

Elusive space

+

intangible touch

Site: HGA Gallery, Rapson Hall

Enveloping + Eluding: As the installation wraps around the corner, the curved strips previously enveloping become just out of reach for those interacting with the installation.

Eternal Condition (right image): The shiny concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling windows in Rapson’s HGA gallery allowed for an “ever descending and ever ascending” effect for the installation.

These existing conditions of the gallery emphasized the distance between the installation and the audience

Process sketch (below): To be immersed by touch and the wanting to touch as it relates in section

Evoking...

complete imme

The Human Experience: How people interact with the installation is in a constant state of change throughout the installation- from being enveloped in touch and having to readjust one’s body position to maneuver around the installation to touch escaping one’s grasp as it wraps around the corner

ersion + a yearning for touch

Final Question: The final result ended with another question in mind, What is ephemeral touch? Can we and do we experience this on multiple levels throughout our lives?

How much of an impact does it have on the human experience?

Live Work Studio Tectonics | Light Instructor: Katie Myhre

“The phenomena of light. What does it mean to be light? To touch the ground lightly? To brush the sky? To combine lightness with the heaviness of introspection was the task at hand. This project is about reconciling the lightness of the structure and the heaviness of being enveloped in thought.”

The prompt for this project was to design a live-work studio for guest artists at Franconia sculpture park with light tectonics as the focal point. This project allowed us to explore how materials touched the ground, how the structure touched the sky and how materials joined together. However, the goal was to explore what it means for a structure to be light.

I defined the word light to mean minimal material, open space, and airy. In contrast, I thought about the artists and their introspective design process. How their minds journey through a depth of thought, reasoning, and reconciling of design problems. My formulated questions was, “How do I create both a sense of lightness from the structure while also creating a sense of the heaviness of introspection?”.

I gave myself a difficult question, knowing this project would not lead to one answer but a final result that would lead to many questions. I drew inspiration from Frei Otto’s tensile structures to understand the tectonics of creating a lightweight but open space where other volumes of space could reside to create levels of inward thinking for the artists. Within the space would be small nooks for unknown thought, living space to seek refuge and space for prospect which framed finished sculptures in the Franconia Park.

Process sketches: Exploring how to visualize the heaviness of introspection while still conveying a feeling of lightness

Entering + Site Context: The exterior acts as a sculpture in itself among the others in Franconia. The entrance marks the users journey into the mind of the artists working in the space.

Sketch Models (below): Exploring tensile forms with paper and fabric and noting how each touches the ground and touches the sky Light Tectonics (right): Material quality of structure and lightness of construction.

Pimp My Ride UMN UG Furniture Instructor: Thomas Oliphant “Multi-function was key and came out of a necessity for the small space I was living in. The insert can function as storage or as a side table but in the end this component can fit back under the chair with ease.”

For this project we had to find a FREE chair in the dumpster, side of road, alleyway, anywhere but a store. The point of the project was to discover a chair that was already in need of a “pimping” and use what we learned about furniture to add value to the chair we found. I found this chair on the side of the road which seemed to need a little TLC.

I took inspiration from Joe Colombo, an Italian designer who designed multi-functional furniture. Furniture that shifted, rolled, moved, connected and disassembled in an attempt to create a simpler way of living (less is more with multiple functioning products) as well as to condense the typical single family home with furniture that could be used in multiple dwelling spaces.

The space I was living in at the time was very small and I knew if I were to design a chair, I would want it to fit into my condensed space in more than one way. I decided to design my chair prototype with not only storage for shoes or books but then also act as a side table which could be stored away under the chair for more space. The outcome was just that- a chair with multiple functions for storage and/or a side table which can be easily pushed back under the chair to essentially hide the storage component.

Before: The roadside chair that was just barely sittable (but made it work)

After: The chair with storage space stowed away and pulled apart demonstrating its functions

Duality Subterranean Group Project Instructor: Adam Jarvi “Two triangles placed together with elegance and simplicity became the form for the space.

Space is separated by light to exclude walls creating an extremely open underground space.�

The prompt for this project was solely to create a subterranean space with a focus on form and spatial explorations of both below and above ground. The main idea going forward with this project was to take two triangular prismatic forms and elegantly combine them to create an angular, otherworldly underground space. We termed the word duality to motivate the rest of the project.

The space inside is completely open to explore. To simply separate space, light is projecting through thin slits in the form where the two faces of the triangle come together. The light changes the space day to day. The forms project themselves out from underground which foreshadows the angular surfaces to be discovered below. The space is simple and vast but elegant.

Lighting Conditions: Exploration photographs of how light can elegantly divide space in complete darkness Process sketches (left-most): Early explorations of form and promenade

Structure Dialogue with Ground: The two triangles puncture out from below to reveal its angular surface which echoes the walking planes of the interior subterranean space. Light splits the surfaces into distinct spaces

Form and Light Exploration:. The three models work together to create a better understanding of the subterranean space. The white/clear model to understand the interior, the black box model to explore the lighting conditions and the wood/copper model to understand the forms relationship with topography

The Equity Pool Strictly Infrastructural Partner: Brian Smith Instructor: Gabriel Cuéllar Is it possible to design property?

This question is rhetorical, because property is in fact already designed. A more productive line of inquiry might be, how can designers use the architecture of property to their advantage?

Location, lot size, area median income, and single-family zoning have contributed to the creation of a threshold of housing unaffordability. This edge creates an unaffordability zone which sweeps across Minneapolis.

We propose not simply a CLT gathering property wherever possible, but a coalition pooling equity together to break down the line of unaffordability in Minneapolis. This ushers in a new wave of affordable housing in Minneapolis that fosters income inclusion, the “highest and best” social benefit of each parcel, and a new sense of belonging around collective stewardship.

The final deliverabel was a video. Click here to watch!

PROFILE Hello! I am currently finishing my third year of the Bachelor of Science in Architecture program at the University of Minnesota. Recently, my architectural interests have been rooted in researching low income housing

interventions,

equitable

public

designing

spaces,

and

employing sustainable solutions for our built environment. As a future architect my goal is to give people the ability to live in vibrant, diverse, sustainable, healthy neighborhoods using

beautiful

designs

and

solutions. I am always trying to learn as much as possible while enjoying every minute of it. Outside of design, my life consists of skiing, running and rock climbing.

I love what I do- I am passionate and excited for the future of Architecture.

gahlman

thank you m e g a n

g a h l m a n

g a h l m 0 02@um n.e d u 920 - 3 66 - 2688