PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Is this it?

Sorry, I was completely wrong--I should have known better than to do that from my phone.

Uber is in the FORMER Restaurant Depot space at 100 32nd Street. The address I erroneously gave you is for the NEW Restaurant Depot space. I forgot they had moved to that new location nearby.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Sorry, I was completely wrong--I should have known better than to do that from my phone.

Uber is in the FORMER Restaurant Depot space at 100 32nd Street. The address I erroneously gave you is for the NEW Restaurant Depot space. I forgot they had moved to that new location nearby.

Ugh. Hard to believe such featureless buildings hide the highest end interiors and technology research. Ugly as sin on the outside. Isn't Uber planning on building one or more new construction building at that site to increase their corporate campus?

[AFW523]

Amazon opening an office in the Southside.

Don't remember if this was already brought up, but it continues the CMU narrative. I wouldn't imagine it's a large presence at this point, but it's nice to add to the roster and it's also a nice get for Southside, locally. I wonder if it has anything to do with the mysterioso million sqft warehouse plan out near the airport? I remember speculation that that was an Amazon/CMU collaboration.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I was actually never a big fan of the Hornbostel campus, and I think the new stuff is really livening it up.

Its a pretty shit campus to walk around, especially the main lawn or whatever. The grass is always dying and even though the architecture is pretty cool, Carnegie Mellons campus is pretty boring. It needs more trees or landscaping of some sort. You would think with its tuition being incredibly expensive and that its one of the top schools in the nation they could make their campus look a little bit prettier. I also wish they would tear down or at least cover up some of the horrid 70's and 80s Brutalist crapitecture on the campus, that could for sure liven it up a lot.

in fact, this list names Carnegie Mellon as the 14th most ugly college campus in the US. http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/02/19...es-in-america/

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Its a pretty shit campus to walk around, especially the main lawn or whatever. The grass is always dying and even though the architecture is pretty cool, Carnegie Mellons campus is pretty boring. It needs more trees or landscaping of some sort. You would think with its tuition being incredibly expensive and that its one of the top schools in the nation they could make their campus look a little bit prettier. I also wish they would tear down or at least cover up some of the horrid 70's and 80s Brutalist crapitecture on the campus, that could for sure liven it up a lot.

in fact, this list names Carnegie Mellon as the 14th most ugly college campus in the US. http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/02/19...es-in-america/

I don't disagree with anything you said.

[bmust71]

Interesting point about that new north shore office building:

"The new North Shore facility will serve as the headquarters for Ariba, and support staff from across SAP and SuccessFactors. The five-story building is expected to accommodate 780 employees. There are also plans to add an additional floor that would increase capacity to 1,000 employees."

From NEXT Pittsburgh

http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/busine...to-pittsburgh/

[BrianTH]

Wait . . . what?

I thought that was supposed to be a 7-story building. Or are they just talking about SAP's lease?

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Wait . . . what?

I thought that was supposed to be a 7-story building. Or are they just talking about SAP's lease?

The picture shows a seven story building.

[BrianTH]

There is going to be about $1 million of TOD-related street improvements in Homewood:

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/ci...s/201701160026

The box in question (Homewood, Hamilton, Braddock, Busway).

Several streets in Homewood will get nearly a $1 million makeover that could include sidewalks, crosswalks, street lights, wheelchair-accessible curb ramps and other steps to calm traffic. . . . The project is an outgrowth of a study by the redevelopment authority last year of possible transit-oriented development near the busway. Work also is expected to include new bus shelters on Homewood Avenue at Finance Street and at Hamilton Avenue, as well as one on North Braddock at Hamilton. Underpasses on Homewood and North Braddock also are scheduled for improvements. Upgrades also will be made at Tioga Street, Finance and Hamilton and at both ends of the project, Homewood and North Braddock avenues. Other intersections slated for improvements are on both sides of Helen S. Faison Arts Academy on Tioga and on Hamilton at Collier Street.

All of these little things (new housing, including some market rate; infrastructure upgrades; commercial site locations) arguably add up to what you might call "momentum" in Homewood.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Its a pretty shit campus to walk around, especially the main lawn or whatever. The grass is always dying and even though the architecture is pretty cool, Carnegie Mellons campus is pretty boring. It needs more trees or landscaping of some sort. You would think with its tuition being incredibly expensive and that its one of the top schools in the nation they could make their campus look a little bit prettier. I also wish they would tear down or at least cover up some of the horrid 70's and 80s Brutalist crapitecture on the campus, that could for sure liven it up a lot.

in fact, this list names Carnegie Mellon as the 14th most ugly college campus in the US. http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/02/19...es-in-america/

The layout is just clumsy, with a number of less-than-academia-appropriate-looking buildings... an unfortunate hallmark of tech schools. It could be a beautiful campus if they actually thought things out in a comprehensive way and took into account their surroundings (setting on the bluff above Panther Hollow, bordered by Schenley Park) ... but I always get the feeling that it was "planned" by soulless engineers who's idea of life is sitting in a basement lab in front of the cool glow of their computer screen.

Most of the newer buildings and features are just kind of plopped down wherever with no consideration for how the play with their neighbors -- the tennis courts in the middle of campus, Warner Hall right at the campus "entrance" on Forbes, that ridiculous playground sculpture, pretty much the entire fronting of Forbes Ave (that long and low parking garage with nothing with zero street-level use creates a particularly bad dead zone).

Really, the best feature is actually the view of the Cathedral of Learning.

[dfiler]

Interesting to hear that some people think the CMU campus is ugly. Other than a few buildings and that stupid pedestrian pole to the sky sculpture thingy, I think it is excellent.

It is high density but has grass lawns for summer activities and events. They've done an excellent job of making it pedestrian friendly. I love all the nooks and crannies in the ravines between some of the buildings. All of the buildings are fascinating in their own ways. CMU even has a mater plan that details expansion decades into the future.

Just goes to show that criteria for beautiful/ugly can differ drastically.

On my list of changes would be:
* Plant more trees
* Get rid of the horrible pole sculpture
* Make Forbes Ave a pleasant section of the urban Fabric. Currently it best avoided. This means narrowing Forbes to two lanes, landscaping, etc. The Tepper Building/Quad currently under construction will completely transform the area. Thankfully I think that CMU is actively pursuing the narrowing of Forbes.
* Put a new facade on the front of the Purnell and University Center buildings. That's the side that faces forbes ave. The new Cohen Center should address this although I don't consider it to have good architecture.

Details on CMU projects here:
http://www.cmu.edu/cdfd/index.html

Live camera feed from the Tepper construction site at CMU:
http://tepper.cmu.edu/who-we-are/tep...struction-feed

Edit: In regard to the comment that "Most of the newer buildings and features are just kind of plopped down wherever with no consideration for how the play with their neighbors". Having been a student and employee, I was constantly amazed at how well all the buildings are connected. Amazing public spaces are everywhere! Basement skylight lounges, high-level niches with seating, catwalks with spectacular views, balconies, etc. There is an astounding number of pedestrian routes that wind through various eras and styles. It takes years to discover the well evolved network of passages, bridges and tunnels.

There is a hodge-podge of styles but in terms of usability and human factors, I give it an A+. Very few campuses are that well connected, especially those built over the course of a century. Opinion on this seems related to the weight one gives to quality and function vs purity of form. I like both. To me CMU is an example of good design that can initially look haphazard.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

The layout is just clumsy, with a number of less-than-academia-appropriate-looking buildings... an unfortunate hallmark of tech schools. It could be a beautiful campus if they actually thought things out in a comprehensive way and took into account their surroundings (setting on the bluff above Panther Hollow, bordered by Schenley Park) ... but I always get the feeling that it was "planned" by soulless engineers who's idea of life is sitting in a basement lab in front of the cool glow of their computer screen.

Most of the newer buildings and features are just kind of plopped down wherever with no consideration for how the play with their neighbors -- the tennis courts in the middle of campus, Warner Hall right at the campus "entrance" on Forbes, that ridiculous playground sculpture, pretty much the entire fronting of Forbes Ave (that long and low parking garage with nothing with zero street-level use creates a particularly bad dead zone).

Really, the best feature is actually the view of the Cathedral of Learning.

Heh. I don't know about the planners but I did spent three years at CMU for grad school and seldom got out of my lab in the basement of Wean Hall. In those three years I went in Wean Hall, Newell-Simon Hall and basically never went into a single other building on campus. I couldn't even tell you where the gym is or where the main library building is.

[Private Dick]

Walking around CMU campus always gives me the impression that I've wandered into somewhere that I'm not supposed to be. It just seems way too easy to find yourself in a loading dock area of some building or some place like that.

And the fact that the longest stretch of campus (along Forbes) is "best avoided" should tell us something. I do think that the new Tepper Quad should help, but there's a lot of room for improvement all over campus. Just bad mojo or architectural feng shui going on there at the present time for me.

[BrianTH]

This is going to sound like more of slam than it is intended to be, but I used to say it reminded me of Nazi architecture, with its rather repetitive, almost oppressive, Neoclassism.

And I completely agree about the "don't come in here" vibe it communicates to the general public.

[dfiler]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Walking around CMU campus always gives me the impression that I've wandered into somewhere that I'm not supposed to be. It just seems way too easy to find yourself in a loading dock area of some building or some place like that.

And the fact that the longest stretch of campus (along Forbes) is "best avoided" should tell us something. I do think that the new Tepper Quad should help, but there's a lot of room for improvement all over campus. Just bad mojo or architectural feng shui going on there at the present time for me.

My guess is that the hodge-podge of architectural styles and gradual evolution of the CMU campus is triggering that impression.

Some people prefer 100% planned spaces. My personal preference is more toward the evolved environment end of the spectrum. The CMU campus has traits of a medieval city structure; fascinating alleys and crooked streets rather than Napoleon's grand boulevards. To some this resembles chaos. To others it is beauty.

With that said, until recently, Forbes was mostly a road along the edge of campus. With CMU expanding across the road, they are now pursuing changes to Forbes.

[dfiler]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

This is going to sound like more of slam than it is intended to be, but I used to say it reminded me of Nazi architecture, with its rather repetitive, almost oppressive, Neoclassism.

And I completely agree about the "don't come in here" vibe it communicates to the general public.

On campus there is an awareness that those long colonnades are evocative of fascist architecture. Unbroken lines of columns that long, and at such a large scale, are fairly uncommon.

That's why it strikes me as resembling a city with medieval roots. Behind those buildings are tight warrens and twisty passages of previous empires.

Here's a Focus article on it from 1999:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/gutsc...09%20Focus.pdf

[BrianTH]

Aren't the oldest parts typically among the "fascist" parts? And while I'm no expert, for the most part those are organized as big rectangular buildings on big rectangular open spaces, which is not what I associate with medieval areas.

The spaces created by the new buildings behind Hamburg Hall (in the former Bureau of Mines land?) seem more interesting, but I believe that is what some of us were saying.

[Minivan Werner]

Wean certainly takes away from some of the cohesiveness of the mall area. Everything is in one particular architectural motif and then, boom, here's some brutalism. It'd be fine anywhere else on campus because the rest is kind of consistent in that it's all a mish-mash.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by dfiler

My guess is that the hodge-podge of architectural styles and gradual evolution of the CMU campus is triggering that impression.

Some people prefer 100% planned spaces. My personal preference is more toward the evolved environment end of the spectrum. The CMU campus has traits of a medieval city structure; fascinating alleys and crooked streets rather than Napoleon's grand boulevards. To some this resembles chaos. To others it is beauty.

With that said, until recently, Forbes was mostly a road along the edge of campus. With CMU expanding across the road, they are now pursuing changes to Forbes.

I don't mind the hodge-podge of architectural styles... I actually don't like it when a campus is too samey samey.

But I hardly see CMU's sidewalks between buildings and service roads as "fascinating alleys and crooked streets". I more get the feel of loading docks and staff parking areas. I just don't have the same appreciation for it, I guess. It's just certainly not that nice of a campus when compared to many other top schools that I've traipsed around, in my opinion.

Forbes has been the "front steps" of campus for decades, so let's not pretend that it has been some out of the way boundary. CMU has been across Forbes long before I would wager that any of us on here have been alive. CMU did a pretty shit job with their campus for a long time, and are now seeming to greatly improve on the lacks that it has long had. Let's just get real about it and stop talking about the charms of its "medieval roots, tight warrens and twisty passages of previous empires".

[eschaton]

I'm not trying to say I'm a fan of CMU's campus, but is any campus in Pittsburgh better? Duquense's campus is a horror show. Pitt and Point Park don't really qualify as coherent campuses. Carlow's campus is tiny. Maybe Chatham? I really haven't spent time on their campus, but it seems pretty bucolic.