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Thesis Prep
Project Details:
Composite Typology - housing, retail, public space, bridge
Site - Pittsburgh, PA
Contention: By taking this historic composite typology and redeploying it within a contemporary urban context, it is possible to address a series of related architectural and urban issues simultaneously. These issues/objectives are:
1. The composite typology of bridge, housing and mixed-use (retail/commercial) functions creates a synergistic relationship among the individual program types that enriches the whole.
2. An economy of means is accomplished by combining a normally stand-alone infrastructural element (i.e. a bridge) with other building types (i.e. housing).
3. The insertion of the programmed bridge into a site changes the traditional role of bridge as merely infrastructure for automobiles into a new destination within its context affording the bridge the inherent opportunity to create new civic space.
4. The two places where this new bridge type touches down can now operate as both the end points and nodal instigators. They offer the opportunity to stimulate urban growth by projecting new activity, programming and users into pre-existing static site condition.
5. Where these site conditions are part of two previously disconnected urban sequences, the inhabited bridge now offers the opportunity to join these sequences into a greater and more significant whole creating a spatial continuity between two disparate parts of the city.
Composite Typology - housing, retail, public space, bridge
Site - Pittsburgh, PA
Contention: By taking this historic composite typology and redeploying it within a contemporary urban context, it is possible to address a series of related architectural and urban issues simultaneously. These issues/objectives are:
1. The composite typology of bridge, housing and mixed-use (retail/commercial) functions creates a synergistic relationship among the individual program types that enriches the whole.
2. An economy of means is accomplished by combining a normally stand-alone infrastructural element (i.e. a bridge) with other building types (i.e. housing).
3. The insertion of the programmed bridge into a site changes the traditional role of bridge as merely infrastructure for automobiles into a new destination within its context affording the bridge the inherent opportunity to create new civic space.
4. The two places where this new bridge type touches down can now operate as both the end points and nodal instigators. They offer the opportunity to stimulate urban growth by projecting new activity, programming and users into pre-existing static site condition.
5. Where these site conditions are part of two previously disconnected urban sequences, the inhabited bridge now offers the opportunity to join these sequences into a greater and more significant whole creating a spatial continuity between two disparate parts of the city.
Thesis Design
A bridge design hinging on a ying-yang idea with an "S" shaped bridge drove much of the formal design. Housing units were elevated above the two arch bridges with public space located on the terraced roofing. A two floor zone along the bridge deck included the public circulation and retail elements relevant to the inhabitants and passer-bys. A central restaurant aims to focus views down either directing of the river the bridge crosses.