The Program

Returning to the image I created at the beginning of this investigation, I am turning my focus to program.

The program:
The site creates unique opportunities for programming in that it must accomodate many different things at different times, but these things rarely overlap in time. So The entire site must be available for tailgating before a Steeler’s game, but it is only required for this function at very specific times.
The function of tailgating is already intrinsic to the space, so my challenge will be to preserve and enable that culture while also enabling other uses during the rest of the year.

The position of the site affords many opportunities for this new programming as well. It’s proximity to both the Carnigie Science Center and The Pittsburgh Children’s Museum brings forth many opportunites to incorporate learning opportunities geared toward Children and their families. The intervention also provides the chance to link these two institutions, and function as a musuem extention for each.

THE SITE

The site:
The site for this intervention is located on the North Shore between PNC Park and Heinz field. This site provide opportunities to investigate transient programs and multi-use outdoor space. It also provides the opportunity to restore meaningful links between the river and the residential community in the North Side.

Islands + Links

The north side is dominated by a number of urban objects that are isolated from the surrounding city texture. There are a limited number links between these urban islands.

Urban Objects

Planar Striations in the Landscape

Landuse

Timeline of Allegheny City and the North Shore

1+3

1: The statement

-multi-use spaces can reactivate the dead zone around disconnected Urban Elements while they are not in use

3: Expanding

-The Stadiums on the North Shore are Self-Centric Urban Objects that sit in a sea of parking and pull their focus inward. This investigation will look at ways in which the exteriors of these inward-focused objects can be activated by creating a human-scale, environment around them. The goal is to break down monolithic facades with exterior programming that is flexible enough to accomodate visitors from the surrounding neighborhood during the majority of the year, but a space that can also facilitate the needs of Pittsburgh sports fans.

Historic Images

Aerial of Three Rivers Satdium

1: The statement

-Using pedestrian movement and activity to mediate between disconnected Urban Elements.

3: Expanding

-Self-Centric Urban Objects sit in a sea of parking and pull their focus inward. This investigation will look at ways in which the exteriors of inward-focused objects can be activated by creating a human-scale, environment around them. Breaking down monolithic facades with exterior programming and connecting the objects in a meaningful way is my goal.

9. Hashing it out

- The North Shore of Pittsburgh is Dominated by PNC Park, Heinz Stadium, The Carnegie Science Center, The Allegheny Center, The National Aviary, The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and one of the Carnegie Libraries. This amazing conglomeration of institutional buildings operates in a sea of parking lots, Interstates. Each building is an island on the North shore, and walking between them is a challenge. The Stadiums only come to life on Game day and otherwise sit stagnant. These are also monolithic, unpenetrable buildings. The Stadiums are uncomfortable without the necessary mob. I hope that introducing pedestrian movement and activity into the area will aid in creating a more usable, less intimidating area, and it will increase interactivity between select buildings.


-more
To do this I want to look at path making, and way-finding devices. I also plan on integrating program.

I retouched my map from last week to reflect more of the North Shore

blogger is unhappy

I don't know why, but blogger isn't showing all of the lines in my drawing...

So I took a screen shot of the way it's supposed to look and posted it... Problem quasi-fixed

This is the first of a series of analysis that I want to conduct of different areas of the city. Here I've analyzed the North Shore in Relation to downtown. From it you can see the difference in atmosphere between the two areas. The North Shore is a large-scale entertainment area. It consists only of big block programs and parking to go with it. Downtown on the other hand, is well connected, and operates at a smaller scale. There is more activity everywhere, and less concentration at certain points. It is incumbent upon me to mention also that time of day is an important factor that is not represented in this analysis. For most of the year, the North shore sits empty coming to life only when the steelers are playing or the Pirates are in PNC park.
The North Shore is a large concrete Slab with Objects (the stadiums + the science center scattered around it). The shore operates at the scale of the CAR and the MOB not at a human, everyday scale. Is there room for mediating the two conditions?

Sorting Out thoughts

I've had a lot of ideas rolling around in my head, and I'm not quite sure how they all go together.
I tried t begin to diagram something meaningful to me, but then I was bogged down by too many ideas. So far I dealt with my overwhelming number of goals by ignoring most of them, and focusing on one that I could represent and speak about.

I realized that it was time for me to settle my thoughts, and give real credence to ALL my ideas, not just the convenient ones.

The problem was that I still couldn't articulate them. I could speak to one at a time, but not the overall idea, and so far that is what my blog and process has shown, a gross isolation of ideas and disregard for the desired goal.

To remedy this unfortunate theme, I have attempted to write all of the Mish-Mashed ideas down (in no specific order) so that I can begin to create a structured goal.

I needed to get my head down on paper so that, from here, I can break the ideas down and then reweave them together into a problem/project that I can articulate

Here's my Jumbled mind:

--------it may not make a lot of sense just yet------------

THoughts on THesis

Idea: create walk through city: PATH
Possibilities:
- link institutions geared toward children
-create new environment for neighborhood lacking amenities
-prescriptive method of integrating museum + park into streetscape + riverscape Pittsburgh
-prescriptive method for engaging the outside of museum institutions in Pittsburgh

Where I’m thinking:

Communities along The Allegheny
(the Allegheny because it is smaller than the Mon, and the communities flanking it’s coast have seen less development in the past 10 years, and the neighborhoods are primarily residential) :

The North Shore (because of the children’s museum and the Carnegie Science Center

Lawrenceville (because of it’s adjacency (via the Allegheny to the North shore)
- Allows opportunities to explore river crossing
- Investigate linking neighborhoods separated by river
- 40th street Bridge (interesting underside condition)
- Artist community = opportunity to engage neighborhood culture into program

Trying to understand what I’m thinking TAKE 2

The experience of visiting a museum is stimulating… once you enter the realm of the museum.
The traditional experience is completely contained within the building (or wherever the perimeter is defined)

I want to turn the museum inside out, where the activity is on the outside, stretched through the urban fabric of the city, and the inside is secondary. Specifically, turn the Children’s museum inside out.

I also want to make this a truly accessible experience. My Aunt is subject to a wheel chair and parks are one of the hardest environments for her to navigate. Living is that much harder in a world that is not designed for you, so I think it is the responsibility of the architect (especially when dealing with public spaces) to integrate and think about the design for wheels and hands to the same thoughtful degree we invest into design for legs and eyes.

(My vocabulary thus far has been unclear, and this what I meant by tactile)

To do this: Use techniques common for handicap (ala the Braille Trail in Aspen CO) to
1. Teach users about them alternate lifestyles
2. Engage all senses
3. Create truly integrated design that allows disabled parents (and children to engage with the park)

Turning the building inside out, means that the program is no longer contained only by walls and site. The program can stretch out along a linear path.

The Idea of linearity and multiple start and end points is of particular interest

Landscape Architect Louis Halprin (FDR memorial in DC) developed the idea of scoring experience and architecture (as is done with music or dance) choreographing a linear, and malleable experience over time.

I want to create a thoughtful score with aspects of time in mind

TIME is another aspect of the project that I want to think about
The passerby
The Casual lunch eater
The 20 min user
The 2 hour user
And so on
What is it like for each of them


There are also a myriad of opportunities for remediation of the built environment in Pittsburgh that I want to look at; however, after visiting conditions in the areas I’m looking at, two things stand out:
-North Shore
How to cross the Train tracks and Interstate
-Lawrenceville
How to relink the neighborhood with the waterfront and engage the space under the 40th street bridge
I think that the scope of this project can and should address both issues:
outline one method for re-engaging the water front and celebrating its bridges as a strategy for all of Pittsburgh.
Outline one method for traversing the interstate on foot

Things to think about:

Program exists on North Shore to Justify intervention
Sister Program need to be developed in Lawerenceville to mark the two ends of the path
what kind of program.

Dealing with communities at two scales:
The Children's museum and Science center draw people from all over western PA (as do the program pieces around them: The National Aviary, PNC Park, Heinz Stadium)
The surrounding neighborhood operates at a more local scale - Mexican War Streets
There are other institutions around that operate at a city (not regional scale) - The Matress Factory - The Warhol Museu
Lawrenceville operates almost entirely at a local scale

Melding them together will need to take this into account
Maybe I will end up focusing on one scale

Scale plays big roll in who and how long - variations could be interesting

IN SUMMATION
Inside out children's museum
Stretch out program and integrate into linear path
Score experience along path in deliberate manner
Think about the time involved in using
Be completely accessible
Use accessibility as a teaching tool
capitalize on artist culture in Lawrenceville (and maybe Mexican war streets)
Address physical barriers (river, bridge, interstate)
---consider different site (if it is not tied the museums, scale could be more easily addressed, but the nature of the project would change drastically given the siting)
---maybe analyze the pros and cons of a few sites?

-being next to museums creates two distinct types of interaction. Should probably pick one.

Museums often sit as objects within an environment, shaping the nature of the environment. I want to break down the shell into a human, occupiable scale.

In class last week, John Folan said, "Don't be afraid to make ugly drawings." I took that advice to heart, and made a series of 15 pencil on black paper study sketches of landscape conditions in Pittsburgh. These sketches helped me to explore the occupancy of the Urban Fabric very quickly, and they helped me to identify the basic constraints and opportunities of each condition very quickly. I have narrowed down my possible study field. From here, the drawings need to be imbued with more rigor, to understand the pitfalls and strong points of occupancy, and what form my intervetion can take in each environment.

The Muses are NOT Amused

Jorge Sevetti breakdown of architecture's four categories seems overly critical of the profession and the education of professionals. Overall, he seems to be saying that architecture has lost it's way, that the tools we use to give form to spaces and buildings are not what we should be using, and that the resultant buildings do not measure up to their potential.

Sevetti seems to think that there is A RIGHT way to approach design, but what I have learned over that last four years (granted I suppose that I am a desciple of the lack-luster education) is that form can begin anywhere; Program, or vision, or metaphor. The real trick is to approach that project with curiousity and rigor. When enough focused energy, blood, sweat, and tears go into a project the result is a thoughtful, exciting, livable space. It is only when the architect (or student) gets lazy, do the evils of each approach become apparent.

1+3+9

The tactile quality of the built environment can engage, inspire and teach users.

In my thesis I intend to explore the potential of the designed world to go beyond simple space making. I want to look into perception, and human behavior to define and enhance the ways in which people interact with the environment, and to encourage new types of interaction.

In Pittsburgh, I hope to use this premise as a way of teaching people of all ages about their neighbors (neighboring communities). Education has the potential to foster understanding and reduce prejudice. The key will be bringing it all together and making the tactile learning environment more than a museum, but a place that stands on its own. A place that you visit for the place, and where you just happen to learn as a result. Fun is the main component while learning is a fortunate by-product.

Where?

Initially, I wanted to work on a project at home, because I love home. I love almost everything about it. I love the culture (minus the way too wealthy people who are ruining it). I love the mountains. I love skiing. I love the proximity to nature, but most of all I loved growing up there because Aspen is a great place for kids. 

I started to think about why it was such a wonderful place to grow up, and one of the things that stuck with me was that there was always something or somewhere to go that was free. The natural environment, with the aid of man-made interventions that strategically emphasized (and occasionally created) places of interest, provided an endless playground for kids at a wonderfully low-cost for parents. 

I began to wonder if a similar strategy could be applied to Pittsburgh to create spaces specifically geared towards children.  The natural environment of Pittsburgh is Urban rather than Forested, but the idea of creating an Urban hiking trail got me very excited about how the two conditions can be similar, and how they must vary. 

I immediately started thinking about places in Pittsburgh, and the various urban textures they create. I would love to turn this into some sort of park-like path (or trail) that both links neighborhoods and provides these urban experiences. I'm not sure yet if that's viable, or if that is exactly where I want to go with this. 

What ever it is, I think I have my answer to where. I'm trying to bring a little bit of my home to PITTSBURGH

First Thoughts (in Sketch Form)

I've begun my journey into Thesis with the answer to one question, and vague ideas about others. What I know (or think I know) is the WHO. Children. The Where is vague: Pittburgh, outdoors; the What is even more vague: learning, ecology, fun, water management, sustainable education.

The thoughts depicted in the Sketch images above reveal the who (kids and families) and the image of a number of events of various scales happening in relationship to each other and in relationship to a path linking them. The events are of yet undefined (part of the nebulous What).

Response to "How to Draw Up a Project" by Luis Mateo

Reading this introduction to beginning a very terrifying and exciting process set me at ease with the state of my thoughts as of now. Mateo describes how to draw up a project through a series of steps. The first one, I was relieved to read, begins with something abstract; it starts with a vague, misty thought that is not fully formed, but one that has a direction. This was encouraging, because the daunting task of drawing my first sketch has had me very stressed out.

What if I don't pick the right thing?

How do I draw something that doesn't exist in my mind yet?

Form?

I realize now, that I need to represent the current state of my thoughts. I need to draw the DIRECTION of my thoughts however hazy they may be.

This first stage of development Mateo describes as phantom-like, it is the point in the project when the direction is defined and refined so that the complex issues of the overall scheme can be explored, yet all the questions my not be answered. In this stage, the designer doesn't know everything because the boundaries of the program are still undefined.

The second stage in process endows the hazy ideas with a little more information. Hierarchies are established by the designer, and the project is organized into a more understandable matrix. The intrinsic nature of the project is defined, but the form remains vague.

The third and last stage in the development of a project is to give the hazy innards a physical, material form.

Reading Mateo's breakdown of what I am up against this semester, was encouraging. By separating the steps of the process, I have been able to step back and look at this as a surmountable task, and the word "Thesis" is a little less intimidating.

Thoughts on Thesis

I'm still not sure what or where to study for my thesis. I am fairly certain that I want to focus either on a project at home (Aspen Colorado) or one in Pittsburgh. I would like to have an intimate understanding the place and what makes it unique.  As Aspen and Pittsburgh are the only two places I have ever lived, I would like to contribute to them. The type of intervention and program will vary according to where the project is situated. That's all i know for now... more to come.