Megan York M.Arch Candidate University of Pennsylvania Architecture Design Portfolio 2018-2021
Megan York
e: mayork@design.upenn.edu | m: 317-753-8458 | w: www.megan--york.com
Education 2021 University of Pennsylvania School of Design | Philadelphia, PA Master of Architecture GPA: 4.00/4.00 2018 Ball State University | Muncie, IN Bachelor of Science in Architecture with Honors (Summa Cum Laude) Concentrations: Honors Program, Minor in Historic Preservation GPA: 4.00/4.00
Employment 2020 2019 2019 - 2021 2018 2017 2016
Tom Wiscombe Architecture | Los Angeles, CA | Summer Architectural Design Intern Mark Foster Gage Architects | New York, NY | Summer Architectural Design Intern University of Pennsylvania School of Design | Graduate Assistantships for ARCH602 (Graduate Studio) with Simon Kim, ARCH601 with Hina Jamelle, ARCH502 with Maya Alam & ARCH621 (Visual Studies) with Nate Hume, Kutan Ayata, and Brian DeLuna DKGR Architects | Indianapolis, IN | Summer Architectural Design Intern Rowland Design | Indianapolis, IN | Summer Architectural Design Intern Cripe Architects + Engineers | Indianapolis, IN | Summer Architectural Design Intern
Involvement 2018 - 2019 2018
PennDesign Women in Architecture Professional Development Sub-Committee Member Babble, student-run architecture publication, Editorial Team Member
Academic Honors 2018 - 2021 2020 2019 2019
PennDesign Merit Scholarship Dales Travel Fellowship - 1st Place Will M. Mehlhorn Scholarship | University of Pennsylvania Warren Powers Laird Award | University of Pennsylvania
Competitions & Exhibitions 2021 2020 2019 2019 2018
Publications 2021 2020 2019 2019
Metropolis Magazine’s “Future 100” - Top Prize HOK “Design Futures” Competition - 2nd Place | “Under One Roof ” Kenneth Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition Finalist in Student Category of Digital/Mixed Media | (Cover Image) Year End Show, PennDesign | “The Figural Discrete” & “Artificial Topologies” PennDesign Archive Exhibition, Penn Museum “Artificial Topologies” | Top project from each studio selected for display PennDesign’s Pressing Matters 10 | “Cloned & Clashed” & “Synthetic Suture” PennDesign’s Pressing Matters 9 | “The Figural Discrete” & “The Dive-House” PennDesign’s Pressing Matters 8 | “Artificial Topologies” & “Entropic Figures” suckerPUNCH Daily Website and Instagram Feature for “Artificial Topologies” & “Synthetic Suture”
Proficiencies 3D Modeling Rhino 6 + Grasshopper, Maya, Revit, SketchUp, AutoCAD, Autodesk 3ds Max, ZBrush 4R8, Mandelbulb, & Fiji ImageJ Graphics V-Ray with Rhino 6, KeyShot 9, Arnold Renderer with Maya, I3 Processing, V-Ray with Autodesk 3ds Max, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, & After Effects Fabrication Laser Cutting, 3D Printing (MakerBot, ZCorp, ProJet, Form 2), Vacuum Forming, CNC Milling
References Tom Wiscombe (Los Angeles, CA) | Tom Wiscombe Architecture & SCI-Arc e: tom@tomwiscombe.com | m: (213)-674-7238 Mark Foster Gage (New York City, NY) | Mark Foster Gage Architects & Yale University e: gage@mfga.com | m: (212) 473-0010 Kutan Ayata (Young & Ayata, New York City, NY) | Studio Professor, University of Pennsylvania e: kutan@young-ayata.com -02-
Selected Work
The Dive-House: _04
Urban Recreational Free-Diving Environment
Cloned & Clashed: _16
Redefining the Role of the Monument in Contemporary Times
Synthetic Sutures: _26
Architectural & Ecological Investigations of the Synthetic
The Figural Discrete: _38
Urban Housing Design Exploring Site Continuity of Deep Texture
Artificial Topologies: _46 A Symbiotic Relationship Between the Natural & the Artificial
Under One Roof: _54
HOK Design Competition | Top 3 Finalist
Seminars & Electives: _62
A Series of Images Produced in Advanced ARCH700 Courses
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The Dive-House Urban Recreational Free-Diving Environment Hybridized with Becher Water Tower Series ARCH602 | Kutan Ayata [Spring 2020] Location: Philadelphia, PA Partner: Zhiqi Sheng Awards: Published in Pressing Matters 9
As our cities grows, the demands of contemporary urban life diminish the chance to explore outdoors on a regular basis. Certain outdoor recreational activities such as cycling, rowing, climbing, diving (and others) find new appropriations within the bounds of the city in the confines of constructed environments. While the degrees of difficulty and thirst for fitness can be satisfied in a utilitarian manner in these artificial terrains, what typically cannot be experienced in them are the totality, sublimity, and majestic qualities of the grand outdoors. By hybridizing a contemporary program of recreational freediving pools with the aesthetic typology of the Bernd and Hilla Becher Water Tower series, a new urban artifact emerges from its urban context. The object of the interior free-diving pools is encased within the overall reptilian exterior object of the building itself. Everyday materials that we are already familiar with (i.e. exterior shingles and interior pool tiling) is further manipulated to create a more bizarre aesthetic, such as polymer printing the shingles to look dramatically aged an weathered and lining an iridescent film over the interior pool tiles for a more “sublime” aesthetic. Looking into Baroque topologies in plan, the recreational program of the pools are primarily condensed into a singular core near the center of he design with program acting on the perimeter. The central core of the program becomes inversed towards the top of the structure with a singular oculus, creating a level of sublimity rarely found in the design’s urban context.
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top of roof + 230’-0” top of terrace + 215’-0” recreation level + 200’-0”
recreation level + 170’-0”
pool access level + 150’-0”
stair level + 120’-0”
yoga level + 100’-0” apnea pool level + 85’-0”
jacuzzi pool level + 45’-0”
viaduct level + 25’-0” pool level + 13’-0”
ground level + 0’-0” catwalk level - 10’-0” mechanical level - 20’-0”
Section Through Atrium
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apnea pools 5,250 sq. ft. pool overlook 2,550 sq. ft. fire-proof scissor stair 250 sq. ft. 120’ free-diving pool 150 sq. ft. mechanical room 100 sq. ft. pool overlook 2,350 sq. ft. apnea pools 5,250 sq. ft. exterior stairs to viaduct 8,250 sq. ft. 0’
10’
20’
40’
Jacuzzi Pool Floor Plan
practice pools 6,500 sq. ft.
pool overlook 15,750 sq. ft. fire-proof scissor stair 250 sq. ft. 60’ free-diving pool 250 sq. ft. 90’ free-diving pool 125 sq. ft. 120’ free-diving pool 100 sq. ft. pool overlook 15,350 sq. ft. exterior stairs to viaduct 8,250 sq. ft. practice pools 6,500 sq. ft.
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Pool Access Floor Plan
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01_Stair Circulation
02_Free-Diving Pools
03_Program Base
04_Program Insertion
05_Secondary Structure
06_Skin Application
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Cloned & Clashed Redefining the Role of the Monument in Contemporary Times
ARCH704 | Ferda Kolatan [Spring 2021] Location: New York City, NY Partner: Zhiqi Sheng Awards: Published in Pressing Matters 10
“Iconoclash is when one does not know, one hesitates, one is troubled by an action for which there is no way to know, without further inquiry, whether it is destructive or constructive.” - Bruno Latour The question of what is original and what is replicated is posed within the new nature of this artificial landscape. The original and the clone are lost in translation as they interrelate within a new technologically driven environment. The New York Savings Bank building evokes the spirit of capitalism and value in its late 19th century aesthetic. The dialogue of the mundaneness of the machine and the spectacularity of the monument are also questioned, how to make them one and the same and equivocally present. The machinery of the cloning mechanics are inherently clashed with the presence of monumental aesthetics. The new monument generates a series of dialogues in relation to the power of value in technology, what we perceive as original and replicated, the homage towards the gleam of temples, and the interdependent relationship of the mundane and the spectacular. Columns clash with ventilation, ziggurats clash with machines, and intricate drums clash with new materials and synthetic environments, inevitably redefining the role of the monument in contemporary times.
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Synthetic Suture Architectural & Ecological Investigations of the Synthetic
ARCH701 | Jason Payne [Fall 2020] Location: Owen’s Lake, CA Partner: Alexander Jackson Awards: Published in Pressing Matters 10 Published in suckerPUNCH Daily
The Synthetic Suture stitches together the natural and the unnatural, the managed and unmanaged, and the micro and macro, through a series of architectural, ecological, and infrastructural systems. Focusing less on architecture as generator, large scale infrastructure elements act as key drivers for the generation and maintenance of the lakebed. The project acts as a geological element, embedded and part of the landscape. As much a part of the geology, the Synthetic Suture performs to constantly change and update itself and its environment, not unlike the crust of the Earth’s surface. The project is conceived as much as a geological artifact as much as an architectural or infrastructural provocation. The site engages multiple audiences, from biologists and engineers that work within the lake’s environment, to visitors that come to seek understanding about the complex history of the draining of Owens Lake. Beyond human agents many nonhuman actors play an integral role in this ecosystem. Pipes and water lines that feed the shallow flooding ponds become sources for the genesis of life. Tillage generates wells for growth of native vegetation. Microbial life, salt grasses, and re-occurring wildlife now frequent the renewed lake. Eco-engineering infrastructure proliferates the creation of this environment and sustain the project well into the future, setting forth generations of revitalization. The building becomes BACM (Best Available Control Measures) as the lines between what is natural and artificial are blurred, creating a strange and active extra-urban architecture through the means of infrastructure and synthetic ecosystems.
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Flow Analysis & Program Diagram Looking closely at the flow analysis, the Minard Mapping studies both geological and manmade flows occurring on the site and its relationship towards the Channel Area. These flows then directly influence programmatic elements placed on the site. The project seeks to enhance the existing experimental studies occurring on both polygons. Programmed spaces are represented in black, while direct flows on the site are highlighted in gray.
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Satellite Imagery Shown as a diptych, the project manifests itself as a direct translation of the existing geological and manmade flows on the site. The Polygon T2-1 Addition remains Shallow Flooding, however, has been adapted to suture itself toward vegetation ecologies and means to blur the boundary between that which is architecture and that which is ecology. For the infrastructure that generates these landscapes are the true driver of the environment.
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The Figural Discrete Urban Housing Design Exploring Site Continuity of Deep Texture
ARCH601 | Hina Jamelle [Fall 2019] Location: New York City, NY Awards: Published in Pressing Matters 9
The emergence of a new program and form manifested from a historic region of the Lower East Side of Manhattan generates a unique dialogue between a site’s existing aesthetic and the latent potential of a new design. By extracting existing datum and reference lines associated with the Sunshine Theatre and adjacent buildings as well as analyzing the site’s orchestration of deep texture through graffiti, lineaments were designed to create a relationship between the new form and the alreadybuilt geometries. The ground floor of the structure remains as an active viewing stage, but the intervention of a secondary program throughout the public regions of the structure reacts to the advancements of the moving image industry, involving the so-called new “magic” involved in the orchestration between art and technological advances. As the form progresses upward and inward, skeletal seams and depth of layering materials begin to interact and grow symbiotically throughout the volume; units are shifted in scale to their interrelations, but yet read as a single and unique profile, similar to the exterior geometries of the new, creating a unique profile against the Lower East Side sky line.
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Rooftop + 112’-0”
Ninth Floor + 100’-0”
Eighth Floor + 88’-0”
Seventh Floor + 76’-0”
Sixth Floor + 64’-0”
Fifth Floor + 52’-0”
Fourth Floor + 40’-0”
Third Floor + 24’-0”
Second Floor + 12’-0”
Lower Level - 20’-0”
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Artificial Topologies A Symbiotic Relationship Between the Natural & the Artificial
ARCH501 | Cory Henry [Fall 2018] Location: Philadelphia, PA Awards: Published in Pressing Matters 8 Displayed in Penn Museum Exhibition Published in suckerPUNCH Daily
The natural and the artificial are two elements that are in a perpetual state of emergence; but yet one never truly touches the other. Infrastructure has emerged as an element that has begun to overcome the presence of the Penn Museum; technologies are advancing, transportation methodologies are increasing, and the museum is being overshadowed by new superstructures in pursuit of projecting towards the world of tomorrow. But what is to become of the archives? As the artificiality of technology continues to expand in innovations, the museum has become a program that ceases to adapt to a growing infrastructure. Projected in a hyper-realistic future, the addition to the Penn Museum archives embraces the two forces of the natural and the artificial, the visible and the invisible, through a symbiotic relationship. Computer servers and databases create the core of the design with its intricate surfaces that are able to input and output information in relation to the archives and programmatic space. The overall cavernous form, therefore, is dictated by the intricacies and power of the new archival technologies. Volumes are manifested by existing typologies of the museum and textures are explored throughout the entirety of the surface’s skin. The project becomes a critique into the theory behind the blurring of systems, from the visible to the invisible, the natural and the artificial.
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05_Stairs to Upper Level
09_Reading Room
13_Physical Archives
02_Exhibition Space
06_Computer Server
10_Conference Rooms
14_Exhibition Space
03_West Lobby
07_Digital Archive
11_Circulation to Main Gallery
15_Mechanical Room
04_Elevator Shaft
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12_Circulation to Existing Archives 0’
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20’
First Floor Plan
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Choisy Axonometric
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Under One Roof Maternal Health Clinic & Community Market Competition
HOK Design Competition | Spring 2021 Location: Philadelphia, PA Partner: Eric Anderson Awards: 2nd Place
Located in th Mill Creek District of West Philadelphia, this maternal health clinic and community market space inherently connects the community to health and well-bing under one singular roof. The existing facotry building serves as the design’s foundation, taking the geometries of the truss system to generate the new building of the health clinic in one singular extension. The design acts as a perimeter building, creating a unique footprint to the site’s interesting block location. As the building lines the perimeter, an open plaza is generated to promote outdoor health and activities, including a community garden space. “Two buildings, separate but united, sit postured on the site, creating a sense of place. A garden, a clinic, a market; growth, health, and wealth. Holistic wellbeing by design.”
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Seminars & Electives A Series of Images Produced in Advanced ARCH700 Courses
[Spring 2020 - Spring 2021]
The following images reflect personal interests and explorations in representation, aesthetic theory, and narrative. Parafictional Objects Critic: Kutan Ayata Partner: Ryan Henriksen Representation of a foreign - yet seemingly familiar - object re-imagined in the context of original 17th Century Dutch still-life paintings, modern patent documentation, and contemporary applications. Complexities in geometry among the latticework as well as the materiality in patina studies were also explored.
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[Spring 2020]
Cinema & Architecture in Translation Critic: Danielle Willems & Nicholas Klein Partners: Ira Kapaj & Sierra Summers Experimentation in film narrative through a series of images, capturing action and architecture as its own character in a proposed script. Tension between three different environments were explored in its architectural aesthetic, creating a dialogue between abandoned interiors, Mayan carvings, mixed cybertechnologies, and Baroque interiors.
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[Fall 2020]
Form & Algorithm Critic: Ezio Blasetti Partner: Alexander Jackson This seminar was an exploration in the cataloging of the spirograph through implicit dimensionality. Spirograph logic and rulesets are mined for their potentials in terms of figuration and expression. From centrifugal analysis to seemingly uncontrolled forces, each spiro-corpse is a generation of mixing multiple agencies, algorithm, and phenomena. Combining rotational and linear symmetries, the corpses develop a character of their own.
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[Spring 2021]
The Digital Folly Critic: Ferda Kolatan Medium: Physical Powder Print A contemporary translation of a folly: a manifestation of entropic figures through a series of processes in drifting, offsetting, and glitching while also in dialogue between the image and the object.
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