Architectural Portfolio Shaun McIntosh
Design Sensibilities My architecture A r t i st i c is centred on creating simple and clear spaces. Spaces that equally consider the psychology of the habitant with the aspiration Institute of achieving beautiful aesthetics. My architectural approach focuses on forming architecture that concerns its position in society as well as its physical context. I feel that a connection with nature in building is essential to the clear thinking of inhabitants and its beauty should be utilised at every opportunity. Architecture School My design process consists of working with rough sketches to determine initial ideas, I then refine my ideas using CAD/Sketch Up/Revit to gain a clearer picture of how viable/desirable my nascent ideas are. My initial design ideas are based on objective understandings such as site conditions (north light + sun-light) and functional requirements. I then offset this objectiveArtbase with architectural elements that create conditions I subjectiGallery vely find desirable or appropriate to create a required environment. To find conditions I find desirable in architecture I experiment with various: textures, forms, materials, colours, lighting, etc. This enables me to build a reservoir of knowledge on the qualities of numerous architectural elements and conditi ons. Community
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AutoCAD, Revit, InDesign, Sketch Up, Photoshop, Sketching, Hand-Drawing, Watercolour Painting, Photography, Model Making + Theoretical/Critical and Creative writing. Model Making Throughout my time at university I have achieved the highest grades for all of my written submissions. I am very skilled at critically analysing and evaluating as well as creatively expressing architectural ideas through text or orally. My recent dissertation on scrutinising the legitimacy of phenomenology in architecture is an excellent example of the former. Design Teams Interests Sketching, Photography, Guitar, Folk Music, Books, Writing, Travelling, Hill Walking, Landscape Art, Terrence Malick Film, Poetry, 57 10 Lecture Society + Sports: Tennis, Football, Futsal, Running and Cycling. Photography
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Education Perth High School 2004-2010 1 Advanced Higher 7 Highers Robert Gordon University, MArch 2010Northern Collective, Part One Exemption
Team Roles Green Lion Design Team - Sri Lanka, Northern Collective Design Team Aberdeen, Scone Tennis Club Men’s Firsts Captain, Aberdeen Futsal Club Captain, Abernethy Football Club Captain + Scotland U-16s National Futsal Team.
Design Teams Green Lion, Sri Lanka: January 2014-April 2014 My role was to work with local builders to design houses to be constructed using vernacular techniques. In addition our team designed simple houses to be erected using western construction techniques. This programme was situated in a village on the peripheries of Maduru Oya National Park, Sri Lanka. Northern Collective, Aberdeen: September 2012- June 2013 Northern Collective was a design team established to create a live build project in the courtyard of Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. My role was to aid the design process in realising an outdoor lecture theatre/stair. I aided to create a building warrant application as well as designing the stairs structure. The process of interacting amongst a vast team over various disciplines enabled me to efficiently interpret and re-interpret ideas and instructions to establish a coherent and transparent designing environment. Contact Information: s.mcintosh1@rgu.ac.uk; 07753688922 Architectural Portfolio: www.issuu.com/shaun.mcintosh
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Drawing is an essential tool in the production and development of my architectural ideas. By sketching I am able to reinterpret my environment in new and interesting ways by exploring ‘atmospheres’ and testing conditions that make a certain visualisation desirable or undesirable. Practically, drawing is critical to visually express my architectural ideas during the design process. I work by sketching my concepts and evolve them by making computerised and physical models. I then refine my ideas through CAD/Revit whilst in unison sketching to gauge emerging conditions of my architectural spaces as they progress. Drafting precisely, sketching and working with other media such as charcoals and watercolours enables me to explore ideas in a different context. This often aids to resolve specific design issues by re-imaging how a scheme can be realised or perceived.
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Photography is similar with regards to function in how sketching is integral to my design process. Taking photographs is crucial in me being able to reinterpret my natural and physical world and evolve my architectural sensibilities and ‘architectural eye’. Photography enables me to view the world with a sense of perspective. It allows me to investigate how significant light is when creating beautiful spaces. Moreover it aids to teach me composition and what ‘atmospheres’ are desirable to convey specific emotions for relevant images. The act of recording the world and the human condition through a camera lens is useful to document how our society works and how it relates to our natural world. This documentation allows me to scrupulously collect a record of Scotland and study the relevant needs and opportunities in our country for specific locations.
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Green Lion - Sri Lanka A r t i st i c Institute
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Between January - April 2014, I worked as a volunteer for a multi-discipline volunteering company based in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The nature of the volunteering company dictated that I was able to work in a number of roles independent of the primary construction role I had applied for. As well as working on site at a Buddhist temple repairing structural damage I also worked part-time as an English teacher at an orphanage. In addition I spent a month in a rural jungle community designing simple houses constructed from sometimes brick and timber, sometimes concrete. These houses where designed with the input of local residents and were constructed on site using vernacular modes of construction. Interestingly no local villagers spoke English so the only means of communicating ideas was through sketching and architectural drawings.
Northern Collective - Aberdeen Between September 2012 - June 2013, I was part of a collective that worked on a live build project in Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. The project was an outdoor lecture area/stair. The idea of the project was to improve circulation through the school whilst utilising the school’s derelict courtyard space. As part of the process, I worked on preparing the building warrant application to submit to the planners. Ensuring that all of the necessary information was compiled and structured in a professional and legible manner. Furthermore I aided in the process of designing the stairs structure and foundations and sourcing the relevant materials. The process involved a high level of co-ordination between: the design team, varies disciplines in the school, a timber frame company, planners, various tutors and the head of school.
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Model making is a significant part of my design process and indeed the production of my final work. I work efficiently to create beautiful models using a variety of materials such as: thin brown cardboard, cork, wax, balsawood and concrete. For my individual conceptual models I like to experiment with different materials so as to convey different ideas through aesthetic or texture. Varying materials have their own qualities with regards to texture, colour, light, robustness and reflectance to name a few. Therefore testing many materials is essential to understand their qualities. To create final models I often use more literal materials to express their raw functionality. Creating physical models is seminal in realising how spaces will physically interact with other spaces and how successful each building can be in its context. They provide significant insights into how an architectural aspiration could be realised.
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The proposed site for this project was on the shorefront of a north-east ‘fishing’ village Stonehaven. The project brief asked for a community centre that included: a lecture theatre, a recording studio, meeting rooms and a cafe. My scheme proposed an exhibition hall that acted as an internal public street linking the shorefront to the elevated street to the buildings west. This exhibition hall accessed the cafe on the shorefront and the multipurpose lecture theatre at the heart of the building. From the hall there extended an elevated promenade that continued the gallery and provided wheelchair access from each level. The proposed structure was that of a white photocatalytic concrete that’s texture resembled that of crushed sea-shells and that’s colour coupled with the buildings ‘milky’ diffused windows evoked imagery of looking inside sea swell.
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The theme of this project was ‘adaptive reuse’. Kings Pavilion was constructed during the Second World War and is one of the first examples of a steel framed building in the United Kingdom. Its original function was as a sports pavilion to Aberdeen University and incorporated a grand swimming pool in its main hall. Re-imagining the pavilion with another typology, aimed at creating a new art gallery that held both temporary and permanent exhibitions. This art gallery needed to be specific to Scotland in its composition to sympathise with its cultural significance. My concept was to use light, texture and colour to denote circulation as well as to induce habitants with feelings of intimacy or exposure. This contrast was to inform how the architecture was resolved. Light from the circular lift/staircase guides the habitant from the entrance lobby into the main double height exhibition hall which is finished in white/grey materials. This condition is then contrasted as habitants descend down a ramp into a more intimate gallery which displayed personal letters from Sir Walter Scott. The other gallery from the main exhibition hall housed illuminated glass plates on rough, raw black concrete walls. The walls were close together to represent the narrow streets that pervaded through the glass plate images. On the first floor there is an open plan gallery exhibiting pieces relating to the ‘acts of union’, the main walls have been removed to reveal the buildings original steel skeleton and emphasise the sense of openness and exposure. This condition contrasts with the secluded, exiled raw black concrete room housing the Jacobite rebellion exhibition. During the period around ‘the acts of union’ the Jacobite’s attempted to overthrow the established monarchy citing a claim to the throne. During this period of turmoil individuals were exiled to outer Europe until a resolution was found. This inspires the architectural resolution.
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The seminal proponent in creating an architecture school lies in its pedagogy. The schools ethos determines everything from structural choices to details. This project was situated adjacent to Aberdeen University Library in Old Aberdeen. The concept behind its form was in creating routes across campus to entice external students and public to engage with the architecture. Routes run through the building from the public areas that function to showcase the process of architectural education. This encourages the curiosity of visitors and promotes architectural discourse in the wider student body. The idea behind this was to integrate external thoughts into the architectural sensibilities of architecture students. The concept of the buildings aesthetic and functional resolution was based on creativity, simplicity and a hard shell soft inner core strategy. The simple post and beam structure was used so as not to be overbearing and distract the architecture students from deep thought. The idea was to allow students minds to wander by creating dynamic spaces in plan but with simple detailing. This meant every space was different but not distractingly so. The hard shell - soft inner core, created a contrast between defensive elevations looking onto the surrounding residential area and transparent elevations looking into the main campus enticing people to stay on campus and to engage.
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This scheme, situated in Miltimber looking over the Dee Valley is still at the concept stage and represents an attempt to create an artistic institution that’s programme provides: housing, studios, galleries, libraries and workshops. The idea is to create a scheme that enables artists to produce their best work and respond to the landscape in which surrounds their studios. To achieve this the housing acknowledges social propinquity and how it evolves artistic sensibilities in an artistic climate. The studio spaces are theorised to detach artists from normal-life so they can concentrate on producing exceptional work. The views achieved from the studios and housing create different conditions of exposure and intimacy so as to encourage particular emotions. The towers are also informed by an idea to regain the cityscape from banks and shoe companies; celebrating art not commerce.
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