MCKENNA VANDENTOP 2022 PORTFOLIO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The W.E.D.G.E. (DLR Group Prize Competition) . . . . . . 3

ARCH 401 FALL 2022

a museum focused on bringing light to environmental inequity in Chicago by implementing architectural moves that echo the disposition of redlining practices, showcasing exhibits and art which demonstrate the impacts of environmental degradation on the natural landscape, and prioritizing education plus creation to enable a space for learning about these injustices.

reAWAKEN (Hansen Prize Competition) . . . . . . 13

ARCH 301 FALL 2021

a restroration project which seeks to reuse two underutilized agricultural buildings located in Winterset, IA a stone located on site to patch together the woodland space scarred by a tranmission line and invasive plant life. Architecture as a mechanism for inspiring local intrest in thE landscape and its rehabilitation.

Fuse West . . . . . . 24

ARCH 302 SPRING 2022

a multi-family housing project located in the Hudson Yards district of New York City. The 200 ft tall building provides low-socioeconomic housing within a gentricfied area by integrating public culinary space and co-living units.

Lumen Living (Wells Concrete Competition) . . . . 35

ARCH 348 FALL 2021

a precast concrete apartment complex located in New York City. Designed as a four story urban infill project for the ARCH 347 Wells Concrete Competition during the fall of 2021.

The W

E

D

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E

wonder . educate . design . wonder . growth . environment .

The Wedge Museum, located in Lincoln Park, Chicago, is the passage to exploring our roles as individuals and humankind within the context of nature. With Chicago’s deep and painful history of redlining, The Wedge focuses on bringing light to environmental inequity in Chicago’s relined communities by implementing architectural moves that echo the disposition of redlining practices, showcasing exhibits and art which demonstrate the impacts of environmental degradation, and prioritizing education plus creation to enable a space for learning about these injustices.

The Wedge is situated just north of the Peggy Notebaert Museum at the convergence of three existing paths. The entrance in indicated by the cantilever that stretches over the path intersections. Following entrance, occupants are nudged into a ramped dark gallery space where they wonder along the edge of a secret moss garden: wedged through the middle of the mass. The forced perspective between the ramping floor, ceiling plane, and the triangulation of our gallery spaces forces visitors to analyze themselves within the context of our exhibits, then within the community, and finally within the context of an urban park.

The hidden moss garden is reminiscent of redlining in Chicago as it drove a wedge between communities and enabled obscure social, political, and economic injustices. Like redlining, those experiencing the jewel box moss garden are those unaffected, but those on the outside of the wedge have a curiosity and yearning to be within that beautiful space.

The artists we chose to feature within our museum renders, Dale Chihuly and Yayoi Kusama, force visitors to critically think about cultural appropriation and the nestling of people within the city. Chihuly’s work is inspired by nature, criticizing the taking and mistreatment of land under white supremacy, which pairs well with Kusama’s work as she analyzes the privilege that comes with regular access to art.

Coupling the environmental awareness exhibits and education, The Wedge encourages life cycle attributes that ensure the building’s self-sufficiency. One of these self-sustaining processes is the harvesting of water through the wedge walls and storage within cisterns. The stored water can be used for the water exhibit on the second ramped exhibit spaces, irrigation, heating and cooling, and water closets.

After exploring the gallery spaces and having self-guided reflection, visitors find themselves on the second level of our museum where the fabrication lab, assembly space, and classrooms are. From engaging with the information they absorb from exhibits and lectures to finding inspiration from the building when it comes alive on a rainy day, by coupling education with creation, the wedge presents a phe nomenal facility to push traditional learning boundaries. the wedge brings light to Chicagoan history through a series of experiences w hich nudge a perspective change visually and intellectually. All in all, The Wedge is not only a space for all walks of life to grapple wi th the notion of growing with nature and art, but a commentary on how important this access and relationship is as the human race continues to grow.

EDUCATION, BIENNALE, & FABRICATION LAB RENDER

skills utilized: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop

reAWAKEN is an initiative that sheds light on the need for preserving woodland space and ensuring native species prevail. Today land is sought after for development. This engagement is usually destructive, but after enveloping ourselves in this project we discovered a need to establish a mutual relationship between architecture and the landscape. If we can embrace the landscape for what it is, then the embrace can be returned.

Middle River & Holliwell Bridge

barn & corn crib

key

dense forest trees

rough brush & shrub grass & prairie

road water

arrival departure

- A high-voltage transmission line carries electricity across Madison County. 70+ foot H-frame towers and swooping wires make a linear cut through the site. The transmission line was built around the 1950s to supply electricity to towns spanning from Creston to Norwalk, Iowa.

rockbed creek

parking lot

- We are locating our parking across the gravel road from the slot to avoid further woodland fragmentation. This land was previously cropland which is now being converted into prairie. The dirt dug up in the slot for building construction would be reused to level the lot.

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arrival departure 1 2 3 pond

water

start of rain channel parking

Located on Westbrook Artists Site in Winterset, Iowa, reAWAKEN reflects the wisdom of this place through materiality, addresses ecological degradation through architectural functions, and emphasizes land ethic through the intentional site selection. The space serves as a facility which supports the education and removal of invasive species. It also features a water channel which flows through the landscape to the main building and subsequently to an outstretching rain garden below.

Facilitation of removal and education programs is ideally located in a transmission line slot as it reveals the dramatic topography of the land, serves as a symbolic break in the landscape, represents the epicenter of invasive expansion, and acts as an ecologically responsible site for human interruption. Restoration is a process which involves the intersections of a multitude of lifespans whether those be biological or physical.

skills utilized: Rhino, Illustrator, ProCreate, Photoshop

stone one stone two stone three

large limestone arrangement mortar amount : low medium limestone arrangement mortar amount : moderate river bed stone mix mortar amount : high

five miles

three miles

key active quarries inactive quarries site

- by utilizing a local quarry to access limestone for retailing wall

skills utilized: Rhino, Photoshop, Illustrator

Co-inhabitation with the land requires a light hand, reAWAKEN seeks to gently restore unused barn and corn crib materials and local ecology simultaneously. To allow for the construction of this partially subterranean complex, we integrated reclaimed lumber from the barn and corn crib on site within limestone foundations to create a contrasting intersection between local materials. To compliment the extension of the barn wood’s lifespan, the stone utilized for construction is from local quarries just miles from Winterset.

NORTHWEST SECTION

skills utilized: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop, Illustrator

The integration of materials, people, and plants elevates architecture’s relationship with its environment and enables the seamless transition from sky, to architecture, to earth. In the process of reusing materials, our project moves to reawaken the land and restore the woodland space. A harmonious landscape is a powerful force which carries fuel for growth as it does not commit energy to parasitic flora. This process of cleansing gives new life to this scarred plot and allows for it to awaken again.

skills utilized: Rhino, Illustrator, Photoshop, ProCreate

MCKENNA

& RAIN GARDEN RENDER

FUSE WEST

Situated close to the Hudson River, Fuse West seeks to unite the area through a communal effort to feed. This effort is facilitated by the building as it not only fuses its inner population but also invites the greater community of New York City with the soup kitchen located on the ground floor .

Fuse West is a 13 story multi-family housing project in Hudson Yards, New York City. When in New York, we witnessed a typical soup kitchen near the site that was bustling with people. The kitchen was bursting at the seams and had a long line where those in need had to bear the wind for an extended period of time. Our project offers an escape from the wind via the plaza that steps down 5 feet underneath the cantilevered building.

skills utilized: Rhino, Photoshop, Illustrator

CO-LIVING CO-LIVING LOBBY SINGLE FAMILY SINGLE FAMILY LOBBY SOUP KITCHEN GROWING GYM / MECHANICAL

The main strategy we utilized on this L-shape site is to break apart the mass into 2 separate towers based on their housing type. The cantilevers serve to create covered outdoor spaces below them and offer green plots on top of them. These green spaces serve to extend Bella Abzug Park across into our site offering a seamless transition from the public space into our building, while additionally pushing that green space vertically up and pushing it down.

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+ 5 FT - 5 FT

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Ground level

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SETBACK SIDEWALK 1

The Ground level contains two lobby spaces for the co-living complex and the single family complex. This area also has a community space which contains a soup kitchen and cafeteria. This community space extends all the way from the park to the courtyard and into the soup kitchen to provide flow for locals and shed light on access points.

ELEVATOR FIRE STAIRS COMMONS TRASH CHUTE

level 3

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DN

14 13

Section 1 Section 2 DN

1 1 2

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14 3 1

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9 6

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STORAGE / PANTRY 12 PARK 13 RAMP 14 NORTH

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9 10 SERVICE 11 1/16”-1’ SCALE:

On the ground floor we have the lower plaza area that provides access to the communal soup kitchen separate from the two lobby spaces which can only be accessed at street level. We situated our ramp and stairs to access the plaza space closest to the park due to the location of residential housing north east of our site. Overall, the communal eatery functions as an open flex space which fuses its surrounding context.

level 8

Level 8 contains co-living & single family units with a connected event space that includes a lounge and game area as well as a large kitchen available for hosting larger groups. This floor of the co-living units contains a kitchen space below the upper living area.

ELEVATOR FIRE STAIRS COMMONS TRASH CHUTE COMMUNAL KITCHEN OUTDOOR SPACE

level 9

Level 9 contains co-living & single family units. This floor of the coliving units contains a living space. The co-living floors 9-11 alternate kitchen space and living space in the central bay.

With the large-scale new construction taking place so close to the river, the land has become highly sought after and incredibly expensive. The wealth being poured into the area will provide opportunities for economic growth, however, to support this growth in the restaurant industry we chose to provide an affordable alternative for upcoming professionals. The occupancy typologies in our building consist of both co-living units and single family units. The west tower accommodates the co-living units, while the east is for single families. The co-living units consist of 8 individual bedrooms joined by a central stair that extrudes through the kitchen space into the upstairs living area.

On the ground floor we have the lower plaza area that provides access to the communal soup kitchen separate from the two lobby spaces which can only be accessed at street level. We situated our ramp and stairs to access the plaza space closest to the park due to the location of residential housing north east of our site. Overall, the communal eatery functions as an open flex space which fuses its surrounding context.

The culmination of these exterior and interior choices formulate the flow of energy between our two buildings. These energies include the soup kitchen, the urban farming roof, and the waste management system. We have extended our theme of feeding not to the community but also to the residents through access to garden space and a greenhouse.cSustainability can be powered by the community when farming, serving, and disposing of food occurs in a manner that fuses people together.

skills utilized: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop, Illustrator

LUMEN LIVING

Lumen Living, located in the heart of New York City, is a three unit precast concrete modular design residential building. The proposal takes the classic row house apartment which usually lacks natural light on two facades and transforms this boundary with the usage of transparent concrete on the south west facade. In the three units, a unique balcony, full kitchen, spacious living room, full bathroom, and two bedrooms provide plenty of space for any New Yorker.

EYE VIEW & MATERIALS

skills utilized: Rhino, Enscape, Photoshop, Illustrator

The 5 separate modular panels are split up at their connection points where the interior walls meet, in order to create an ease of placing the modules once on site. To connect each of the modules together, the concrete panels wrap their interior and exterior slabs around the structural beams that run along the ends of each of the modules. By wrapping the panels around the structure, the entire panel is reinforced by being locked seamlessly into other panels’ grooves.

skills utilized: Rhino, Illustrator, Enscape, Photoshop

The proposed transparent system is about more than just lighting up the space and allowing light through. Transparent concrete helps to reduce power consumption, is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional concrete, and natural light is a huge benefactor in mental health especially as more people work from home. This application has also proven to speed up the construction by half of the time and has unmatched thermal insulation capabilities due to the optical fibers.