Megan Mackin

My focus throughout the year was exploring the relationship between the river Bann’s edge, and making proposals for new buildings, through the consideration of each site’s particular context, while searching for experiential qualities in spaces that are unique to the water’s edge. 

In Toome, my design proposal for a new visitor centre took the shape of the river’s undulating edge, and moved over and along side it with a curving ramp to lookout to and appreciate the River Bann. I wanted to provide a multi-functional space for the community that would be inviting to everyone and which would draw people again to the river, the eel industry, and its history.

At the Coleraine Campus, and as part of a new River Quad proposal, I found the aqueous imagery I began in my Water Drawings of Lough Neagh, inspirational in my design process and combined this with studies of textures and colours which I explored in the façade detailing as part of my final design of an Education Centre. The Learning Chamber with individual learning pods rising up through the building with their sky lanterns, relates to aspects of knowledge and learning found across the different disciplines and faculties at the Coleraine Campus.