CABOT FERGUSON
PORTFOLIO
ABOUT ME
Ever since I was a child, I have been in love with the built environment; I have always felt that the constructed world has so much to offer. Throughout my years of moving from home to home and traveling to many places, I found a reverence for the culture that makes each of us so unique. I have always loved to make and understand things, and I have always appreciated the grand design of the world that surrounds us. Ever since my first day in a studio, I have always been interested in learning anything and everything that makes architecture so engaging.
I have always seen the world in shapes and form, and this has only been the root of most of my architectural language. I believe that buildings embedded in the notion of place and culture are fundamental for the betterment of the human condition. In school I have discovered another dimension that ties the world together, the phenomenal, and through context and phenomenological understanding I strive to produce architecture that keeps us rooted in our connection to the world.
RECOGNITION
The Maggie’s Center is a sanctuary of quiet resilience, honoring both the visible strength and unseen complexities of those affected by cancer. So often, they wear a steadfast facade to comfort others while carrying an intricate, unspoken emotional weight within. This project reflects that duality—an architecture of both fortitude and fragility, where light, material, and space create a gentle interplay of shelter and openness, solitude and support. Here, walls embrace rather than confine, textures whisper of care, and thresholds invite pause and reflection. In this space of empathy, healing is not only physical but deeply human, where strength and tenderness find harmony.
GROUND FLOOR
LOWER FLOOR
LONGITUDINAL SECTION
TRANSVERSE SECTION
The Maggie’s Center Newport aims to dignify the conditions and unique experiences of those effected by cancer, through a recognition and addressing of the stalwart and strong facade they must put on to comfort those around them, and a reflection of the complex and delicate interiority of their bodies and psyche in the interior expression of the project.
ENGAGEMENT
The strongest moments, the moments that resonate with us, are those that capture us. These moments feel like they pull us in, they engage with us, they couldn’t exist without us; these moments speak to us. The building holds a discussion with the user through a long and intentional procession, targeted moments of reflection, and a freedom of exploration within the exhibits. The exhibit space is broken into a series of buildings to allow individuals to have a unique and self-guided exploration of the site, where they are guiding the architecture as much as it is guiding them. This unique approach allows Dosan’s legacy to be a living spirit that has a hand in each person’s experience, a spirit that can grow and change with the culture of today, armed with the events of yesterday.
MUSE
My partner and I were tasked with designing a pavilion to be built on one of the peaks of Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, California. We used this opportunity to create a design that harbored a phenomenological experience that would affect the worldview of those who experienced it. The Pavilion drew inspiration from the Hebrew word “Badad” meaning to withdraw, be separate, or isolate. Our site is set adjacent to the central peak of Rubidoux, an area for devotions and spiritual growth. With this in mind, the pavilion’s design focuses on isolation. Isolating the user from the trails and hikers at Mount Rubidoux, the chaos of city life, and the stresses of the modern individual; giving them an opportunity for self-reflection.
NORTH ELEVATION
EAST ELEVATION
REALIZATION
MIT is a campus of brilliant, technical minds that are always looking for new ways to approach their respective fields. The Theology Department from this institute would be no different. Because of this, the MIT Christian Studies Center must approach spirituality and transcendence through the lens of the academic vernacular. This is achieved through an understanding of how transcendence fits into the realm of our measurable reality, the reality of the rationally inclined. The spaces within the center aim to address the individual independent of their distance or proximity to the Lord through a division of the plan into thought/academia and feeling/spirituality. The Final step of the journey culminates in a space of self actualization, the chapel.
Silence and calm allow us to find moments of respite, moments of contemplation. Many of the spaces in this project capture the silent atmosphere that is vital for the contemplation of spiritual and phenomenal nuance. Through reflection, the individual can understand their place in the physical and spiritual realm and grow comfortable in this realization.
