Architectural Portfolio

DEREK JAMES PETERSENSome Work

003 Beck Park Pavilion

004 Jones Duplex

006 Shabu Wasabi

007 Keston House Remodel

008 Ford Plant Retread

009 Skate Garage


011 Public Safety City Hall

012 Sculpture

013 Hand Sketching

ON THE GULF COASTDue to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, many homes were completely swept away. The rebuilding effort over the last two years has met up with several complications, both nancial and political. FEMA has regulated the base ood elevation of all homes that must be rebuilt. The costs of this regulatory insurance measure are problematic, both nancially and psychologically.

BECK PARK PAVILION City Commissioner, Bill Stallworth, provided the design problem. We needed an appealing sunshade pavilion along the west side of the playground that would not attract vagrant teens during the nighttime hours.

I spent the two weeks developing a conceptual design with the class’ supervis-ing architects. When fteen students from the University of Minnesota came down to Biloxi, we had three weeks to get the project’s design nalized, its materials -nanced, and its physical realization fully executed. We were successful.

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PlaygroundPavilion Deck

Path from Red HousePath from Community Gardens 4

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JONES DUPLEX

The project was completed by a group of six students. I was responsible for several of the exterior wall sections.

The Duplex was to be our design project during our alternative semester abroad. It was to be a duplex that dealt with two main issues: one, carefully tting the resi-dence behind the main home and within the Biloxi regional code’s setback require-ments; and two, delicately addressing the nine foot base ood elevation.

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Main Floor PlanPatio

Living RoomKitchen

BathroomBedroom

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Top Base Flood Elevation Map, compiled by Gulf Coast Community Design Stu-dio. Below A progress rendering of the Jones Duplex showing approach from the west.

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SHABU WASABI

Our client’s Shabu restaurant was a great idea, as he was limited to a relativelytight space. The traditionally predominating kitchen portion of the program could be ef- ciently integrated into the dining. Our work at Duan Corporation was to t as many guests into that tight space while giving the space an asian feel. I didn’t know what this “asian feel” was, so after doing a little research I discovered that much of asian architecture is composed of a series of layers, formal elements that slow down one’s lateral progression through a space. I did my best to include this aspect in the design.

Floor PlanEntry and P.O.S.

Shabu BarDining Room

Beverage BarVestibule to Patio 5

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First Floor PlanFront PorchFoyerLiving RoomKitchenDining RoomMud/Laundry RoomBathroom

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KESTON HOUSE REMODEL

As a team of ve, friends of mine and I completely gutted this Saint Anthony Park house with the intention of adequately modernizing it while attempting to preserve its modest charm. When I arrived, the interior of the house was rather derelict. Ceilings were drooping, walls leaned, and the kitchen sink’s constant drip had been steadily gouging a whole in the oor below. Beyond that, the house needed bath-rooms. After applying sheetrock to all the walls and ceilings and replacing all the nish woodwork throughout the house, we added a kitchen and three bathrooms.

Northward Section

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Southward Exterior Perspective

FORD PLANT RETREAD

This project was a collaborative endeavor, which called upon us all to envision how the Ford Plant in St. Paul, MN might be repurposed after its closing. For a site that was formerly closed off to the surrounding neighborhood, our group wanted to ‘po-rositize’ the site, so that it would reunite visitors and neighbors down to the river.

After developing our campus-wide scheme, I designed Live/Work Research labs as a pair of buildings straddling the transitway. The public nature of the labs would offer the community an opportunity to see how site contamination was being addressed.

Live/Work Research Labs

TransitwayFarmer’s Market / CondoResearch LaboratoriesLab AuditoriumCommunity Gardens

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SKATE GARAGE

This thesis project came out of a concern I have, that kids are spending too much time inside. I proposed to de ne an appropriate architecture for adolescent leisure in the city, suggesting that this architecture would integrate youths’ everyday lives into the public realm by interfacing their spaces with spaces for adult generations.

The project morphed into the design of a parking garage in Uptown Minneapolis, one that concurrently offers parking and provides opportunities for adolescents to freestyle skate. A bike shop and a snack store were incorporated to interface older generations into this adolescent realm.

Scheme One Porous Retail Scheme Two Intersecting V’s

Scheme Three Pack It In Scheme Four Serpentine

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Main Level PlanUptown Snacks

Public BathroomsParking

the ALT Bike ShopSkate Gap 5

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PUBLIC SAFETY CITY HALL

While at Wold AE, I was given the opportunity to provide design assistance for a new public safety city hall building in the city of Cottage Grove, Minnesota. The city wanted a modern aesthetic that would emphasize the site’s natural landscape.

When I stepped into the project after layout and square footages had been set, I took on the design of the interior architecture. I worked to tie the inherent logic of the building’s overall architecture to the general aesthetic preferences of the client, thereby setting up design rules to apply to construction of the building’s interior.

Early Study Sketch

SCULPTUREMay I Meet You? May You Meet Me?

One of my nal projects as a sculpture student in the art program at Calvin College was to prepare a site speci c sculptural installation in our campus art gallery. May I Meet You? May You Meet Me? is a metaphorical assembly of the tension manifest at the inception of relationships. The sculpture attempts to physically concretize the simultaneous desires people have to be fully known and to be seen as emotionally tidy.

HAND SKETCHING

As an external processor, I think my best with a sketch journal. The journal affords me the opportunity to slow down my thinking and investigate a building’s physical interrelationships. After graduating from college, I spent four months living in Ba-varia, working at a local paper mill. On the evenings and weekends, I would take jogs around the region or hop on the streetcar to travel into Munich. On these short trips I would journal my experiences.

These exercises helped to excel my critical thinking skills once architecture school rolled around. There, I learned to use drawing as a tool for architectural discovery.

FIGURE STUDIES

I am convinced that a majority of our visual experience of architecture dwells with the apprehension of shadows and light. In general, I attest that light draw us out of the shadows and shadows draw us out of light. The two experiences have a symbiotic relationship.

As an drawing student at Calvin College, I learned that the discipline of gure stud-ies requires artists to address shadows and light across the surface of the body.
