Project Overview
Western Pennsylvania has a complex and underappreciated architectural heritage. From the industrial grandeur of Pittsburgh’s early skyscrapers to the residential work of Tasso Katselas and the civic projects of the mid-century modernists, the region has always produced architecture of ambition and material seriousness. This project, developed in the spirit of Wilkin Architecture — a practice whose work engages with the specific material and cultural context of the Pittsburgh region — is a contemporary building that takes that heritage seriously.
Design Philosophy
The building is uncompromisingly of its time: its lines are clean, its geometry is precise, and it does not reach for historical ornament or nostalgic reference. But it is not without roots. The material palette — cor-ten steel, exposed concrete, and regionally sourced brick — connects the building to the industrial landscape of western Pennsylvania with directness and honesty. The cor-ten weathers over time to a rich amber-brown that echoes the rust-belt aesthetic of the region’s great industrial heritage, transforming what could be melancholy into something vibrant and alive.
The massing is monumental but not heavy. Voids are cut into the building volume to create covered public spaces at ground level — loggia, passages, and outdoor rooms that invite the city in. The building refuses the fortress typology of so many contemporary commercial structures and instead opens itself to the street.
Technical Specifications
Structure: Structural steel frame with composite concrete floor slabs. The primary facade is a rain-screen system of cor-ten steel panels (3 mm thick, 600 mm × 1200 mm format) mounted on a thermally broken subframe. Panel joints are expressed as 20 mm open reveals, allowing the facade to breathe and drain while maintaining its precision appearance.
Glazing: Triple-glazed curtain wall on the primary and secondary elevations, with an external solar shading system of horizontal cor-ten fins at 400 mm centres. The fins are angled at 15° from the horizontal to maximize shade on the south and west elevations while admitting north light unobstructed.
Ground Floor: A public arcade runs through the ground floor at grade, creating a covered pedestrian route that activates the street frontage. The arcade ceiling is formed in exposed poured concrete, board-marked with a pattern derived from the structural grid above.
Sustainability: The building targets LEED Gold certification. A green roof on the upper level manages stormwater and reduces the urban heat island effect; photovoltaic panels are integrated into the roof parapet; and the building’s thermal mass reduces peak heating and cooling loads.
Blueprint & Floor Plan Notes
The building is organized on a 7.5 m structural grid, with a typical floor plate of approximately 1,800 m². The ground floor is divided between the public arcade (free to the street), a lobby and reception zone, and a retail or food-service unit at the corner. Upper floors are open-plan office space with a 4.5 m floor-to-ceiling height that allows for mezzanine levels where required by tenants.
Section drawings show the building stepping back at the upper two floors to create a terrace accessible from the top-floor tenant. This setback is not merely aesthetic — it responds to a right-of-light constraint on the adjacent low-rise residential block, maintaining solar access to those properties while allowing the building to reach its full permitted height.
The structural strategy is a perimeter tube: the primary columns are concentrated at the edges of the plan and the central core, leaving the interior floor plate entirely column-free. This maximizes tenant flexibility and allows the building to be sub-divided or opened up without structural intervention.
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