“As architects, as artists… the first lesson I would I tell any of my students: stay alert. Observe, stay alert, understand the nature of the change that is taking place and adapt to those changes. Darwin already got it–the strongest, the smartest are not the survivors. It’s the most adaptive. He got it 100-some years ago and he was correct. Not the smartest, not the strongest, the most adaptive. Those are the ones that survive. And we’re in a profession–not the artistic part… I’m talking about the profession as a whole–the broader notion of what an architect is… and that takes some energy in this culture to stay alive. And it starts here (in architecture school). You want to come out of here and look at the world and be alert to that world and feel comfortable that you have something to offer. The world is a competitive place right now. The schools are fascinating… Schools should be, of all places, where you’re looking at ideas. Building is about opportunity, and (you have to look at) exploring possibilities and potentials. It should be filled with failures AND successes–because you can’t succeed without failure. It’s not possible. And this notion of History is just killing us. Absolutely KILLING us. I look at some of the things on this campus (CMU) and it’s just frightening–they are dead. Dead on arrival. They build something that was dead a hundred years ago. You should be looking at these things and be stimulated to see things that you’ve never seen before. They can be environmental, formal, social, cultural, technological, or things that behave in a certain way. And it should be constantly demanding inquiry–because that’s the basis of education–to push curiosity. And it’s that inquiry you’re here for. It’s not momentary–it’s embedded, internalized. So you leave that way so that ten or twenty years after leaving here you still have that drive.”

Thom Mayne
Lecture at Carnegie Mellon
22 April 2010

Just a quick update on a great project that is slowly finishing up in downtown Pittsburgh, Edge Studio and Pfaffman‘s Gateway Center Station. I worked on this project a few years ago while interning for Edge, and I am really excited to see the project under construction.

The geometry of the structure above ground is generated by the intersection of three separate cylinders. This simple geometry allows the curved members to be grouped into families of the same radius, creating an efficient fabrication procedure. The entire process of designing this project was incredibly interesting, from the contract of the tunnel engineers, to the constant exchange between physical and digital models. Matt Fineout’s paper, The Tower of Babel: Bridging Diverse Languages with Information Technologies, describes this process in further detail.

Three cylinders describe the geometry of the three curved planes

What’s great about the enclosure is its change in perception. The form flattens and expands, is frontal or oblique, and curved or flat depending on your view. There are moments where you can see both sides of the same surface. It’s wonderful.

Moving around the station, there are moments when you can see both sides of one plane. The slight curvatures change the reading of the object from differing views.

I’m excited to see it complete, because the excitement of this project continues down into the station platform. Stay tuned!

The frame is highly distorted at the left end of the structure.

A few of us are starting a new architecture discussion group called discourse.

discourse is an invited forum for young, inquisitive architectural thinkers to discuss issues in theory, history, and criticism.

Each of us will curate a design topic and facilitate a discussion surrounding it. You can follow what we’re up to on our informal resource page.

Stay tuned for updates!

This a sketch. I don’t think its quite there yet, but I like the general idea. A little nervous about the Ernie Gehr reference…

For April’s Steel City Suppositions, these drawings began to explore imaginations for Pittsburgh’s city steps.

Ascending Projections, 2010

During next week’s gallery crawl, the Pittsburgh Architectural Club is hosting its first event! Steel City Suppositions is an exhibition of young designer’s imagation for the city. Hope to see you there!

Download postcard [PDF]

The opening on Friday night was great! Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I received alot of useful feedback. I’m always impressed with how varied everyone’s reactions are and how useful their input always seems to be. I think the fact the photos create such a visceral reaction makes them easy to relate to while engaging everyone’s imagination.

I had good conversations with a few people about the spatial impressions you typically receive from a photograph, as well as the various factors that add up to creating the more successful images. Colors and textures are just as influential as the spatial condition is to creating the final result. Its interesting how different the resultant effects are when the movements between the images are so similar.

Here are a few set up shots:

And more opening: