Sketching on Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, now and then

Design Pittsburgh 2016 edition has just concluded, after a summer of volunteering and prepping, with a month full of events.  I have been on the committee for designing the space, also this year, and the theme was the past, present and future of Pittsburgh. I have produced two graphics that captured the iconic views of Pittsburgh, now and then.

Huge shout out to the Shaw Gallery and Kurt Shaw, for offering us the digital prints of the old images. See more maps and prints here, on their page Treasured Maps. 

The photos of Pittsburgh "now" are taken by me, between 2013 and 2014. 

Architects who run

I have been published once more, on the online magazine of the AIA Pittsburgh!
You can read why Architects should run - and what they can learn.
Read it here .

Below: photos from one of my favorite runs, along the Mononghaela River, between Downtown and the South Side.

I won the "AIA Pittsburgh President's Award"!

On December 3rd, 2015 I attended the AIA Pittsburgh "President's Holiday Party", hosted in the headquarters of 4moms.  Alan Schlossberg, AIA welcomed 2016 president Michael McDonnell, AIA and gave me his special President's Award! 

The award recognizes the effort of special volunteers and I received it because of my involvement in the Young Architect Forum, and in the AIA Pittsburgh itself. Here you can see a visual collection of typical YAF events and initiatives. If you are interested, you can join us any time during the year - just write to yaf@aiapgh.com and we'll send you our newsletter of the upcoming events.

I am incredibly honored for this recognition, and I look forward to volunteer even harder next year. I will be again on the YAF board, as Director of Public Relations, and I will continue to help AIA Pittsburgh in all the possible ways I am capable of.

Let's go Pittsburgh!

Below, the YAF Pittsburgh at its best. For once, a group photo without hardhats and boots, or full of mud on the field. Young Architect do celebrate indeed!

And we don't wear black all the time... (not yet)

Below, a photo with Ilana Gutierrez and Drew Moshier (celebrated with the Newly Registered Architect for the year 2015). Both Drew and Ilana are my co-workers at Rothschild Doyno Collaborative. At RDCollab, we help and inspire each other every day!

Congrats Drew, and congrats Ilana for having joined the YAF board as well, as Secretary. 

Looking forward an awesome 2016!

Below: view of the Allegheny River from 4moms space.

An Inclusive City, for All Ages

I am happy to announce that the AIA Pittsburgh magazine Columns has just published my work, once more! You can read my article about the talk Gil Penalosa gave at WESA here.

<< When asked about addressing how to engage people who don’t want change, Penalosa explains what has worked for him: “Do honest consultation with people. Make meetings that are easy to attend, for time and location. Make sure to reach the right targets in the population: all the ages. Listen, listen, listen!” Penalosa says there are three phases of understanding a city’s needs: WHAT is missing, HOW it is wanted, and WHICH project is necessary to achieve the goal. “Only once you understood those do you call the architects.” >> 

Design Pittsburgh 2015: Drawn to Inspire

September is always a great month for the architects in Pittsburgh, as we open to the public with a huge exhibition of our works. Only October can beat September, when we have the Awards and Gala. This year, the opening was during the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Gallery Crawl and the Gala will take place on October 22, 2015. Tickets and info are available on the AIA Pittsburgh website. 

Also this year, I helped in creating "the right atmosphere" (read: cheerful) and I volunteered to arrange the space with other friends. 

The main spaces I was involved with were the Young Architect Studio Competition, the photo exhibition "Place that inspire" and the 4th floor, with some interactive activities. 

Below, the photo exhibition "Places that Inspire". Joe Adiutori, Jr. made the final arrangement. Two of the presented photos are mine.

Here the photos, which I took in Pittsburgh in 2014 (click to enlarge)

On the opposite wall, the YASC competition was presented to the visitors, with many creative ideas about how to re-use the former Bayer billboard, recently dismissed. This year we had a record of submissions and the space was almost too small for hosting the boards.
The visitors seemed to be pretty entertained, and enjoyed the show.




On the floor, you will see the gigantic floor graphics I prepared, printed by Tri-State Reprographics and skillfully mounted also this year. Last year it was a 12 feet by 12 feet. This year, I created a 34 feet by 4 feet strip with the challenging topography on the south shore of the Ohio River.



Above: the whole 34 feet strip. Below, the detail showing the clean graphics of the topography, buildings and roads between Mount Washington and the Ohio River. The dark line represents the true footprint of the billboard, compared to the surroundings.

Also this year I submitted for the Young Architect Studio Competition. Below you can see the images of the "Duquesne Gardens". An incredible place dedicated to Pittsburghers. But also to resiliency. 

You can vote for it following this link. It is the third project of the first row. 

The rest of the space was really beautiful even this year. Many volunteers are doing so much in order to craft this event, and the staff at the AIA Pittsburgh is fantastic.

 Below: serie of activity tables.

  

The AIA Pittsburgh Design Awards cannot be complete without the right soundtrack. David Roth kindly takes care of that. And rocks the night. 

I didn't get to see much of the outside, but I loved the DJ session by DJ Rekha.

I also loved the exhibition of Sarika Goulatia at 709 Penn. Open until November 29th!

 All the main galleries that inaugurated on the Gallery Crawl night are still open. Check the Cultural Trust website to learn more.

The Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE Scholarship

I am very pleased to announce I am one of the 2015 Recipients of the Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE Scholarship. It is a scholarship organized by the AIA at a national level.

Applicants should demonstrate one or more of the following attributes:

• Significant contributions at an early stage of career to the profession and/or community;

• Exemplary involvement in community and/or professional organizations;

• Outstanding achievement in the creation, development and delivery of creative programs for students, interns, Associates, and/or young architect members;

• Demonstrated passion for pursuit of registration.

Click here to see all the 10 recipients. Below is my bio:

Beatrice Spolidoro, Assoc. AIA, is a 2011 graduate from the University Politecnico of Milano in Italy, with a Master’s Degree in Architecture. She regularly volunteers at the AIA Pittsburgh chapter and for the Young Architect Forum (YAF) of Pittsburgh. Spolidoro is the recipient of the Young Architect Studio Competition, 2012 edition. She has been working as an Intern for the Pittsburgh based architectural firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative since 2012. She has been involved in projects that aim to rebuild communities and align the goals of many Pittsburgh neighborhoods. In addition to helping the design development, she has been focusing in the storytelling of such projects and in facilitating the delivery of complex concepts.

A huge thank you goes to my firm, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, and all the wonderful people working there. Geoff Campbell has been my tutor and mentor since 2012 and I really value his help and guidance. 

Another huge thanks goes to Mindy Fullilove, MD for the opportunity to contribute to her book Urban Alchemy. She taught me what welcoming means, and many precious lessons of "architecture for the people". 

I really admire the AIA Pittsburgh Chapter and its staff, particularly Rachael Kelley. The Young Architects Forum benefits a lot from all the efforts Rachael put in coordinate us. Thanks for the support you constantly provide!

Finally, thanks to Pittsburgh, for being such an amazing place to grow as an architect. It is a wonderful mix of challenges and opportunities. Plus fun. 

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.

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.