URBAN STRIP REVISION

undergraduate project / Pittsburgh, PA / 1991-92

The goal of this project was to design an urban environment for the special social patterns that already exist in Pittsburgh's Strip District. This commercial neighborhood is an anomaly in late 20th century America. The Strip District is about getting out of your car, walking, running into your neighbors by chance, buying vegetables from the same woman every day, the wonderful inconvenience of eating chinese take-out in the street, the ruckus of a busy street that slows you down. In their striving for efficiency, American cities have made it harder for us to find pleasure in daily activities. Shopping involves a drive in your isolated pod to the nearest mall to buy things from people you have never seen before and will probably never see again. This lifestyle has made our lives so 'efficient' that it removes the possibility for chance encounters, human contact, meeting new people. We have become so accustomed to this life that we will drive three blocks to go to the store.

When looking at the existing built infrastructure of the Strip, I realized that it does not reinforce or encourage this type of social activity. It is the people and the life patterns that make this place significant. The streets are too intrusive, public gathering spaces are lacking, identity-giving monuments are nonexistent, and public transportation is insufficient to the neighboring hilltop housing project.

The first move was to abolish cars (apart from the main artery to downtown that bounds the south side of the district). I also saw the opportunity to stitch the community to the hill on one side and the river on the other. Thus long green parkways, a curving waterside walking path, and broad public parks protruding into the river were created. Within the framework of the almost purely pedestrian environment I sought to create a series of nodes of public spaces down the central axis. Each node represents, and anchors one part or aspect of the community. Marking each node is a square sunken courtyard/plaza. A tower adjacent to each node is on direct axis with a monument in Pittsburgh of similar type. For instance if ne were to climb the tower that marks the academic district (the third from the west) one would see the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, it’s image both framed by the academic buildings in the Strip and reflected in the canal water below. This draws upon the symbolic power of the existing city to inform and ... the new identity of this isolated community. In collaboration with these pieces are the public parks. They puncture the riverside and in plan each takes on a graphic symbol of the district in which it sits.

In general the plan strives to frustrate efficiency and encourage interaction and connections. It utilizes the power of architecture to affect how we move and where we are drawn to move to. The design is not afraid to use symbology that may be too ‘accessible and celebrates it’s usage. It revels in the complexity of our social structure but acknowledges the desire for unity (the grid, the rhythm of repetition, the axis). Like the stage set, it relies on human occupation to be activated and come alive.

Following the urban design phase for the Strip District, the arts district was selected for design development in detail. It is the fourth from the west. It was initially decided that all buildings on the site would remain in some way or form. On the east side of the canal new steel-framed industrial-like buildings are erected around and through the existing buildings. These structures provide vast, open and flexible spaces for artist studios. The saw-tooth roofing system provides even and consistent northern light. The existing streets remain open, with the new structures filling out each block. On the west side of the canal, the floors and roof of the existing buildings are removed. The remaining shells become a series of large outdoor halls, landscaped and open to the public as sculpture gardens or outdoor museum galleries. The existing streets on this side of the canal are enclosed with a similar low-cost industrial sheds with saw-tooth roofing. These reclaimed streets become the interior museum space divided into five galleries. At the apex of each canal, in each district is a tower. This tower in the arts district is on axis with the Carnegie Museum. It is a 150 foot tall androgynous head which will eventually contain a library at it’s core. Arriving at the top of the interior stair of the tower you are given a commanding view of both the local arts district, the distant Carnegie Museum and a panorama of the city as a whole.