Peter McInish | Undergraduate Portfolio

Undergraduate Portfolio Peter McInish Fall 2008–2012

Projects Fourth Year

Children’s Hospital Chicago, Illinois

Fourth Year

Iterations on a Loft Birmingham, Alabama

Professional

Design Habitat 4.0 Meridian, Mississippi

Third Year Second Year

Rural Studio Farm and Solar Greenhouse Newbern, Alabama Lake Residence Lake Martin, Alabama

Ways of Seeing Third Year

Drawings Italy, Portugal, and the American South

First Year

Visual Prosthetic/Optical Apparatus Observer

Resume

Fall 2011

Children’s Cardiovascular Center, Printer’s Row, Chicago, IL

This proposal relies on the surrounding buildings of Printer’s Row to help create meaningful urban gestures while accommodating an efficient medical program. By echoing the dimensions of the nearby Transportation Building (1904), the floorplates are thinned to allow natural light to serve both patients and staff. To hold the street wall, the building steps back from the East to create a long terrace and to widen views for East-facing rooms.

Public amenities are accommodated on the terrace level, which allows movement between indoors and out. The fluidity of the public space is contrasted by the visual solidity of the patient floors, which are wrapped in thickened facades of precast masonry to exhibit a repetitive sequence of openings similar to other buildings nearby. Changes in ceiling height denote uses and zones, while generous waiting areas and hallways become social spaces.

By eschewing external spectacle in favor of interior focus, the building’s simple form seeks to recede into the historic fabric while maintaining its own contemporary language. By internalizing the intimate needs of the program and externalizing an attitude towards its surroundings, this hospital proposal consciously contributes to Chicago’s urban scenography.

Exterior perspective of the facade.

Opposite: Patient floor plan.

Overleaf: Expanded section of patient floor

Lowered ceilings inform entries and staff zones.

Family seating/sleeping faces the patient.

Thickened facades allow for shading, mutliple frames of view.

Personal storage is outboarded in the depth of the facade.

Concealed lighting above the patient bed is gentler by lighting surfaces versus objects.

Wide hallways become social corridors.

A rendered section detail of the facade, from patient care units to public space Opposite: Interior and exterior views of the public level

Summer 2011

Iterations on a Loft Birmingham, AL

This project demanded strategic, long-term spatial planning to carefully describe how a renovated grain loft in downtown Birmingham might further accommodate three distinct businesses: a live/work arrangement for a textile designer, a small metal workshop, and a restaurant.

The changes between each occupant were intended to be minimal, so I pursued a basic underlying concept.

The existing pine and oak floors would be taken up and replaced with a concrete slab that could accommodate the loads of even heavy machinery. The recycled boards then form the walls to define a distinct back of house and entry sequence up a large ramp. With the columned central space preserved, and the loft converted into a single bedroom apartment, other programmatic aspects are, essentially, implied. The contention remains that a well-made article needs little tailoring.

Live + Work

Metalsmith

Restaurant

Existing conditions

Proposed interventions

Proposed Plan (second floor imposed)

Interior perspectives of the restaurant scheme: entry, this page, and dining, right.

The last iteration included a vacant property beside the loft to become a public campus for utilitarian crafts, with indoor and outdoor work and demonstration areas, a retail outlet, outdoor marketplace and a second floor gallery.

To reflect the growing interrelatedness of contemporary crafts, the large space was subdivided into smaller, semiprivate studios with storage and work surfaces forming basic boundaries. Again, the floor is replaced, but now with a rhythmic topography that correlates both inside and out. Variety percolates as a service counter, at cabinet height near the entry, transitions to bench height near the back of the property.

Interior perspectives

Exterior perspective of apiary buffer

The continuity of the counter over an interior topography creates multiple functions.

Fall 2011

Design Habitat 4.0 Meridian, Mississippi

The Lauderdale County Affiliate of Habitat for Humanity approached Auburn to form a team of students with a faculty advisor to design prototypes for energy-efficient homes. Following site visits, charettes, and meetings with the organizers, the team developed two schemes from the local vernacular: a double-porch plan and a modified four-square. Built from manufactured trusses and intended to be adaptable to varying site conditions, client preferences, and material options, these models will provide dignified housing with a lower overall cost of ownership. By doing this, the Meridian-based affiliate seeks to enfranchise those it serves most directly and provide responsible additions to the fabric of the area.

Team Dan Beeker Zac Cordova Will Gregory Peter McInish Justin Miller Amanda Petersson

Scheme 1

Porch

Plan

Scheme 2

Plan

Porch

Models, outside the affiliate’s office.

Fall 2010

Rural Studio Farm and Solar Greenhouse Newbern, Alabama

Embarking on a mission of self-efficiency, the Rural Studio has pursued a long-range plan to create a farm that will generate food, energy, and building materials for students at its remote campus in Hale County, Alabama. After designing much of this masterplan and considering its implications, our team began the design of a passive solar greenhouse. Using water-filled metal culverts as both structure and thermal mass, the greenhouse extends as a series of expandable 16’ modules, separated by a dogtrot storage space that creates a separate seed house. A berm to the north shields the culverts from winter winds and permits access to operable skylights. After consulting with studio critics, engineers, and material suppliers, we built a mockup on the studio property to test our design, which would then be analyzed and built upon by our peers.

3rd Year Class, Fall 2010 Morgan Acino Christine Bagdigian Damian Bolden Ashley Clark Drew Craven Kurt Funderburg Brad Greene Will Gregory Kyle Johnson Peter McInish Michael Stricklin Ashley Williams

Comparison of sun angles in summer and winter

downtown

chantilly orchard

production

do ow wnntto ow wnn d

timeline

food production

production

timeline

circulation c chha annttiillllyy o orrcchha arrd d

energy production

The Rural Studio Farm is a five year project focused on the redesign of the Rural Studio Campus as an opportunity to experiment with the production of food, energy and building material. It is based on the educational purpose to instigate a new style of life within the Rural Studio and its local community. The aim is to live off the land. Eating, building, and living are

morrisette

farm: (v.) to cultivate

greenhouse

intended as parallel symbiotic systems driven by the same holistic ethic: challenged by using the land creatively as a precious resource.

hoop house

water cistern

tool storage solar kiln

wood shop wood storage

sawmill

chicken tractor

compost

food storage

m mo orrrriisse etttte e:: c ce enntte err o off p prrood duuccttiioonn

Presentation materials for the final Masterplan included surveys, drawings, diagrams, growing calendars, and construction information as both a document and toolkit for the students who would follow us.

production

building material production

timeline

MORRISETTE CENTER OF PRODUCTION

G R OW I N G CA L E N DA R

A S O N D J F M AM J J

expandable working area

sun exposure white area optimal farming

existing

food production

proposed

pod expansion

drainage

existing

access + parking

proposed

remain commercial kitchen

entry ramp

add as office

plant expand student kitchen

harvest

plant in greenhouse

harvest in greenhouse open courtyard

TOTAL SERVINGS

2830

2690

3870

1910

40

0

0

1100

2440

1880

690

2020

% OF GOAL

74%

70%

101%

50%

1%

-

-

29%

64%

49%

18%

52%

1970

2320

1650

1350

100

400

1050

1250

1470

1575

900

1170

5920

6970

4950

4050

300

1200

3150

3750

4420

4720

2700

3520

more defined hallway

existing

circulation

proposed

LINEAR FEET

of crop

SQUARE FEET

of crop

Conceptual diagram of our proposal and its elements

Construction photographs, top left to bottom right. With deliveries of the materials, the mock-up was constructed in about two weeks. Even in below-freezing weather, the interior faces of the culverts registered surface temperatures in excess of 90째 F.

Fall 2009

Lake Residence Lake Martin, Alabama

This project evolved out of two distinct goals. The first was the organization of a house programmatically by level, after the precedent of Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House. The second was the promotion of the house as an object within its surroundings, foregrounding the experience of the lake and nature. My client was identified as a budding naturalist, so I minimized excavation and set the house on pilotis to touch the ground as lightly as possible, which also increased the “objecthood” of the main house. A separate studio space was conceived as an embedded outbuilding that formally anchors the house and prevents it from—as its roof might suggest—flying away.

Study models

Final model

Conceptual diagram

Interior perspectives (1,2)

2

1

Summer 2010 - Spring 2011 Ways of Seeing Drawings from Europe and the American South

Whether recorded in haste or with precision, the sketches here, and others like them, form a tangible catalogue of lessons from Europe, beginning in Rome, then travelling through Italy and as far afield as Portugal and Turkey.

Studies of the Palazzo Farnese, a fixture on my walk to studio each day, were drawn in situ and later illuminated with watercolor graphite. Above, it is perceived as an object when seen from S. Pietro in Montorio. Opposite, the facade is explored as an inhabitable texture.

Drake Northrup Thomas House Greensboro, Alabama Watercolor on Arches

Isometry: Charleston Single (Detail) Graphite, colored pencil, and braille on Arches exhibited in B10: Wiregrass Biennial Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, Alabama

Fall 2008

Ways of Seeing Visual Prosthetic/Optical Apparatus

In the Foundation Studio, we were charged with the creation of readily portable pinhole cameras of unusual definition. With the aid of self-developing Polaroid 669 film, we built cameras that embodied and performed various modes of seeing—peek, gaze, survey, and so on—with an eye towards anthropomorphism and the prioritization of craft. After a few iterations and tests, I chose to build, and become, an Observer. Beginning with the creation of a “humanoid observatory,” and finally arriving at the introspective mechanism of my design, this project challenged and rewarded my own perceptions on the surprising involvement of the observer.

Once I fixed the light leaks and better understood exposure and development times, I capitalized on this knowledge for a series of self-portraits.

Study models test anthropomorphic qualities

Concept sketches

Analog of the limited movement in the human neck

The addition of lenses produced more light leaks.

Final Observer, Test 01

02

Exposure Development

Exposure Development

1:12 0:50

03

1:00 1:00

Exposure Development

1:15 1:00

04

“In effect, my Observer is anthropomorphic, but not because it looks human; rather, it acts human: it does what we do, it sees what we see.

Because, in everything it sees, it sees itself.�

Exposure Development

2:00 1:10

The final Observer. Floating above the ground on a turntable, the aperture faces an acrylic screen that superimposes the face of the camera itself onto any image it captures, framing the subject in its variable guise.

Peter McInish

334.790.1891

402 W. Glenn Ave Apt A-204 Auburn, AL 36832

pam0005@auburn.edu

EDUCATION Auburn University — Auburn, Alabama Bachelor of Architecture/Bachelor of Interior Architecture GPA: 4.0 Study Abroad: University of Arkansas Rome Center Rural Studio — Newbern, Alabama

2008 – Present (2013) 2011 2010 2008

Houston Academy — Dothan, Alabama Salutatorian; Chief Justice, Honor Council

EXPERIENCE Design Habitat 4.0 — Meridian, Mississippi 09.2011 – Present Designer. Working in a team of students on the design of energy-efficient Habitat houses, including charettes and presentations to the Lauderdale County Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

Lee and McInish, P. C. — Dothan, Alabama 06.2008 – 8.2008 Office Assistant. Responsibilities included the organization and recording of real estate transaction files and delivery of sensitive legal documents as well as other general office responsibilities.

HONORS AND INVOLVEMENT Teaching Assistant, Environmental Controls I

Prof. Justin Miller American Institute of Architecture Students

Treasurer

South Quad Conferences

2011 2008 – Present 2011 – 2012 2008, 2009

Auburn University Honors College

Honors Scholar

2008 – Present (2013)

Ambassador, College of Architecture, Design, and Construction Awards 1st Place, Alagasco Design Competition Southern A&E Scholarship Faculty Book Award Frank J. Sindelar Scholarships (2) 3rd Place, Alabama Wood Design Competition Lovett Memorial Book Award Auburn University Presidential Scholarship

2011 2011 – 2012 2011 2009 – 2011 2010 2010 2008 – Present

SKILLS Hand drafting and model-making, diagramming, sketching, and writing.

Proficient in AutoCAD, SketchUp, Adobe Creative Suite, and Microsoft Office Suite.

Some working knowledge of Rhino and Revit.

REFERENCE S Justin Miller, Assistant Professor, Architecture.

Gaines Blackwell, Professor Emeritus, Architecture.

2009 – 2010

justin.miller@auburn.edu gtblackwell@gmail.com