Elisabetta Mackin Current Portfolio

Elisabetta Mackin

ARCHITECTURE

United States Postal Office Garden Bench

The Alvarado Train Station and former harvey house in the heart of downtown has a long history of welcoming travelers to Albuquerque. Currently, the structure and function of the Alvarado leaves much to be desired. Blocked sightlines and poor circulation create conditions that make it difficult to navigate the space. Many spaces on the site are underutilized. The existing Railrunner line lacks infrastructure to make it attractive and practical to commuters, a missed opportunity given the centralized locaiton of the site. Designed to revitalize Albuquerque’s downtown, the “RailTrail” as laid out by Antoine Predock, is a proposed multi-modal 7-mile pedestrian loop that will connect key destinations in the greater downtown area including the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the zoo, Oldtown, the Convention Center, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Railyards, and the Alvarado Transportation Center. In 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill granted the City of Albuquerque $40 million which has been set aside for the RailTrail, shooting to be completed in 2026. The proposed path, as shown to the left, encircles the neighborhoods of Downtown, Wells Park, Sawmill, Barelas, and Old Town, and runs along the entire length of the site.

Spring 2023

L I V I N G & L E A R N I N G

Professor Robert Pena

Sustainable Design Seminar

Detatched Accessory Dwelling Unit

This design is a proposal for a high performance, climate-responsive accessory detatched accessory dwelling unit powered by the sun. Design decisions in regard to form (surface-to-volume ratio, envelope, openings) as well as to location (orientation and juxtaposition) were made in response to the conditions of the Seattle area.

Fall 2024

U S P O S T A L

F F I C E

Professor Gabriel Fryes-Briggs

Systems Integration I

Detatched Accessory Dwelling Unit

This project was a proposed design for a U.S. Postal Service Office located in Dizon, New Mexico. The point of the course was to design a building system in response to the climate of the project. For the climate in Dixon, I chose to work with a major rammed earth wall. Other systems designed and detailed in this project were a skylight along the rammed earth wall, intended to play with light while providing passive heating, and an exterior gutter system.

Fall 2024

Personal Project

Concrete Garden Bench

This project was an introductory experiment with the woodshop and the process of mixing, pouring, and curing concrete. I designed and built the framework, then poured the concrete. Removing the framework revealed an all-weather garden bench.