Oliver McGovern Undergraduate Architecture Portfolio Rhode Island School of Design
Oliver McGovern Architect & Digital Media Creative 130 Waterman Street Providence, RI 02906 Unit 1A RISD 20 Washington Place Providence, RI 02903 omcgover@risd.edu (203) 970-9877
Education
Recognitions
Rhode Island School of Design B.Arch Class of 2026, 3.8 GPA
Rhode Island School of Design Envision Resilience Exhibition Participant
Brunswick School, Greenwich CT Deans List 2017-2021, 3.9 GPA,
Brunswick School, Greenwich CT
Languages
Skills
English (Native)
2D Design/Graphic Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom
French (Proficent)
Art Award 2021 recipient
3D Modeling Rinoceros, Grasshopper, Revit, Auto-Cad Sketch-Up, Vray, Fusion 360, Blender Others Microsoft Office, Java, Javascript, Python, HTML, C++, Notion, Canva
Who am I?
I am an architecture student at the Rhode Island School of Design and am currently pursuing my Bachelor in Architecture in the five year program, with a graduation date of 2026. I have a focus on the design of environmentally forward structures and spaces as well as the utilization of emerging technologies to create spaces and experiences. With a strong understanding of a multitude of computer languages and software, I seek to design at the crossroads of all of my interests. I believe that by employing generative design we can push the boundaries of design further every day, and in this modern age that is more necessary than ever. When I am not designing spaces and structures, I engage with my interests in fashion and storytelling. I find that these subjects and their philosophy are deeply intertwined with the practice of architecture and its impacts.
Site Transformation 2nd Year B.Arch
³Nature Center ³Nature Center is a culmination of work over three months. Given a site of intense natural slopes, I was tasked with constructing a path, bridge, and a cohesive nature experience center. Comprising a theater, gift shop, gallery space, and natural science labs this project mimics the surrounding landscape by creating a space rich with transversable level changes, shared lateral movement, doubly occupiable areas, and a shared harmony with the natural landscape that surrounds the center. The three built elements of this project represent a narrative progression experienced by the pedestrian who takes the journey from start to finish. Reverence to nature, deference to nature, and the state of being engulfed within nature.
³ Nature Center -Gallery & Café Plan
Congruent Spaces
By elevating the built structure off the ground on a series of supporting pylons, the project allows for the occupation of the same space at the same time on different levels. While this is not necessarily a new idea, it deviates from the norm by allowing the sheltered space to be outdoors. While one is occupying the halls of the nature center another can be engaged with the natural world right below them. This also applies in the opposite, thus creating spaces of both interior and exterior engagement.
1ʼ0”=1/16”
³ Nature Center -Labs and Gift Shop Plan
1ʼ0”=1/16”
³ Nature Center -Theatre Plan
1ʼ0”=1/16”
The Bridge
The goal of the bridge is to create a sense of deference to the surrounding nature. Possessing the qualities of a skeletal carcass of a whale or similar creature of that scale, the bridge is bisected by viewpoints that allow the occupant to gaze out into the surrounding landscape. By making these design choices the bridge creates that uncanny deferenec to the landscape, and makes the occupant feel as though they are surrounded by the awesome power of the environment.
Envision Resilience Challenge: New Bedford Massachusetts
Envision Resilience: New Bedford and Fairhaven
With my Urban Ecologies studio the first semester of the 20232024 school year we took on the Envision Resilience Challenge, an urban renewal and climate action project based in New Bedford MA. Historically New Bedford was the richest city in the world due to the whaling industry being the home of Herman Melville and inspiring his novel Moby Dick. After the decline of whaling New Bedford became a hub for textile manufacturing causing a boom in local industrial construction. Soon the area was awash with large brick factories and cramped triple-deckers. Today New Bedford is one of the country’s largest ports leading in fishing and seafood processing. New Bedford is now at risk of encroaching ecological impact, hurricanes, floods, and even tornadoes. Envision Resilience looks to aid in this crisis. By challenging students and firms to help in a solution to aid East Coast waterfront areas through the upcoming impacts of climate change.
Site Analysis
With four of my peers we analyzed the site at five different scales and presented to the jury analytical drawings of site conditions.
Culmiating project: [Revisiting the Anthropocene]
The site in New Bedford, as it currently exists, is one of an ecological dead zone. A desert of concrete and brick, whose water is so polluted that it is classified as a government superfund site, on the same level as nuclear waste depots. Our practice for this Urban Ecologies section is looking at how we can reverse this ecological drought. Through a taxonomical practice arranged over a 50-year timeline, we are tackling the problem at hand through targeted wetland restoration, low-impact construction, and adaptive reuse. In this practice, the importance of the ground has come to define this task, how existing and new structures connect, how changing tides and rising sea levels craft the land, and how the earth is a vector for all the changes we propose. The ground defines the re-livened site and shapes how all aspects of life interact and exist with the earth. Low-impact construction and adaptive reuse define the construction language of our practice, elevated housing with small ground connections, elevated spaces, and buildings nestled in niches in the ground. By designing within the landscape, we can reduce the overall incursion that currently plagues the site. In conversation with the ideas laid out in our approach, permeable versus impermeable surfaces also play an important role in what defines ground within a former industrial site. By breaking up surfaces like asphalt paved roads, concrete slab foundations, and hard retaining water walls, we give back autonomy to the ground for a natural reconstruction of the ecosystem. As this work develops further, we will continue to examine how our practice addresses the site-specific conditions and provide natural resilience and autonomy to the environment of New Bedford. -Oliver McGovern, Sojung An, Sanghyun Roh
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These site plans describe a chronological timeline to the softening of the Acushnet Harbor water’s edge. 1. Shows the current water’s edge, highlighting the impermiable surfaces being kept 2. Shows the removal of much of the impermiable surface and its effect on the low tide coast line 3. Shows water’s edge at high tide 4. Shows water incursion during storm surges
The Housing Unit:
The defining element of the housing ecology was that of a simple form that would not stand out from the surrounding landscape in which it is inundated. We sought to design a structure with a typological language similar to a bird’s nest or a fox’s den in how they impact the site. We used a simple structural language of the bar, that shows preference for a specific view to enable sightlines to forested and bay views and direct away from post-industrial structures and highways. The structures, are made from recycled materials mainly sourced from the site, such as brick, wood, and concrete aggregate. The bar design language also lends itself to the adaptability and growth of the individual unit; they can grow and change, just as any other facet of the surrounding landscape in which they are situated.
Model Scale: 1’ = 1/8” Material: Cast Concrete, Acrylic, Aluminum, Balsa Wood
Within this project is pointed focus on the native ecology of the site. We wanted to highlight the importance of restoring New Bedford’s native biodiversity to pre-industrial levels. This analysis was done by looking at scientifically proven practices of marshland restoration. Using these processes we were able to compile a list of plant species that would thrive on this site as well as a detailed planting map, categorizing how the strategic planting would occur.
Model Scale: 1’ = 1/16”
Model Scale: 1’ = 1/16”
Model Scale: 1’ = 1/16”