TRIANGLES? JIM MACMILLAN
WHY THE TRIANGLES?
JIM MACMILLAN
.BEAUTY
is mysterious and immersive. The subtleties of craft and composition lead the mind to sense beauty. It is the feel of a door handle, the ambient sound in a song, the way a chair rocks. These subtle nuances are sensed by the mind but not always consciously. To know your creation is to love it. A designer must love their work to sense the beauty within, and mold it into reality. The nuances of design are the building blocks of beauty. They create the mystery, the subtlety, the intangible qualities that inspire those who interact with them.
DESIGN STATEMENT
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NOT
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BUILDINGS
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CONTENTS HOMELESS CENTER EARLY WORK BERLIN BRAIN
ABROAD IN ITALIA ANALOGOUS SQUARE
SQUARE CIRCLE HAND GRAPHICS INTERIOR RENDERING GRADUATE DRAWING
MAUMEE VALLEY CHANDIGARH URBAN PLANNING GOVERNOR’S PALACE
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Sketch at right shows a building in London, drawn from observations on the Energy Efficiency in Design Studio, Miami University, 2007. All design work is done exclusively by Jim MacMillan, except when otherwise noted in the description text as a group project. All photography, artwork and sketching created by Jim MacMillan, except when otherwise noted in captions.
HOMELESS CENTER 2010 ACSA Competition Entry SCAD, Fall Quarter 2010
The TRIBUTE WALL Homeless Assistance Center addresses the challenge of empowering the homeless of Savannah through self-improvement and community involvement. Creativity and community development will occur through the Tribute Wall, a key wall defining the courtyard and rooftop garden. Residents will be able to create their own art on the surface of this wall. Key exterior walls will be clad with weathered steel panels, providing a texture that respects the character of the surrounding historic buildings, and overall context of Savannah. A variation in materials that age or weather well with time relates to building facades and character encountered along a Savannah city block.
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Right: Study model with specific rust-colored walls intended to be clad in weathered steel.
SAVANNAH
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Left: Approaching view from Harris and Montgomery Streets.
Exterior views of the center are intended to reflect a WELCOMING, caring and communal environment; the opposite of a cold, monolithic and institutional facility. Inhabitants can take pride in a community, not an institution. The non-institutional feel is accomplished by breaking up the program components into connected, but differentiated masses, much like a street block populated with an assortment of different structures. Each mass addresses specific functions of the Center, such as long term care, transient homeless care and community spaces.
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The defining walls of the COURTYARD carve out the basic plan and circulation of the building. The existing historic gallery which shares the city block with the center helps form the interior courtyard, specifically intended for inhabitants of the center. The courtyard is a place of refuge and privacy, allowing residents of the center to converge. The building program accommodates a wide demographic of homeless people with different backgrounds. Inhabitants have the freedom to use the Center in varying levels of commitment. Some may utilize the community areas for only a few hours. Others may stay one night in non-designated shelter space. A third select group determined on an as-need basis can take advantage of long term care and assistance.
The SITE offers three street corners in an urban setting, which is becoming more pedestrian friendly with the anticipated removal of the I-16 flyover ramp. The surrounding urban fabric will soon be stitched back together, making each street corner equally important and accessible, due to street parking and increased pedestrian traffic along the sidewalks surrounding the site. The three street corners of the center are utilized for different purposes. The MLK/Charlton Corner is occupied by the theatre. The Montgomery/Charlton Corner serves as a service entrance to the dining hall. Volunteers have direct access to the food pantry and kitchen from this corner. The Montgomery/Harris corner is the closest corner to the city center. The center’s playful facade and welcoming entrance along this corner beckon the homeless in. The residential wings are the program components which are largest in volume. They are located on Montgomery and Harris streets to acknowlege the scale of two five-storey hotels across from the center on these streets. All three street corners are addressed with strong facades, which carry directly up to the lot line, in order to maintain the dense city grid of Savannah.
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Above: Approaching view from Harris Street facing east. Above, Left: View of the courtyard. Facades surrounding the courtyard are clad in Cor-Ten steel paneling.
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Historic Battlefield Five-Storey Hotel Car Park Gas Station Gallery-Amphitheatre Five-Storey Hotel Interstate Off-Ramp
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The center’s primary purpose is to PROVIDE REFUGE for the homeless. Immediate-need spaces such as dining, hygiene facilites and a “Living Room” are accessible at ground level near entrances. Transient homeless are provided with hostel style sleeping quarters. Long term participants in assistance programs are provided with dorm style private quarters. Creative spaces such as the Tribute Wall rooftop terrace, and theatre allow those who choose to be homeless to contribute to the community setting of the center.
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Flex Space Library
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Kitchen Dining Hall Living Room Welcome Center Courtyard Theatre Long Term Shelter Elderly Care and Child Care Laundry and Fitness Facilities Transient Homeless Shelter Health Center Rooftop Terrace Tribute Wall
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DESIGN STATEMENT
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TITLE PAGE TYPE 1 LINE 2 Miami SCAD,University, Winter 2005-07 and Spring
Quarter 2011
IDEAS ARE FELT, not thought out. A creative spark is a feeling, an emotion, captured by the hand and released on paper. A concept is a creative driver which gives meaning to a form. The truth and simplicity of a concept maintains focus as a design advances and refines.
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REFINEMENT OF AN IDEA occurs through sensing and understanding a form. Going through many iterations organizes fragments and pieces of ideas into a stronger whole. Refinement strengthens an idea through making it universal, something that can be percieved by everyone. Design is the exploration and manipulation of a form.
1. The Box It Up model is an exploration of mass and negative space, contained within 11 cubic inches.
2. Conceptual sketches of a sculptural parti model,
which later became the basis for a proposed small library design in the Clifton neighborhood of Cincinnati.
3. A colored pencil rendering of a model representing
patterned growth. The concept became the basis for a proposed landscape installation on Miami University’s campus in Oxford, Ohio.
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EARLY WORK DESIGN STATEMENT
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Miami University, 2007
The BERLIN BRAIN is a parti model created after analyzing an existing library. The library analyzed is part of the Free University in Berlin, designed by Foster & Partners. The skin of the building and the building program are very much related, but also separated from each other by a hardly visible structure. The skin and program are influenced by each other, but compete for visual dominance. The skin shapes the inhabited portion of the building, but it is never allowed to touch the skin. This dome-shaped structure has a strong linear path of circulation, sharply contrasting the radial nature of a circular plan.
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Right: Images of the parti model. The skin was created by heating a thin layer of plexiglass over a plaster mold, and assembling cylindrical metal tubing to form the “program� contained within.
EARLY WORK
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SKIN
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Kent State Florence Program, Spring 2008
Traveling opens the mind through EXPLORATION. Italy is a collection of distinct cultures carrying the history of empires, city states, regimes and nations. By traveling across Italy, one senses the deep roots of culture in the architecture and art of each city and region. Travel provides opportunities for firsthand OBSERVATION, which conjure more fantasy than the greatest storyteller. Travelling inpires storytelling. Experiences cement knowledge within the mind. DOCUMENTATION of these experiences expresses the excitement, awe and wisdom that travel offers. A story, sketch or photograph can inspire and enchant those who have not experienced a place. It can also identify and relate to others who have experienced it.
1. A sculpture on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, Rome. 2. A pencil sketch of friends exploring near the lake shore in Como, Italy.
ITALIA
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ANALOGOUS SQUARE Kent State Florence Program, Spring 2008
The PIAZZA was not originally intended for automobile traffic, but many, such as the Piazza del Duomo in Florence are now lined with parked cars, sliced by roads and overcrowded with tourists. The urban intervention applied here is meant to coax pedestrian flow away from the undesirable traffic routes going through the piazza, and to provide the pedestrian flow with a virtually uninhibited, automobile free view of the piazza’s centerpiece; the Baptistery and Duomo of Florence. The Duomo and Baptistery of Florence have been civic and religious monuments since their creation. Any alterations made to the piazza cannot interfere with these iconic structures. The piazza itself has changed little in dimension, but greatly in function over time. It now serves as a mass transit hub and a substantial tourist attraction. The aerial plan to the right shows two urban interventions; a steel and glass sheltered GALLERIA (shown in blue) and a network of BALCONIES, attached to the facedes of bordering buildings on the south corner (in red).
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The experience within this PIAZZA is spatially unique due to the placement of the Duomo and Baptistry at its center, dispelling the typical function of a piazza as purely a release space amid the compression of the surrounding city. Galleria spaces have been urban fixtures in European cities since Ancient Rome. Central Florence currently does not have a prominent galleria space. The proposed urban intervention includes a winding galleria which is offset from a portion of the piazza particularly plagued by auto traffic. The view at right represents a typical spatial experience created within this GALLERIA. Retail occurs on the first floor, with residential space above. This galleria would redirect shoppers and tourists away from the major bus routes and Tramvia line, running along one side of the Duomo. The faceted glass CANOPY provides shelter with maximum lighting and ventilation, which suits a city with mild winters and humid summers such as Florence. Shopping and nightlife establishments deterred by the high rent of piazza-front property and quick traffic could find a suitable place within this pedestrian friendly haven that is still in close proximity to the Duomo itself.
ITALIA
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Observatory SKETCHES are the realization of curiosity. Sketching furthers the quest to understand a sculpture, facade, detail or space as a whole. Seeing begins the understanding and sketching refines it, interpreting what the eye sees through the hand and mind. It is a free flowing, impulsive and spontaneous art. Sketching begins with an intrigue which propels the sketch into existence. The subject of the sketch is hungrily consumed, until an understanding is reached. The sketch is finished as enigmatically as it begins.
1. Facade sketch of the Basilica di San Pietro in CittĂ del Vaticano. 2. Ink sketch of an ornamental sculpture within the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore in Venezia. 3. Sketch of the Palazzo Brancaccio in Roma. 4. Pencil and ink rendering of the main corridor within the Fieramilano in Rho, Italy. 5. Ink sketch of the Piazza del Popolo in Roma.
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series of study models created for a dual artist-in residence studio within a 15th century warehouse.
2. Uffizi gallery
panorama. Graphite and colored pencil on strathmore.
3. Rendering of Dante
statue plaster cast. Charcoal on strathmore.
4. St. Peter’s Basilica and the Tiber River in Rome. Ink drawing.
ROMA NAPOLI
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URBINO
VENEZIA RAVENNA
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Miami University, Study Abroad Studio, Summer 2007
SQUARE CIRCLE is a London based Creative Agency which provides animation, visuals, branding, interactive web design and packaging for its clients. This design is intended for use as their international headquarters. The firm desires to own the entire structure, but only partially occupy it. Remaining space will be let out to smaller retail enterprises until expansion is required. Square Circle requires not only an energy efficient structure, but one with an aesthetic which expresses this as well.
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1. The site is located in the Canary Wharf area of the
Docklands in East London. The area is a significant commercial district in the city, with the city’s tallest skyscrapers just blocks away. The site was chosendue to its immediate adjacency to many international businesses that Square Circle would like to engage as clients.
2. A series of concept elevations depicting a pyrimidal structure which protrudes beyond the building mass.
3. Conceptual roof plan depicting an open terrace and breezeway between two building masses.
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LONDON
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Above: The west facade at night, facing the major thoroughfare. Right: Conceptual sections and plan highlighting the pyramidal structure and geothermal system.
The STRUCTURE is a pyramidal space frame, composed of steel beams, with geothermal heating coils embedded within. The steel frame extends deep into the ground, directing the heating coils beneath the canal’s surface. Here they are exposed to the canal’s floor, which remains a constant temperature throughout the year. The warmth of the canal bed is conducted to the buildings center through the geothermal system, and released as radiant heat through the column surfaces.
LONDON
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The SITE is currently a tree shaded car park situated between two mid rise office buildings. The stretch of land that the site occupies is bordered by a major thoroughfare and a quiet canal, creating waterfront views to the East of skyscrapers located in Canada Square. The site encourages interaction with the street corner at the south edge, as well as the adjacent canal waterfront. The building FORM is designed to enhance energy efficiency. Thin east-west dimensions of it’s footprint allow effective cross ventilation of breezes through
operable windows on both facades. The outdoor atrium also allows wind flow through the center of the building, and creates more surface area for daylighting offices around the perifery. Fire stairs located at both ends are encouraged to be used as an alternate to the elevators and increase circulation on key locations of the site. The majority of the structure’s windows are on the east and west facades. Extensive daylighting, ventilation and access to the outdoor patio and suspended walkways provide a pleasantly open work environment that is engaged with the site.
1. The east facade, facing the canal.
The steeply pitched roof collects directs rainwater into a gutter system connected to a gray water cistern.
2. The integration of structure and buliding
footprint in a series of conceptual plan sketches
3. The exposed structure above the
multipurpose roof patio can be equipped with tensile fabric shading for shelter from the sun and rain.
4. View to the south atop the roof patio. The
patio functions as a social gathering area open to all building tenants. Tensile fabric can be attached to the exposed steel space frame to provide shelter from rain.
LONDON
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SCAD, Rendering for the Interior, Fall 2011 SCAD, Graduate Drawing, Winter 2011
RENDERING captures a sensual experience beyond that of space and form. Rendering communicates texture, color, lustre and materiality. A soft glow of an interior light absorbed by the familiar pattern of finished wood paneling can evoke smells, sounds and textures buried deep within the brain. A rendering can be an informative drawing and the manifestation of pure emotion. A therapeutic release or a communication tool. A rendering depicts more than space and form, it gives space and form a context, an extra-sensory level of information. A rendering is an UNDERSTANDING.
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An interior rendered from a magazine photo. Watercolor and ink on paper.
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Interior rendering timed technique studies. Marker, colored pencil and ink on paper.
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Details of Three Large Drawings, a self portrait. Charcoal and gesso on paper. Each drawing is approximately 3 by 3 feet.
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MacPherson Architects/2MA, 2010
FURNITURE is an essential element of any school. Maumee Valley Country Day School is a private school located in Toledo, Ohio. The school houses 500 preschool through 12th grade students across a campus of buildings dating back to the 1880s. The New Upper School is the centerpiece of a campus-wide replacement and renovation of all school structures. MacPherson Architects/2MA designed the building, which housed it’s first class of students in 2010. I as an intern with MacPherson/2MA coordinated the selection of new school furniture with input from a committee of school faculty, created FFE construction documents, wrote the furniture specifications and prepared the bid package.
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Building designed by MacPherson Architects/2MA, 2007-2011 All images photographed by Ryan Southen
Opposite, Right: The finished Headmaster’s office and Lobby.
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Above: A classroom in the New Upper School. Tables are custom assembled and reconfigurable in large or small clusters. Right, Top Row: Lab furniture in the science classrooms Right, Bottom Row: Furniture in the preschool building and media center.
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CHANDIGARH INDIA SCAD, Winter and Spring Quarter 2011
Chandigarh, India is a city masterplanned in the late 1950s by a group of western architects and planners including le Corbusier. The city was planned anthropomorphically, with the CAPITOL COMPLEX, housing landmark government structures as the ‘head’ of the city. Corbusier intended this Capitol Complex to be ‘an acropolis of monuments’. The Capitol Complex is removed from the ‘heart’ of the city; the residential and commercial urban area. It is a destination point away from the city, where the buildings become freestanding sculptural pieces, framed by the Himalayas.
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Right: View of Assembly Building in Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier. Top Right: View of the Hand Monument in Chandigarh, also designed by Le Corbusier. These buildings are part of a composition of buildings which make up Sector 1, the Capitol Complex.
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URBAN PLANNING SCAD, Winter Quarter 2011
The Capitol Complex of Chandigarh is a grand, unfinished COMPOSITION. A key piece to the composition is absent; the Governor’s Palace. The palace was designed by Le Corbusier but never realized. This project proposes to complete Le Corbusier’s composition with a new Governor’s Palace. The city of Chandigarh has expanded beyond its original MASTERPLAN. A conceptual urban planning proposal aided in understanding the context of Chandigarh and how it has grown and changed. Main features of this proposal include retaining the original system of numbered, gridded sectors, as well as the Capitol complex as the government center. The proposal focuses on reconnecting fringe areas of the city such as dead zones and slums engulfed in urban sprawl.
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Right: Proposal of public cells within the city grid. They are positioned at prominent intersections within high density areas. Diagonal footpaths consisting of green space and gardens will run through the urban fabric, connecting public cells to one another.
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EXISTING CITY
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Urban Area within Sector Grid Village or Slum Streams
Planned Green Space Bodies of Water Civic Plaza
Major Roads
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PROPOSAL ELEMENTS
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Green Paths
Proposed Density Increases Public Cells
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Original sectors are more culturally and economically affluent, based on the number of parks, civic, educational and health structures. The original gridded sector system is still expanding beyond the original scope of the masterplan. The original sectors of the masterplan maintain a desireable density level because of the frequency of parks, landmarks, health and educational buildings. Newer sectors only continue the sectors as main thoroughfares, and do not control the hierarchy of transportation within sectors based on the 7-V System.
Placement of PUBLIC CELLS near slums and urban sprawl will evenly distribute civic structures, encouraging density and desireable development around them. Public cells are civic tracts containing institutional buildings and landmarks. These buildings are suspended in green space, and are surrounded by high density urban areas. FOOTPATHS connect public cells creating diagonal axes across the sector grid. They will provide a means of transporation for congested slums into different areas of the city. Low density, undeveloped areas often border overly dense, sequestered slums. Footpaths will allow access through these areas from the slums to other neighborhoods, making them more viable, pedestrian accessible areas for development.
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SCAD, Winter and Spring Quarter 2011
The CAPITOL COMPLEX, Sector 1, is located in the Chandigarh’s center of affluence. The Capitol Complex is a fascinating composition of structures, an “Acropolis of Monuments” separated from the urban fabric but public and visible to all. The Governor’s Palace fits into the composition of the Capitol like a PUZZLE PIECE. By placing the new palace on the original proposed site, the composition of the complex is affirmed.
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Right: Study model which highlights the properties of light passing through the facade, as well as the patterned roof.
CHANDIGARH
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Below: Approach from the auto accessible entrance, to the right of the grand procession. Right: Longitudinal and Transverse sections of the public wing, containing banquet halls and assembly spaces.
CHANDIGARH
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The buiding form arose from an exploration in PATTERNS, and the warping of patterns. How is a pattern percieved? In 2 dimensions it is simple to recognize a pattern, and the distortion of a pattern. When does distortion break a pattern? How far can it be warped, and still maintain a rhythm, or consistent geometry? In three dimensions, a geometric pattern can be PERCEPTION by feeling a texture, or experiencing a spatial repetition. How is a 2 dimensional pattern percieved, when translated into a space or a 3 dimensional form, and is degradation of the pattern more or less noticeable? Traditional ORNAMENT on temples, stupas and mausoleums in India show some of the most intricate and advanced patterns ever created. They also push the limits of patterns through complexity, distortion and fractalization of patterns.
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Below: Conceptual sketches and studies for the palace. Right: Study models which explore a warped pattern element as a shading device, shelter and rain screen.
The proposed design abides by Le Corbusier’s basic pattern of terminating a monumental axis such as a road or processional pathway with a grand facade. The APPROACH to the new palace consists of changing levels, monuments and landscape. The approach completes a grand processional axis of the governor, from his home to the assembly building. The approach is perpendicular to a GRAND PLAZA, open space within open space. The vastness of the plaza frames unobscured views to each feature of the composition. The governor’s palace is placed at the highest point, visible to all. To provide relief and shade in such a large area without obscuring views, multi-leveled landscaping along the perifery lowers the shade providing vegetation.
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Right: The new Governor’s Palace inserted into Le Corbusier’s plan for the capitol complex. The approach to the palace adds water features and greenery on multiple levels. Below: Development of a patterned skin which shades and shelters. An exploration of light and form.
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Above: Analysis of unity, separation, entrance and hierarchy of circulation are imperative in the home of a world leader. Massing through physical models help to create appropriately scaled spaces for all types of users.
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Right: Users of the palace will include the Governor and his family, protestors, tourists, citizens and visiting diplomats. This diagram analyzes site use and entry patterns.
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Grand Hall Dining Room
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Guest Apartment Press Room Home Kitchen Space for Puja Visitor Vestibule Catering Kitchen Banquet Hall Hall of Honor Lofted Apartments Courtyard Governor’s Office Master Bedroom Tribute Wall Archives Ceremonial Hall
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Grated metal balcony flooring Steel decking with poured concrete floor Poured concrete load bearing wall Steel open web joists The paneling system is translucent ETFE foil fastened to aluminum clamps
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Air Vent Steel framed structure Curtain wall system attached to steel framing
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1 Grated metal balcony flooring 2 Steel decking with poured concrete floor 3 Poured concrete load bearing wall 4 Steel open web joists 5 Wood roof joists 6 Glu-Lam bolted connection
7 Tongue and groove decking continues inside as ceiling finish
8 Open-air balcony 9 The heavy timber lateral beam supported by a steel hanger bolt
10 The steel hinged connection anchors glu-lam arch to the concrete footing.
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SEE
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JIM MACMILLAN
macmiljs@gmail.com 7032 Elden Drive, Sylvania, OH 43560 (419) 944-5094
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