| Evergrey |
Mar 31, 2012 3:56 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbana
(Post 5648389)
I count about 18 floors on the first design, about 17 floors on the second design, and about 21 on the third. This may be fairly tall and noticeable on the skyline. 200-250 feet would be my guess.
The first design is the obvious winner though. Very elegant, and, with the slanted roof and urban gardens, a great compliment to the Tower at PNC Plaza!
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The height limit for the site is 18 floors. Perhaps Burns & Scalo could lobby to build into the 20s. It sounds like this tower may take a long time to materialize as they will not build a speculative tower.
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...own-tower.html
Quote:
Three designs chosen for Downtown tower
Pittsburgh Business Times by Tim Schooley, Reporter
Date: Friday, March 30, 2012, 1:03pm EDT - Last Modified: Friday, March 30, 2012, 5:16pm EDT
Green Tree-based Burns & Scalo Real Estate Services celebrated the final design choices for a new building on the company’s site on Fort Pitt Boulevard on which it plans to build the region’s next office tower.
It's a rare local example of a private developer sponsoring a design competition.
After starting with 49 submissions last fall, Burns & Scalo invited eight finalists to an event Thursday night at the Duquesne Club where the three final designs chosen by a three-person jury were announced: a team of Cincinnati -based GBBN Architects and Celli-Flynn Brennan Architects and Planners, based Downtown; Lawrenceville-based Desmone & Associates Architects; and IKM Inc., based Downtown.
While the three finalists won $2,000 each, Jim Scalo, principal of Burns & Scalo, emphasized any one of the eight of the final designs could be chosen by a potential company that might be interested in the site as a new headquarters.
“What we now have is a great image of the site that we can share with our prospects,” said Scalo, who praised the designs of all the final eight firms who participated.
Along with the three finalists, the remaining five who also submitted designs rank among Pittsburgh’s most respected firms: Garfield-based EDGE Studio, Strada Architecture, LLC, based Downtown, The Design Alliance, DLA+ Architecture & Interior Design, and Tasso Katselas Architects.
The designs sought to balance the imaginative with the practical on a site with a height restriction of 18 stories that sits on a busy road in Fort Pitt Boulevard and the Parkway East, with the Monongahela River just beyond it. The context that helped inspire the designs included the nearby presence of Point Park University , the highly visible frontage the site provides for car traffic entering the city through the Fort Pitt tunnel and the city’s topographical interplay river, bridges and hills.
IKM’s design reinterpreted a traditional rectangular tower by notching an arching curve up through the center of the structure, culminating in overhanging glass atrium through the middle of the top five floors. Desmone chose to reorient a square building base that terraces back into an angular office tower. And the team of GBNN-Celli Flynn team’s Monongahela Tower concept calls for a shimmering glass rectangular high-rise with an angular green roof.
Other design ideas included a structure of stacked triangular forms that sought to make the most of the shifting daylight of each floor, complete with garden terraces by The Design Alliance, a rectangular high-rise notched with “sky gardens” which were enclosed terraces interspersed among the top floors by EDGE; and a design described as an undulating scrim by Strada, which sought to maximize the riverfront and Mount Washington views for each floor.
Anne Swager, executive director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects , saw the competition as an academic exercise but was encouraged by a process of a local developer giving such an opportunity to a host of local firms, making a priority of good design for such a key site.
Scalo emphasized the project will not be built on a speculative basis, requiring a key tenant before any construction can go forward. He estimated a tenant could be identified in the next two years, noting how such companies as GNC, Chevron and U.S. Steel have been in the market for a new headquarters or have considered his site.
Expecting the next major oil and gas company to come to Pittsburgh will want to be Downtown, Scalo and his team said they are striving for an iconic design that make a statement on the city’s skyline.
“This is a chance to change the skyline,” said Scalo.
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