architectural works
MICHAEL MEER
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CONTENTS
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War Letters Museum Portland, OR Winter 2016
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Hand Drawing
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Mixed-Use Development St. Paul, MN Spring 2014
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Heath Ceramics Gallery and Warehouse Minneapolis, MN Fall 2015
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Creative City Challenge Competition Team: Corey Bandelin, Dave Keonen Minneapolis, MN November 2015
Minneapolis, MN Fall 2013
Urban Grove
Lake Calhoun Community Pavilion
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Eugene Market Hall
Eugene, OR Fall 2015
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War Letters Museum Location Portland, OR Semester Winter 2016
The War Letter Museum of Portland will provide an evocative and moving piece of civic architecture. Letters written during war time are about the individual stories and experiences of war. These letters depict events from death to happiness and everything in between. As we continue to lose veterans of these wars to time, letters are one of the most direct way to communicate these prominent historical events. The Portland War Letter Museum project is not only an opportunity to creatively present letters to and from soldiers at war, but it is also a chance to insert a new civic building in one of the most iconic settings of Portland, the North Park Blocks. With the fast growing Pearl District and future plans of the city, the site is located at the current terminus of the park blocks, yet this locating may eventually be the connection to future development of the Post OďŹƒ ce site.
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context
Located at the famous North Park blocks of Portland, the site is fi lled with opportunity to not only enhance the existing area, but set up opportunity for future development.
Street Car and MAX line
Potential Park Redevelopment of Post Offi ce Site
Site Pedestrian Entry Southern Sun Orientation Existing Parks With Future River Connection Potential Predominant Summer and Winter Winds
North Park Blocks
SITE
process
Process focused on hand media and perspective development is a basis for the fi nal design decisions. This series develops the intimate experience of visitors moving through the museum.
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site
A museum as a pavilion in the park.
building
The use of spacial slippage to inform room connection and movement.
garden
The garden as a ďŹ nal re ection and connection to the setting.
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The richness of this architectural opportunity called for both building functionality and context relation. As a museum built around the personal experiences of a letter, the design calls for an architecture which would not take away from the focus on a letter, but also is assertive enough to enhance the experience.
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As a pavilion in the park, the building design interacts with the surrounding park/plaza space, to both attract visitors to the museum, and become one with the city.
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As a major piece of the program, the archive space is meant to be a home of both historical war information and real letters form soldiers. This space will be used by family members, researchers and others interested in investigating these written experiences. The museum is designed with a speciďŹ c path, meant to guide the visitors through the stages of war. this path acts as a narrator of letters from a variety of perspectives, ending at a garden of re ection.
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The building structure is formed through a series of shear walls and various columns. The thin columns paired with thick walls create an illusion of a building made entirely of structural walls, yet these thin columns actually hold up a bulk of the building.
the path
the structure
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The Re ection Garden is meant to be the ďŹ nal museum experience. this space allows visitors to escape from the war letter scriptures into a self contemplation mode, in a peacful setting. Although this space is open to the surroundings, its natural vines and sculptural elements help to add a level of intimacy and contemplation.
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Mixed-Use Housing Development St. Paul, MN Spring 2014
A new Light Rail stop at the elbow of University Ave, between St. Paul and Minneapolis, has turned a once unvalued parking lot into a site of great opportunity. This new mixed-use development will capitalize on the opportunity by combining housing, commercial and various other uses to attract people from all over the metro area.
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Midway
Minneapolis
St. Paul
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Commercial and professional spaces are distributed throughout the site’s ďŹ rst and second levels. Additional public spaces, consisting of a series of interior atria surround an outdoor space to form a dynamic and welcoming central square. This square will allow for various programming opportunities. Housing units, wrapped in a copper panel facade, extend from the second level up, allowing for separation of privacy, while still appreciating connection to other functions on site and beyond.
midway neighborhood
residence
visitors from
twin-cities area
Pedestrian movement and entry of visitors from various vicinities, were an important factor in design decisions. Through easily accessible apartment lobbies, hierarchy of entry, and movement from all directions, pedestrians circulation  ows with the building program.
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facade movement
The housing blocks’ facades are wrapped in porus copper panels which swing and fold open to reveal various window and balcony spaces. This design turns the otherwise simple facade organization into a dynamic and changing one. Changing seasons, time of day, and programming of the site public spaces, are some examples which would lead to changes in the facade.
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Heath Ceramics Galler y and Warehouse Minneapolis, MN Fall 2015
As a studio focused on material exploration and their limits when considering space, the project objective was to design a ceramics gallery and warehouse using materials from concrete to steel trusses. After beginning with a simple MDF box form, we broke, cut and altered material, discovering both its limits and possibilities. After transitioning to a concrete box, new diagnosis of capabilities established a new rule set. Enlarging the scale from a small box to a ceramics gallery instituted a connection to architecture and full scale materiality.
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An adjacent warehouse was then placed adjacent to the gallery, erected with a steel truss structure. Working with yet another new material, the ďŹ nk steel truss, new beauty and capabilities led to new discovery.
organization Extrusions for building programs and exploration of truss spacing became important design elements between the two complimentary buildings.
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Hand Drawing Drawing is one of the most under utilized ways of observing architectural forms and their experiential qualities. Qualities of material, light, space, shape and endless others are what make architecture beautiful.
The Colosseum, Rome
depiction
When transferring these experiential qualities onto a 2D surface, all of these qualities somehow become more real. Spending time to analyze and interpret experience is the best way for one to truly feel submerged in a space. Whether it be examining various nostalgic locations of the Eternal City or studying the subtle beauty of Rapson Hall, taking time to depict views and experiences onto paper, exposed the hidden beauty most would not ďŹ nd.
Piazza Repubblica, Rome
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St. Peters Square, Rome
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Rapson Hall Stair Case, Designed by Steven Holl
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Urban Grove
Creative City Challenge Competition Team: Corey Bandelin, Dave Keonen Minneapolis, MN November 2015 Minneapolis is a woven fabric of culture, connection, and extraordinary history. The city grid represents the organization in a place of chaos, while also symbolizing its connection to surrounding neighborhoods. The Creative City Challenge was an opportunity to express and interpret unique connecting qualities like this. With the goal of developing an installation, which is programmable, intriguing, and engaging to the community, we created an Urban Grove gathering space. A series of trees surrounds an open space, surrounded by seating elements forms an intimate space to accommodate a programmable staging area. A colorful glass and metal canopy re ects an ever changing ground plane shadows extending to all parts of the light spectrum.
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One of the cities most common and native plants, the Red Sumac, grows in extensive colonies, which are centered around an initial parent grouping. Each shrub or tree is intertwined with the next through overlapping canopies and connecting root systems. This colony structure conveys many similarities, both literally and fi guratively, to Minneapolis and its expansive growth, around the downtown city center. Dichroic glass squares at the end of each branch are emblematic of the bright color of the sumac. I helped explore this glass’ capabilities. We learned Dichroic fi lm diff racts only certain colors of the spectrum as light passes through. When the light angle changes, this color also changes. This leads to a change in the light which is refl ected off the glass, thus the changing of glass and shadow colors throughout the day.
shadow study
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North-south extensions are interpretations of the surrounding neighborhoods, which change, yet stay connected to downtown
The diagonal grid which covers a public gathering space represents the downtown grid, oriented toward the Mississippi River.
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As aacrucial team member, I contributed to the city to As crucial team member, I contributed grid and river orientation inspiration, as a way of the city grid and river orientation inspiration, organizing our gathering space and trees. The as a way ofoforganizing gathering space development all graphics, our drawings and pictures was also taken on by me, as part of our ďŹ nal and trees. The development of all graphics, submission.
drawings and pictures was also taken on by me, as part of our ďŹ nal submission.
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Lake Calhoun Pavilion Minneapolis, MN Fall 2013
Inspired by the layers and their interactions at Lake Calhoun Park, the pavilion melds into the  at landscape through emerging roof planes, overlapping materials, and interweaving of building and site programs. The site’s often unnoticed layers, and their interactions become not only a way to connect site and building activity, but also a way to enhance sustainable thinking. This miss of ideas reacts to layers of grass, path, sand and water.
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Not only does the building physically  ow along the site, but landscaping elements such as local plantings, tree distribution and various pathways help the design meld into the park harmoniously. Minnesota limestone decking and reclaimed wood slats also help contribute to a more sustainable environment.
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layer extrusions Layers taken from the site are extruded from the ground plane to create a building form. Horizontal cuts are sliced through the building to created glass covered interior spaces.
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Incorporation of a bike workshop and design of a bike path which cuts between building forms, encourages and enhances a gas saving and opportunistic form of transportation. Other elements such as local vegetation, Minnesota limestone decking, and reclaimed wood slats also help contribute to the pavilion’s decreased carbon footprint.
sustainability Trees provide shade while helping to defi ne the building fl ow across the site
Lake Calhoun bike path
Community bike workshop
Green roof made of local plantings
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Paved stairs and path to defi ne roof circulation
Inhabitable green roof
Continuation of the park corridor
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Layers of interior spaces, comprised of mostly glass, allows for visual connection to Lake Calhoun from the road and beyond. This also allows for the enhanced experience of each program and space.
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Eugene Market Hall Eugene, OR Fall 2015
The market is a place of character where goods and people refl ect life in the community. As a new Market Hall for Eugene, the design refl ects its surroundings while materials and spacial organization accommodate and enhance the market experience. Careful study of pedestrian, vehicular, and bike circulation are translated into site entry and circulation. The original park block design is refl ected and enhanced through major design moves, refl ected in both the building and landscape. The new Market Hall will be a hub of activity and gathering at the center of the Eugene community.
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park blocks
great streets
adjacent buildings
pedestrian circ.
bicycle circ.
vehicular circ.
Site analysis of surrounding infl uences speak to a building form responding to site needs. The most important infl uence, the Eugene Park Blocks, create a need for public plaza space at the site’s southeast corner. The city’s Great Street Master Plan, identify surrounding connecting corridors of community importance. Existing buildings speak to building form, height and setbacks, while circulation infl uence from bikes, pedestrians, and vehicles, call for organized entries and spaces.
The northeast atrium is not only an entry hub of the market hall, but it directs visitor south, into the courtyard, market space, and beyond.
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building height
transparent /solid
entr y
A cut through the site frames the central focus of the existing park blocks, the fountain.
Program Restaurant Office Entry Cafe Vertical Circulation Market Parking
Program Restaurant Office Entry Cafe Vertical Circulation Market Parking
In order to maintain site activity on all days of the week, rather than just market days, incorporation of restaurant, cafe, and oďŹƒ ce programs will attract visitors throughout the week. Dynamic interior and exterior market spaces will allow for program  exibility across the seasons, without restricting building uses.
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The cut through the site not only frames a view into the park blocks, but also creates a drawing view into the site, from the south.
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