McKenzie Vanko
Selected Works + Research
McKenzie Vanko Selected Works
MCKENZIE VANKO The following works encompass my experience and interest in a range of architectural scales from reforming public infrastructure, to urban design, to tower renovations and interior design. Studios at all these scales have allowed me to think about architecture beyond a single site and as a part of the larger urban fabric. My journey into architecture began as an investigation into the policy landscapes that shape urban and healthcare contexts through a degree in public policy and healthcare management. Through this lens I see architecture as a means of developing healthier more equitable communities.
Marland School-House An Affordable Housing Project Instructor: Dave Otte and Renee Strand Reclaiming Public Infrastructure An Aquatic and Marine Life Rehabilitation Facility Instructor: Carla Bonilla Huaroc Live-Work Post COVID-19 An Interior Renovation Project Instructor: Linda Zimmer Singing in the Rain An Urban Corridor Proposal Instructor: Nico Larco Research and Speculation Architectural Research and SARS-CoV2 Mark Fretz Media Speculation William Smith
Maryland School-House An Affordable Housing Project
Maryland School house is a project that grapples with time and layering old and new as a strategy for developing a long lasting and meaningful housing solution. The project takes place in the Overloook Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Through investigative research I made the decision to keep a historic school on the site and integrate that with the required 40 units of affordable housing. Through this renovation hybrid process I thought about time in multiple different facets including the aging and dynamism of the facade, the comfort of occupants throughout the day, and preservation of communal history. The result is a mix of family and individual units abutting the old school and preserving the existing arbor. Instructor: Dave Otte and Renee Strand
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Concept: time and architecture Two housing structures sit next to the renovated school with a mass timber addition on the back. The housing structures are post and beam mass timber to allow for a light touch on the site during construction.
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Cross Section To the left, 5 units of accessible 1,2 and 3 bedroom units stack on top of Home Forward community services. In the middle the school is renovated into early childhood education and housing communal space. To the right, townhomes stack over townhomes for family occupancy.
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Townhouse model A physical model study explores how the townhomes over townhomes have a dynamic facade that shifts between circulation and personal balcony space. [plan south building]
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Reclaiming Public Infrastructure
An Aquatic and Marine Life Rehabilitation Facility This studio was based in drawing and form development to speculate on new uses for underutilized public spaces. The site is located a few blocks north of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oregon. I chose to think about a melting of the overpass and the idea of the interaction of the human, industrial world with the natural landscape of the Willamette. These two worlds were overemphasized, but also flipped, so that nature began to play the more dominant role. Through formal studies I rationalized the relationship between the organic forms and the rectilinear forms. The result is a public aquarium and marine rehabilitation center where the landscape is the main place for viewing, and the boxes hold program such as education spaces, check in and a café. Instructor: Carla Bonilla Huaroc
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Concept Model: Cement Cast This model was cast with cement using a clay positive and then a silicon negative mold. The purpose with the model was to investigate the interaction between a melting overpass and a rectilinear object alongside two different materials.
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A pattern language
Box The boxes on their own act as a place of refuge and acoustical solitude for people on the site. They signal comfortable human inhabitable space with programs such as educational facilities, a cafe and check in area.
Organic Shapes In contrast, the organic forms on their own host a variety of aquatic life. Most of the viewing portals take place on the exterior of these forms to create a public park experience.
Organic Shape Intersection with Box When these two shapes meet, the organic shape disrespects and “breaks” the box in different ways; When the shape breaks through the insulated walls it allows for more full viewing of the life within.
Organic Shape Inside Box The organic shape also intersects the box above and below. When from below, as in this example, the box appears to have enveloped the tank, revealing a larger transparent viewing experience on the interior.
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Site Section Section through three different types of spaces from left to right: exterior viewing in, interior of ecosystem, interior of human centered space
Eastbank Esplanade Elevation An elevation view from the waterfront. Aquarium tanks are visible from the main pedestrian walkway through rectangular portals while cars drive overhead. 7
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A Human Centered View A person viewing one of the exterior displays, inset within the organic form 9
A Fish Centered View Fish see UV light, with a wide circular view and clear underwater Vanko | Reclaiming Public Infrastructure 10
Live-Work Post COVID-19 An Interior Renovation Project
Currently the commonwealth building is home to a variety of of business offices. In COVID19 times, we are seeing the need for increased ease in adaptation and flexibility. My interpretation of re-imaging the Commonwealth Building is to develop work and residential floors that accommodate this flexibility. With the addition of residential units the whole building can be thought of as a “live-work gradient” with the most public spaces at the base and the most private, residential on the upper floors. I developed the 6th floor more conceptually as a work floor, and the 8th floor in detail as a residential floor both with flexibility and adaptation in mind. Instructor: Linda Zimmer
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Floor 6: Flexible Work Floor Floor 6 consists of a flexible office layout where a track and SIP panel system allows acoustically robust walls to create office layouts that can be changed by removing the walls and replacing them in a different order. Movable bookcases can then slide on tracks to rearrange the space internally. The walls are semi-permanent, meaning they have all the acoustic benefits of a traditional partition but are reusable.
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Floor 8: Residential Floor Floors 8-12 consist of residential units defined by a central box which adapts to users needs throughout the day. The box contains the plumbing core surrounded by kitchen, bedroom and work unit, making the adaptation of this commercial building feasible and flexible.
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A private residence The units themselves offer flexibility and spatial mobility through a central box that can be manipulated throughout the day to fit the residents needs. The sides offer cooking, resting, working and entrance functions. 17
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Section through a single occupant unit Live, work and play are all accommodated for while still allowing light into the back of the unit.
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Singing in the Rain
An Urban Corridor Proposal Portland’s rainy season is one of its greatest assets, and should be celebrated. With this in mind my group and I developed a design that allows people to be comfortable outside on the street all year long. To accomplish this we designed interventions to alleviate the weather conditions that feel less desirable along the green loop right now including the long rain season, urban heat island and dark weather conditions. We paid particular attention to Portland’s long rainy season through a dry creek intervention that fills when it rains and is supported by play, sound, light, and social elements, and is dry during the summer in remembrance of the rain.
This project was completed as a group project with 3 other students. For the purposes of this portfolio all drawings presented here are either fully or partially completed by myself and are representative of my contributions to the project. Instructor: Nico Larco
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Bike Lane River Bed Pedestrian Path
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Shared Street Park Blocks
Concept The creek acts as the central gathering space along the green loop in both the summer and rainy seasons. During the rain season the creek pools and moves with the natural slope of the landscape, creating areas of movement and rest. In the summer the dry creek bed acts as a space of both gathering and remembrance of the rain.
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Activity Section Each section along the loop reveals a new sensory experience with rain and the creek bed. the natural sloping of the park blocks allows for a waterfall and cascading creek experience where people can gather and enjoy being outside.
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Research and Speculation
Architectural Research and SARS-CoV2
This project explores the concept of physical model simulation and its effectiveness at representing phenomenon’s such as aerosol droplets and SARS-CoV2 spreading indoors. We know that there is transmission and infection in hospitals, but this issue is never more important than when it is a deadly virus that is being transmitted. One example was this past spring when OHSU had an outbreak involving 17 patients and nurses in one of its buildings. This event happened within 6 rooms along a single hallway where supply and return span between these 6 rooms. Physical model simulation may be one effective way to explain this event. The goals of this study were to build a working physical model, see if that model was effective at explaining the SARSCoV2 outbreak, and answer the question: does corridor geometry effect the spread of aerosol particulates?
Instructor: Mark Fretz
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Model set up without water To build this model I used laser cut pieces of acrylic and acrylic cement glue for the base. The model was built upside-down, where the ceiling is the base with holes cut out to simulate supply and return air ducts. Water was filled into the model and the tubing simulated supply and return through buckets that were elevated above and below the model and filled with water.
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Side view of ink injection method into water Once the water was filled, I used an syringe to inject dye vertically into the main hallway, looking for how the supply, return, and hallway geometry moved the dye (simulated cough) around the space. .
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Water Test Stills Ink was injected into three different locations in the model. Each ink injection into the water represents a cough or airborne particulate entering the space. Exhaust and return ducts are simulated through the tubing going into the base of the model, causing the water to flow in the same direction it would in the actual corridor. The model effectively showed the dye being drawn to the corridor insets, but not as much going into the rooms themselves. The next steps for this project are to test this model with an air tunnel and a smoke gun
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Media
Personal interest exploration... Media exports from a personal explorative class, Spring 2022. This project explores what we might do with our old building stock, and the implications of the damage that has already been done. Instructor: William Smith
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