AIA PGH Design Awards

Last Thursday, October 23rd 2014, the Pittsburgh Architectural community gathered to celebrate  the "Good Design" with a Gala and Awards. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Building was full of people from the construction scene. Not only Architects, but also Contractors, Engineers, Sponsors, Builders. Everybody under the same roof, was celebrating the winners, and the city of Pittsburgh.

The AIA of Pittsburgh hosted the event and I was honored to help in setting part of the space. My personal contribution was the creation of a pretty big map of the Burgh, 12 by 12 feet, to welcome the visitors in the Young Architect Studio Competition area, focused on Pittsburgh Rivers. Scale 1"=500'.

In the same zone of the YASC competition, there was the photography exhibition "Along the Rivers", again centered on the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.
I helped in curating that as well, after the photos were selected by our jurors Ed Massery, Natalie Grandinetti, and Kevin Kunak.

I had the idea of such a map, and designed it. Tri-state Reprographics was very professional at printing the map and install it nicely. Despite the number of people that walked on it, and those who carefully looked for their house, the map still looked good after a month!

Here a shot from the opening night, before everybody arrived:

Below: people arriving on the 4th floor, during the September Gallery crawl in Downtown. 

Below, on the walls, some boards from the photo exhibition "Along the Rivers".

All the events, from the Gallery Crawl to the Design Awards and Gala, were really successful. On October 9th there was also a PechaKucha Night which registered a very high number of presences: 130 people! This PKN was volume 19th in Pittsburgh, organized by the AIA PGH together with the AIGA PGH. 

It was a month of celebration for the Pittsburgh Design Community.

Looking forward the next year. I will start thinking of something amazing pretty soon.

Google Car: beyond technology

Google Street View is certainly a powerful tool, for many different purposes. It allows us to explore places we've never been to, remember places we visited, or give us ideas for future travels.

Here I collected some views of places I find inspiring. Hopefully, one day I'll see them with my eyes.

Sou Fujimoto - notes from a lecture

As the weather gets colder, the Carnegie Mellon University Fall 2014 Lectures Serie  is a very nice alternative to outdoor activities. I am not saying this because of their heating system - like those people that would go shopping to the malls only for seeking cool AC over summer. 

I truly believe Fall is a cultural season: no better way to warm up your creativity than attending lectures.

Today I will do a little experiment on the last lecture I followed: Sou Fujimoto (October 20th) talking about his architecture. I took notes on my iPad. Here, I will post the notes, just slightly edited.

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Notes from the lecture 

"Between Nature and Architecture"

Sou's goal: create a living environment for people

Sou's obsession: How to integrate Nature in the Architecture

Sou was born in Hokkaìdo (a lot of nature) and moved to Tokyo (a lot of concrete and chaos)

Nevertheless, he perceives Tokyo not as a crazy city but as a comfortable city. Why?

Tokyo situation: ugly and artificial, but there is a similarity between Tokyo and the nature

Tokyo is made of a myriad of little things. It's a chaotic and "a full situation"

The result of this packed environment is "coziness" 

There are so many little details, that this scale give you a sense of comfort.

And in Tokyo, as in a forest, you can walk around freely, protected and hidden by all these details.

Plus, you can always find out something new, something different, as it happens in a forest.

Photo by Bea Spolidoro - Tokio 2008

Which is the relation between the artificial complexity and the natural complexity?

Sou feels he discovered it working with the scale and the density of the elements.

He looks for a <<nice interaction between architecture and nature>>

Serpentine Pavillion (2013) for the Serpentine Galleries

© Daniel Portilla

Simple  concept: it's a cloud out of a structural grid

The repetition of the line creates different densities, for a cloud effect

The structure creates small cubes: he added glass to walk or sit on it.

There is a plastic roof, transparent.

He got the inspiration from the first site visit, by seeing a tree without leaves.

Simple rules, good balance between simplicity and complexity

It's a multipurpose space with a cafe

He thought first of the concept: like a landscape where people can stay

Then: how you do it?! 

Grid and transparency

The structure has been done by a computer in London

But after the structure was ready, no one had idea of how the space actually was like

Then they did a model to find it out

Luckily, it looked nice

Crazy process

From the outside, at first you cannot understand the space

As you get closer, you understand it

Transparency depends in the density of the structure

And it keeps changing according to were you are, where you walk

it's an "organic changing" around you, based on an artificial structure

See the shadows too! They contribute to the cloud effect.

The scale is important when creating impressions

The light by night comes from the ground

It makes it floating...

Architecture, landscape, furniture, inside outside...

It's all about phenomenon

House NA

© Iwan Baan

Similar strategy, but this is a private house!

He tried to find out the integration of different basic condition

It was for a young couple, on a small site

You cannot get big room on a small site

So you have to integrate the spaces and combine them

Stack them on different levels, to get different area (not rooms!)

You have one room, articulated on many levels

The house inside resemble the tiny streets of tokyo

And the density allows the diversity and the possibility of many living choices

You are like in a tridimensional and artificial forest

Then there is a lot of glass, it's transparent

He asked the clients if it was too open, but they didn't want walls, at all

There are some curtains, designed and layered out by the client

The curtains are at different distances from the glass

This gives different density and scale

Souk design - particles of light

image Sou Fujimoto

Only designed, never built, for a competition

1 mile long - everything is possible in the Middle East

8 towers  around 100 m high

There are many voids, to create the "cloud" effect and vibrancy

Big voids to create breaks and to feel the rhythm

There is natural ventilation, vertically

The geometry is made by small units (arches) in a grid, repeated

It is the same concept and system of the Serpentine Gallery pavillion

It's a shape like a bedouin tent

It's a crazy idea: brought from a smaller scale to an extreme scale

Then the competition stopped suddenly

The king said to stop right there, that's it

And that's the middle east

Anything is possible

Toilet in nature

image Sou Fujimoto

It's a real public toilet, in a small village, for a train station

They needed only one public toilet!

It's a very small project, minimal scale

It's just a toilet in a glazed box, all transparent

It is public, but the toilet is a private space!

How to integrate the public and the private need?

How to block the view? How to integrate the opposites?

Divide the spaces! There is a gigantic wall around

It has two boundaries: the fence around (opaque) and the glazed walls

So now you see, but no one can see you.

He integrated existing trees inside the fence

The fence technology is simple: just poles in the ground

Lots of people came to see the toilet

And kept coming. They were too many, for only one public toilet

So they had to do more toilets. But they did the chemicals

And they put them inside the fence, behind the glazed toilet...

House N

image Sou Fujimoto

Another project that works with the boundaries

It has three boundaries

Tree boxes, one inside the other, with openings on walls and ceilings

The definition of outside becomes ambiguous

He revisited the traditional Japanese house, with indoor/outdoor relation

Creating gradations of the walls: one or many?

An old couple lives here: they asked only for a flat floor

Flat conditions, but there is a different way to create a gradation

The biggest box is open and contains the garden. No glass there

Then there is the other two, where you live

From inside you see three layers of walls, but it's very open to the sky

Some areas are very hidden, others are very open.

Again, you choose, every time, what do to and "how"

Everything keeps changing, inside a built structure

Nature and city

It's a beautiful example of how to integrate inside and outside in architecture

University Library in Musashino

Images Sou Fujimoto

The university choose Sou's firm  because they were all young

They won the competition

The theme is the forest of books

Systematic space and well organized, to find books

But it's like walking in a forest

It's a place for the inspiration

You can be surprised by a special finding, or go straight to your section and book

How to integrate the different idea? Wild forest and a precise cataloguing system?

Book walls wraps like a spiral

If you stay in the center, you can see all the sections, through the openings

The spiral goes out to the outdoor spaces. 

You can potentially continue the spiral for future expansion.

It can grow. Just add a roof!

Polycarbonate, transparencies and skylights

Nice expectations

There is a cozy scale, of the books, but also the almost infinite one, of the concept of a spiral.

You can choose to read in a cozy corner, or just walk around the library, in an infinite way

L'arbre blanc

High rise building in Montpellier (France)

How the opposites can come together: another good example

How to find a new typology for a housing tower, respecting tradition?

Need to respect the mediterranean climate and culture, also

They proposed a crazy monster of balconies

Lots of balconies: old strategy, but modern idea

Intense way to go beyond the boundaries

It's both fundamental an old, but new

The balconies come from the Montpellier Tradition

But the structure is a magnificent spiral

It's an organic creature, or a tree

The "lifestyle" of the balcony is very important in Montpellier

People in the jury were very pleased to see this reinterpretation of a tradition

Will be done in 2018

They are selling the condos now

Wanna buy one?

Four Stories to be seen

The YAF Young Architects Forum of Pittsburgh choose me to review an exhibition at the Heinz Architectural Center.

Check it out on the AIA Pittburgh website!

Pecha Kucha #17 - Carnevale a Schignano

On Thursday April 3rd, Pecha Kucha Night was held again in Pittsburgh, for the 17th time. The hosts were AIA Pittsburgh and AIGA Pittsburgh. The location - very appropriate - was the Melwood Screening Room at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

I was the third to present, and this time (my fourth time!) I spoke about the Carnevale in Schignano. It was a mix of Italian Tradition, Culture, funny stories about a village, and lots of cousins.

Before publishing my slides, I just want to say that what you'll see in the slides is just a 30% of all the things will happen at the Carnevale. Nevertheless, it is a good introduction to a fascinating event, which is gaining more attention at a national level, in Italy.

Here my Pecha Kucha. Enjoy!

1) First the place: Schignano is my grandma’s village in the North of Italy, Lombardia, near Lake Como. I was born in Milan but spent half of each year there. It’s an old place, poor but fascinating. We have wonderful mountains, forests, fields…

 2) …we have George Clooney, weather permitting. Schignano is very close to Laglio, where he has a house, and we are very proud of him. We would put him out on a balcony, with the flowers, to attract tourists. But now the Carnevale. Our is not very famous, but old. It was founded in the 14th century!

3) It happens every year around February, before the Catholic Lent. The dates would slightly change every year. In Schignano it is like a parade of traditional characters. The public would watch from the sides of the streets, as the parade moves. It’s like a theater, without a fixed text. We mainly have two categories of characters:

4) il Bello, the goodlooking, represents the rich people of the village. Rich families used to play this role, since the costumes were expensive. They have wonderful masks carved in walnut wood, in a light color. Some masks are 100 years old, but people still carve them nowadays. They are really heavy, but wonderful.

5) the Bello has a colorful hat, with silk laces and ribbons, and full of mock flowers. They have many details sewed to their costumes, like glazed or plastic jewels, little dolls and they carry decorated umbrellas, to show their wealth. That’s what they do.

6) On the other side, the Brutto is the ugly one, representing poor people, and in particular the manual laborers coming home from abroad, during the winter. That was very typical of poor people: leaving the village for almost a year. Poor families played the Brutto. They usually have empty and broken luggage, to represent the fact that they had to leave the village for work. 

7) The Brutto wears shreds and smelly furs of dead animals, and ugly wooden masks. The mask is really scary, and it is sometimes colored with red on the lips. Which is even more scarier. With a nasty smile. This one is my 6 years old cousin, Federico. My family is a family of Brutt!

8) There is only one special character. It’s the ciocia, the poor wife of a rich Bello. It’s always performed by a man. She would shout out loud, in dialect, complaining about her miserable condition, dragged around by her husband  with a rope. Since ever, the best ciocia is this guy, called “the magic”. He is my uncle Domenico. 

9) The Carnevale in Schignano is full of noises: people would shout to encourage the characters. Then there is the music from the band and most important, the bells of the masks. The Bello has the rich “bronze”, out of bronze. These are very expensive, and when Carnevale was over, they were used for the real animals at pasture.

10) On the contrary, the poor Brutto has poor bells, out of iron or aluminum. They have a dumb sound, compared to the crystal clear one of the bronze. Again, the bells would be taken on and off from the animals at pasture. They are wore with thick ropes around the waist. 

11) Carnevale in Schignano is very active. This is another cousin of mine, running after a Bello with a broken chair. This is part of the unwritten ply that happens every year: the tricks of the Brutt to the Belli. People would anyway prefer to be a Brutt, even if they become rich, because it’s funnier to be a Brutt. 

12) Brutt have no respect for anyone. They would stop cars, laying on them, or grab the people and touch them in the face, usually with the smelly skins of the dead animals or getting you dirty with only God knows what, and wine. Your first time at the Carnevale could be really upsetting, if you are not ready. 

13) This is the antique dealer of the village, and he has always the most amazing objects. Poor people would show up with broken old tools, usually working tools like sweeps, rakes, shovel. Here you see the gerla, which is a backpack made of crossed sticks. 

14) The Bello would go around the parade walking slowly, and showing off his costume. They are gently and elegant. My Grandma is one of the official tailors of these costumes. The waistcoat is full of dry leaves, collected new every year. She would fix the costumes, and sew the pants.

15) The fabrics are very colorful, some are very old. After getting dressed, you would add all the details, like the jewelry and the wonderful needlework. Many have very old umbrellas, symbol of wealth, or precious fans.The stick as well is pretty important and equally decorated. It is used to keep the Brutt away.

16) The Brutto would go around in a slovenly way, running like a mad, covered with rags and furs. Running is their main activity, to make the ciocche sound louder. Plus they would jump on you, trying to show off as well their stuff, even if it is poor and disgusting.

17) Since all the running is very tiring, they would suddenly and randomly stop, to rest. Anywhere! On the walls, in the middle of the street… they really look dead, or injured. They are usually just drunk, since people would drink for days, to best perform.

18) But the rest is really the Brutt second activity, apart from fooling around. People who see the Carnevale for the first time would think they fainted, or that they are not feeling well. As they get closer, the Brutto would jump as a cricket, push them, and run away.

19) But the best of the Carnevale in Schignano is that under many mask you see plenty of young kids, boys and girls, and they are the strength of the event. Fathers and Grandfather are very proud. Who is not dressed, knows the mask by heart, and the kids are always safe.

20) But I want to end my presentation with Chiara, half Italy and half Capoverde, who is a friend of mine. She is the best part of the Carnevale in Schignano, showing that the best traditions must renew and include everyone. 

the official website http://carnevaledischignano.it/

(Italian)

All my photos about the Carnevale

Flickr Set

A project that you can help:

An entire book about the Carnevale in Schignano!

(English) 

Sustainable luxury

The Green Building Alliance in PGH has organized a tour of the Fairmont Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh, with the Emerging Professionals that wanted to learn more both on sustainability and luxurious spaces. Despite the two things could seem a bit in contrast, the Fairmont (as a chain of luxury hotels) has showed us that it is indeed possible to go green, from the first day of construction and on a daily basis, and be really classy.

Our tour started in the lobby of the hotel, located at 510 Market Street, Downtown PGH. We were brought around by a very special guide, Julie Abramovic, Public Relations Manager at the Fairmont Pittsburgh.  She explained us how the whole building was carefully built, trying to save on materials and reducing the distance between production of the pieces and their final location. She said that even the furniture was selected to be as much "local" as possible. A regular luxury hotel, would order pieces from other continents (Europe in primis, for the American hotels). The Fairmont Pittsburgh is a LEED GOLD project (since the opening in 2010) thanks to the way it was built and how it is run, every day. Julie ensured that the approach to sustainability is usually pushed from the Staff, even in the maintenance area. From the offices to the kitchen, everybody is well aware of this mission. A team of engineers would also improve the daily routine, with specific projects to improve the life of the hotel.

Plants in the lobby, in collaboration with the Phipps Conservatory.

A part of the tour that I really enjoyed was the one presenting the archeological findings, collected during the construction. Archaeologists were hired to make a catalog of pieces, dated around the 19th century. Many bottles and kitchenware, together with objects from historical businesses existing in the area, are now displayed in the common areas of the Hotel. You can see them on the first and second floor, and on each floor, as well.

Our tour was including also a visit in one of the suites; sustainable and rich at the same time:

The complimentary water: each floor has the ice vendor and a water dispenser. You can have it from there, and not bottled in a factory. 

Not sure it is sustainable, but God bless whoever invented the TV hidden in the mirror of the master bathroom. Very chic.

And then the views, from such an hotel, cannot be forgotten: another good reason for attending the tour, and maybe get a room there, for a special occasion.