Fall 2008–2012

Undergraduate PortfolioPeter McInish

Projects

Fourth Year Children’s HospitalChicago, Illinois

Professional Design Habitat 4.0Meridian, Mississippi

Third Year Rural Studio Farm and Solar GreenhouseNewbern, Alabama

Second Year Lake ResidenceLake Martin, Alabama

Ways of Seeing

Third Year DrawingsItaly, Portugal, and the American South

First Year Visual Prosthetic/Optical ApparatusObserver

Resume

Fourth Year Iterations on a LoftBirmingham, Alabama

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

Fall 2011

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

Thickened facades allow

for shading, mutliple

frames of view

.

Family seating/sleeping

faces the patient.

Lowered ceilings inform

entries and staff zones.

Wide hallw

ays become

social corridors.

Personal storage is outboarded in the depth of the facade.

Concealed lighting above

the patient bed is gentler by lighting surfaces versus objects.

A rendered section detail of the facade, from patient care units to public space

Opposite: Interior and exterior views of the public level

Iterations on a LoftBirmingham, 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

Summer 2011

Proposed interventions

Existing conditions

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, semi-private 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.

Design Habitat 4.0Meridian, 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.

Fall 2011

Team

Dan BeekerZac CordovaWill GregoryPeter McInishJustin MillerAmanda Petersson

PlanPorch

Scheme 1

Plan Porch

Scheme 2

Models, outside the affiliate’s office.

Rural Studio Farm and Solar GreenhouseNewbern, 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.

Fall 2010

3rd Year Class, Fall 2010

Morgan AcinoChristine BagdigianDamian BoldenAshley ClarkDrew CravenKurt FunderburgBrad GreeneWill GregoryKyle JohnsonPeter McInishMichael StricklinAshley Williams

Comparison of sun angles in summer and winter

ci rcu lat ion

farm: (v.) to cultivate

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 produc-

tion 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

intended as parallel symbiotic systems driven by the same holistic ethic:

challenged by using the land creatively as a precious resource.

greenhouse

hoop house

tool storage

sawmill

wood shop

compost

water cistern

solar kiln

wood storage

chicken tractor

food storage

morr i set te: center of product ion

chant i l l y orchard

downtown

cha

ntill

y o

rcha

rdd

ow

nto

wn

mo

rris

ett

e

A S FJDNO A J JM M

TOTAL SERVINGS

% OF GOAL

LINEAR FEET of crop

SQUARE FEET of crop

2830 2690 1100004019103870 202069018802440

74% 70% 29%--1%50%101% 52%18%49%64%

1970 2320 1250105040010013501650 117090015751470

5920 6970 37503150120030040504950 3520270047204420

plant

harvest

plant in greenhouse

harvest in greenhouse

food product ion

energy product ion

bui ld ing mater ia l product ion

production timeline

production timeline

production timeline

mor r i set te: center of product ion

chant i l l y orchard

downtown

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.

MORRISETTE CENTER OF PRODUCTION

food product ion

access + park ing

c i rcu lat ion

more de�ned hallway

add as o�ce

entry ramp

open courtyard

existing proposed

existing

existing

proposed

proposed

sun exposurewhite area optimal farming

drainage

A S FJDNO A J JM M

TOTAL SERVINGS

% OF GOAL

LINEAR FEET of crop

SQUARE FEET of crop

2830 2690 1100004019103870 202069018802440

74% 70% 29%--1%50%101% 52%18%49%64%

1970 2320 1250105040010013501650 117090015751470

5920 6970 37503150120030040504950 3520270047204420

plant

harvest

plant in greenhouse

harvest in greenhouse

expandable working area

pod expansion

expand student kitchen

remain commercial kitchen

GROWING CALENDAR

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 90° F.

Lake ResidenceLake 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.

Fall 2009

Study models

Final model Conceptual diagram

Interior perspectives (1,2)

2

1

Ways of SeeingDrawings from Europe and the American South

Summer 2010 - Spring 2011

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 HouseGreensboro, AlabamaWatercolor on Arches

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

Ways of SeeingVisual Prosthetic/Optical Apparatus

Fall 2008

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.

Exposure 1:12Development 0:50

Exposure 1:00Development 1:00

Exposure 1:15Development 1:00

Final Observer, Test 01 02 03

Exposure 2:00Development 1:10

04

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.

“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.”

Peter McInish 334.790.1891

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

pam0005@auburn.edu

EDUCATION

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

2008 – Present(2013)

Houston Academy — Dothan, AlabamaSalutatorian; Chief Justice, Honor Council

2008

EXPERIENCE

Lee and McInish, P. C. — Dothan, AlabamaOffice 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.

06.2008 – 8.2008

HONORS AND INVOLVEMENT

American Institute of Architecture Students Treasurer South Quad Conferences

2008 – Present2011 – 20122008, 2009

20112010

Ambassador, College of Architecture, Design, and Construction 2009 – 2010

Awards1st Place, Alagasco Design CompetitionSouthern A&E ScholarshipFaculty Book Award Frank J. Sindelar Scholarships (2)3rd Place, Alabama Wood Design CompetitionLovett Memorial Book AwardAuburn University Presidential Scholarship

20112011 – 2012

20112009 – 2011

20102010

2008 – Present

Teaching Assistant, Environmental Controls I Prof. Justin Miller

2011

Design Habitat 4.0 — Meridian, MississippiDesigner. 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.

09.2011 – 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.

REFERENCES

Justin Miller, Assistant Professor, Architecture. justin.miller@auburn.edu Gaines Blackwell, Professor Emeritus, Architecture. gtblackwell@gmail.com

Auburn University Honors College Honors Scholar

2008 – Present(2013)