Megan Johnson Portfolio

Portfolio of: Megan S. Johnson

“In the realm of architecture, space is experienced by means of observation, in which the sense of sight and touch are interlocked. This is a simple statement of fact...

...-lines, planes, structures, proportions, etc. - are suddenly as oneness, inbued with spiritual qualities. This transformation of simple physical fact into an emotional experience derives from a higher level of our faculty of abstraction.”

-Walter Gropius

megan s. johnson, 1998

Fall 1995Critic: Evelyn TickleAs an introduction to spacial concepts of the city the semester began with an analysis of the space / void relationships on the Lawn of the University of Virginia. The learned analytical concepts were then applied to the city of Athens, Greece and a map of the growth of the city from old to new was generated. The ancient circulation patterns, shown in black are very natural in form, but due to the impact of the automobile and a complexing society, modern patterns on are much more rigid, forcing circulation into an orthagonal grid. Moving into the future, the proposed subways refl ect the more natural forms of the circulation of ancient Athens. In studying these patterns, federal express drop boxes were located around the temporal city, and eventually a Federal Express headquarters was designed.

The construction of the subway system through Athens is a continual battle between archaelogy and progress. Every dig must employ a slew of archaeologists to scour the area for artifacts before construction can begin. Expressing this delicate balance of new construction inside on old city, the design was conceived as a structure that would be built to encase and protect an older building, while producing new spaces. The new structure had two layers: a glass sock closely surrounding the existing structure as a protective layer, and a layer of exterior walls designed to hold the Federal Express Headquarters.

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Spring 1996Critic: Shawn Rickenbaker

Artist’s Studio ~ Charlot-tesville, Virginia: A design exercise to equip the roof of an existing structure with an artist’s studio. A room was created with two spaces: a working space with an opaque glass wall to provide light and privacy, and a meditation space with a clear glass wall to provide views for inspiration.

Through model work and worms eye drawings, the circulation patterns, spatial relationships, and facade work of Corbusier’s Carpenter Center were analyzed in an effort to understand the construct as a potential precedent. I was drawn to the exterior spaces around the building, and and became facinated with how the building changed the site with these residual spaces. In the fi nal project of the semester I applyed these principles to the design of a nightclub in Charlot-tesville, Virginia. A series of exterior spaces were designed into the structure including a space near the sidewalk stratigically placed to capture the activity at the sidewalk into the identity of Ca

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Fall 1997Critic: Timothy StensonBlue Ridge Swim Club ~ Charlottesville, Virginia: The site was a natural pool located along a stream which it used as its water source, fi ltering the water through a series of settling ponds before the water entered the pool. The water returned back to the stream through scuppers along the stream side of the pool. The site was analyzed as a series of planes, inspired by the long refl ective plane the pool created in the landscape.

After researching Hdjuck’s and Zaha Hadid’s designs, the structure was conceived as lifting the ground planes vertically and re-orienting them to produce new spaces below them. One plane was operable to work with the path of the sun. The modern design was intended to be seen as in striking contrast with its natural surroundings. I continued my research of the site the next summer working as patron liaison for the club.


An emersion into the study of objects and light, beginning with a display case for small building replicas, the semester moved into the design of a library where ones interaction with books as objects and a need for natural lighting conditions is of utmost importance.

The study of the human body in space and howone ineteracts wiht the world in a tactile manner was studied thru a series of fi gure drawings and anatomical studies. Applying these to the spatiality of the courtyard in front of the headquarters of the American Institute of Architects in Washington D.C., a handicapped access ramp was designed as a part of the concept. Also introduced was the idea of a series of glass towers which could be viewed along a the ramp in order to display a series of small building repli-cas. The concept was to work with the natural tendency of glass and plexi to bring light to its edges, using that to add a dynamic aspect to the interior space.

Spring 1997Critic: Michael Bednar


At a larger scale the semester concluded with a library as mentioned earlier. The need for natural lighting conditions, and the need for both gathering spaces and spaces for repose make the library an exciting study to engage. The building was to be located at the end of a block in the Washington D.C. metro grid. A book vault was designed to butt against a series of existing row houses and then the building grew from that by opening itself up to the large park across the street.

A large atrium was created so that there were views to the neighboring park from every space on every level of the library. The atrium was tucked into the building ten feet to provide transistional “reading bridges” at each level, again working to blend the space of the street with that of the construct. Also, this moved place the atrium in teh center of the structure, providing all the spaces of the library with a unifi ed moment that connected the building with the adjacent park.

Spring 1997Critic: Michael Bednar


Spring 1997Critic: Alexander KitchenUsing a fi le folder, black felt, electrical tape, and a small sheet of metal, I worked to take a found object (this old backpack) and renovate it into something new (a camera) A backpack was chosen because it was large enough to produce 11x17 images, while being easy to take to a site. Being able to carry the camera long distances was essential because only one image could be captured before you would have to return to the dark room. The camera’s design emphasizes not only the beauty of taking the old and making it new, it also expresses that the essence of what something is, is not found in its appearance.

Investigating the constructions and inspirations found in pinhole photography has been a continual source of intergrated distraction in my career. Distraction because it is not building making, intergrated because it feeds your creativity and teaches you about your own design mannerisms.


The unit would provide shelter, fold up chairs and tables for work-ing, but also, the structure would be designed so that it collected its own water and created its own energy. the enclosing structure was designed to act as a series of recording agents with louvered glass panels provided to block wind, frame views, or record light patterns. Curtains provide privacy when needed, and they could record wind movement. Bikes and a bike rack would also be provided so that once on site the territory could be explored with the use of as little oil as possible.

When approaching a site there is a certain set of tools that would be most desireable for an architect to have access to in order to fully assess the site’s potentials. One would need a basic work space, but also one would need some other tools to explore the site while making as little impact on the site. Proposed is a site analysis module, conceived as a unit which with the push of a button could protract and retract in a similar manner to the workings of a camera.

Fall 1997Critic: William Sherman


Fall 1997Critic: William ShermanWorking within the site perameters of an empty lot near the University of Virginia, a housing complex was designed which could facilitate a variety of housing conditions from college students to young families. Three structures were designed to frame the two main green spaces, and work with the site’s positive features drawing them out and enhancing them. The two main buildings were located in a displaced manner so that the green spaces could each have their own character, yet be connected through views and spirit. A recycling center and compost area were located on site to promote ecological living.


The buildings themselves were also designed to promote healthy living in the fact that vegetable gardens were located on the roof, and the exterior skin of the buildings were designed to promote passive environmental control. The structure controlled the passage of light and air by separating the skin’s elements. the inner glass facade was inspired by Lorenzo Piano’s glass louvered facades, and the exterior brick wall, along with screens and curtains were provided to block the sun and provide privacy.

Fall 1997Critic: William Sherman


Spring 1998Critic: Theo Van GrollSited on Ijburg, an island currently under construction off the coast of Amsterdam, this project focused on the high end housing units of a larger com-munity scheme designed for the island. The homes were designed to attach to a centralized green space and then to jettison into the water providing personal pennisulas for each home. Facing the green space with a personal garden, none of the pennisulas would be completely buildt out so that a construction of interior and exterior spaces would be provided.

My critics claimed this project wildly expensive and inappropriate. When the Plam Islands were constructed in Dubai, I thought of this statement and felt a bit redeemed. Still it is a wildly unpragmatic approach.


The homes were designed to face the green space in a delightful manner, attaching the homes to the open space through views and a small personal garden at the front of each home. Ideally none of the penninsulas would be completly built out to allow for gardens at the front and rear of each structure.

In section, the roof line was designed to open up the southern side of the homes while closing off the northern side to produce positive air fl ow while working with neighboring structures to ensure a private environment. A louvered glass box was built on the southern side of the structure to act as a green house to warm the lower spaces, while louvered windows were placed along the ceiling of the upper story walls to use the sea winds to pull the warmth through the house.

Spring 1998Critic: Theo Van Groll


Independant Furniture Designs


Independent Furniture DesignsShown on the upper page is a Photographer’s Cabinet built from knotty pine, recovered from the discard bin at a milling plant. Designed with six drawers to hold photographs, and six shelves to hold books, this piece easily interacts with the research methods required by a photographer. Shown just above are a coffee table, and a telephone stand. The two tiered coffee table is built from river recovered fi rst-growth cypress and is designed for use and storage. The telephone table, built from oak, is designed at a height so to prevent bending over when taking quick notes. It also acts nicely as a decorative piece. The red re-bar lamp makes a great addition to an architectural room, whether the room is contem-porary or rustic.


June 1999 - November 2001Private Beach ResidenceI was the lead draftsperson and constrution manager for this project seeing it thru from the design development phase to fi nal completion. I was on site everyday supervising constuction and learn-ing from the carpenters and other construction personelle on the team. The 8”x8” timber piles were hydrolically sunk in 1999 beginning the two and a half year construction process. The pavillioned scheme was designed to produce a centrally located atrium in order to intergrate the exterior spaces with the interior spirituality of the house. Expressed most dramatically on the second and third fl oor, every interior space was designed with an adjacent exterior space to provide a continual balance of the interiors to the exteriors. The concept of the house was labled the “out / in house”.


June 1999 - November 2001Private Beach ResidenceThe balance of interior spaces to exterior spaces can also be seen in the sections, as the central atrium is vertically framed by interior spaces similar to the relationships found in the plan. These relationships were built using typical construction methods up to the third fl oor, where post and beam construction was then utilized. Because the glulam framework was to be left exposed in the fi nal construction, the connection between posts and beams was designed using ancient Japanese principles, cutting the members to interlock with each other, rather than using metal connections. This style detailing was found through out the house, leading the carpenters referred to the house as “the largest piece of furniture they had ever built.” Spatially the house maintains an attatchment to the site through the space of the atrium most easily seen in Section B as the atrium fl oor cascades down eventually cantilevering over the water.


The quality of a work of architecture resides in the space of the work. The quality of the space resides in how the work enhances the site’s positive features. The parasol over the deck, or fourth fl oor deck, was constructed using 4”x4” Brazillian Ipe. Because of the depth of the members, light is only allowed at noon, for fi fteen minutes, when the sun is directly overhead. The everchanging quality of light in the atrium, is felt through out the house and connects the home to the sun and universe, giving all of the spaces of the home an unifi ed spirituality.

June 1999 - November 2001Private Beach Residence

Although, the project was a sink or swim method of learning larger scale construc-tion, my spatial education was not forgotten. The use of the space of the atrium as site attatchment helped to expand my understanding of how a building interacts with its site by seeing many of the previously discussed theories fully constructed.


November 2001 - Feburary 2001Navassa Neighborhood

Every home is provided a lot large enough for a personal garden, and every neighborhood is located adjacent to a green space. This expression of spatial intergration between the indoors and the out, creates a bond between the community members and the out of doors. The desire to create a neighborhood focused developement is also expressed with the provi-sion of a main comunity space equipped with a large green space, commerce areas, a tot lot, a community center, and a church. This project is an example of how future suburbs could be enhanced to battle the isolation of the contemporary, car-motivated construct.

Bringing the concepts of spatial design back to the scale of the community, this low-income housing project was based on the ideas of new urbanism. This integration was made eco-nomically possible by designing the homes in a simple manner so that they may be built off site, in a piecemeal manner, by at-risk high school students. This unique approach to com-munity building made it possible to offset the cost of community construction while providing the homes at a low cost to the consumer.


June 2002 - May 2003Private Beach Subdivision / ResidenceIn a single building it is optimal if the integration of the outside with the inside is done in both plan and sec-tion. In this design, the inside / outside relationships were designed in a checkerboard fashion both horizon-tally and vertically in an attempt to make the difference between the two negligable. The central green axis begins under the arched branch of a Live Oak tree, and continues through the structure connecting a series of interior and exterior spaces. It would be roofed, yet visually open on both sides so that every interior space is fl anked with an equally important exterior space. Sounds, smells and distant views are an intergral part of the design, as well as, the many large, old Live Oak trees the site abound in. The main exterior space is adjacent to the billiards room, boasts a fi replace, and surrounds a Live Oak. The home faces west on an inlet of the intercoastal waterway, thus providing an excellent sunset every evening.


Working in the Church Hill area of Richmond, Virginia these renovation projects most intriqued me because of their nature in turning something old into something new. Every building goes thru a series of lives, changing and morphing into what it needed at the mo-ment. This project is representative of a series of renovations produced in this year.

July 2003 - August 2004Architectural Renovation


June 2003Independent StudyBrownie Pinhole

Continuing my personal study of light and the renovation of the old into the new, this particu-lar project took these ideas into a new direction. The renovation of an old brownie camera into a pinhole camera, gave me the ability to produce pinhole images on fi lm, which could then be scanned and printed via an ink-jet printer. Using an inkjet printer to produce the fi nal images, I likened the use of the printer an ink to how a painter would use a brush and oils.


June 2003Independent StudyPolaroid Pinhole

With the digital medium fi nding its full footing, the immediacy of the print was something I felt my pinhole work was missing. I answered this by creating a pinhole camera out of an old Polaroid camera purchased at a Tennessee roadside thrift market for ten dollars. The camera found many uses and eventually made its way into my fi nal Thesis project with the University of Michigan.


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One purchase multiplied over the landscape is graphically represented by a yellow square in the mapping exercise above. With this in mind, I took the program as presented and separated it into its most essential elements to even-tual develop a program map. The goal of the program map was to allow the spaces to begin to engage the mathmati-cal sublime of the horizontal urbanism with out being overly prescriptive of form.

Graduate Fall 2004Critic: Jason YoungMy fi rst semester of my graduate studies constituted an in depth study of the suburban condition as driven by the math-ematical sublime of commerce. Taking a single transaction as the fundamental element of commerce, it was noted how the suburban landscape is developed by the desire to collect and produce as many small transactions as possible.

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Bride Stripped Bare by her BachelorsMarcel Duchamp

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“representation of abstract forces, not physical objects...these forces are

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The Mathmatical Sublime of Horizontal Urbanism

unseen forces that act upon the horizontal landscape of the perimeter city

Site Map


RenderingsGraduate Fall 2004Critic: Jason YoungIn developing the physical structure, I wanted to express how the spaces of the suburban condition all fed off the ticker tape of capitalism. I also wanted to express the duality of the suburban condition as the capitalistic forces of suburbia are standardly masked in the physi-cal structures. False facades prevail, and massive boxes are decorated for the shopper’s visual delight.

The building was designed to allow a massive machine like complex to exist below ground emerging into the suburban visual realm only with nicely packaged glass boxes arranged in a similar manner as a suburban housing development. The relationship between the underground system and the glass subdivision above was the play of light and lines of sight between the two.


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Graduate Winter 2005Critic: Jonas Hauptman MiSo*The MiSo* house is a sustainable construct designed for domestic living “off-grid”. The house was fully con-structed and entered into the Annual Solar Decathelon. The concept challenges the American notion of buying and selling houses at will; rather, thinking of a house as a construct which one takes with them thru life. The house is designed to grow with a growing lifestyle as it is easily added on to by purchasing more modules. The concept maintains a focus on off grid living as a “systems module” is incorporated into the scheme. My chosen role in the project was to design the “systems module” (also known as the “energy module”)

Systems Core Section


Graduate Winter 2005Critic: Jonas Hauptman MiSo*

The systems of the house are also designed in a modular fashion as its parts are thought of as interchangeable so that they may be upgraded in a manner similar to cur-rent personal computers. Three systems are involved: a photovolatic system, a solar hydrolic system, and an ventilation system which interacts with the “solar chimney” to provide a majority of the needed heat.

The three systems can not maintain the house off the grid without the intergration of the other as the hydrolic system needs energy, and the ventilation system works with the “solar chimney” to maintain a suffi cient temperature reducing the need for hydrolic radiant heat to be utilized. The house is currently being optimized so that the current systems can supply enough energy and temperature control for off grid living.

ENERGY SYSTEM

HYDROLIC SYSTEM

energy production: 35000 W/day


Graduate Fall 2005Critic: Rahul MehrotraLooking at Mumbai’s Backbay as an area which many different aspects of the city are represented, this project looks to redefi ne the Backbay as an identity producing element of the city. As the skyline of a city is typically seen as an identifi er, the ques-tion was asked if enhancing the skyline of Mumbai would work to create an identity on the level of contemporary world cities: London, New York, Tokyo, Paris. Currently, Mumbai is one of the fi ve largest

T H E M E G A C I T Y

Mumbai

India

cities of the world, with a population of the tens of millions. In my research I was introduced to the concepts of a Mega-city and alternatively a World-City. As those of a world city might identify the city with the amazing sights and things to do, the understanding of a Mega-city exists in the relation-ships of the people.

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Location

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The proposed project defi nes the edges of the Backbay, allowing the water to become a bounded and defi ned element of the city. The water and access to the water is a vital aspect of the city culture. The design was conceived to defi ne and heighten the relationship between the physical city and the water of the Backbay. Curving from Nariman Point to the existing fi sh-ing village a walk is proposed that fi nishes the northern edge of the Backbay while continuing the peaceful element of Queen’s Necklace. This move unifi es the Backbay, and emphasizes the importance of the beach near the fi shing vil-lage. This beach is a center for various festivals that happen in the city and is the location where these festivals touch the water.

Pulling from the activity of the people on the ground plane, the iconic element designed is to be an active marketplace of lower income to higher end stores, culminating in a high end hotel. The goal of the building is to mix people together, so the activity of the people them-selves fi nish the elements of the icon.

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Graduate Fall 2005Critic: Rahul Mehrotra


Graduate Thesis - Spring 2006Critic: Gretchen Wilkins

Walking is one of the main means by which humans interact with their physical envi-ronment. Its specifi city is so common and everyday that it is many times disregarded and passed over for the more advanced digital means of communication and spatial traversing. As the internet has condensed space across continents walking mea-sures space across a street. In a city there is a certain culture that we maintain in the out of doors. We watch and maintain cultural norms in a panoptic nature; but yet as we walk we are involved in a self contained world of our own conventions and inven-tions. This study engages the perceptual interaction of the individual walker with their physical surroundings, thru the use of a “backpack pinhole camera” which when worn transforms the walker themselves in to a camera. This investigation began with dis-covering means of documenting this perceptual interaction and in turn understanding how a walker transforms the relationships between spaces thru mapping exercises.

‘backpack pinhole’camera

‘polaroid pinhole’camera images

images


Graduate Thesis - CurrentCritic: Gretchen WilkinsThe project is continuing thru engagements with particular spaces in the city and analyzing thru book making and model making. BOOK MAKING: how walking defi nes the city under the concept “walking : city :: words : language.” MODEL MAKING: how walking interacts with city spaces thru ‘vivifi cation’ and ‘oxidation’ thru a multi-dimensional preoccupation.

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Walkers weave places together. -De Certeau


Graduate Fall 2004Critic: Adrian BlackwellThis photographic/mapping exercise researches the sociological methods which are at work in developing the suburban condition. Reminiscent of the antiquated and outlawed redlining practices, modern residential subdivisions work to create rifts between themselves and subdivisions of lower or higher economic class. This example in the Detroit subdivisions, employs

planting trees, chain link fences, and the demolition of road-ways to produce a rift. These subdivisions, although geographi-cal neighbors, are separated so that to physically move from one subdivision to another one must drive their automobile out of, and around the block to enter from another area.

The primitive hut is considered the fi rst act of architectural construc-tion. The fi rst expression of an understanding of a materials tensil and compressive qualitites. The fi rst expression of an act of building to create space. Since this fi rst act, architecture has grown into a complex artform, which encompasses all other artforms while maintaining a per-tinance to the society it was built for. Learning about architecture is a long pocess of learning about history, physics, art and society. Learning how a city has taken form and how one building affects a community, affects a city.

Maintaining a balance between practice and theoretical discourse is a balance every architect should embrace. To understand how the con-scious design of space can make the human existance more meaningful is a task of a lifetime. Today, as we battle the infl ux of strip malls and super stores, bringing this obtuse problem of “meaning” to the common American is becoming a crisis.

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