Architecture of Infrastructural Residue
Mixed Use Residential
West End, Pittsburgh, PA
​
Virginia Tech
Fall 2016
Thesis
Project 04
Site Exploration,
Preliminary Design
"The built (more about that later) product of modernization is not modern architecture but Junkspace. Junkspace is what remains after modernization has run its course, or, more precisely, what coagulates while modernization is in progress, its fallout. Modernization had a rational program: to share the blessings of science, universally. Junkspace is its apotheosis,
or meltdown . . ." - Rem Koolhaas, Junkspace
“10. Negative capability is a positive capacity. Negative capability is to be able to take in all the problematic aspects of the surrounding world, to see and acknowledge, to entertain uncertainty and still be able to act: a modus operandi for the twenty-first century. As an architect you go to a site to study every angle available – to feel in your body what needs to be done; intuitively you create.” – Steven Holl
Sketch, 24x36"
West Sections, progressing from west (top) to east (bottom)
West Section
East Section
1" = 60' (1:720) Model
Site Mapping - Primary routes and reference lines, secondary lines at intersections, tertiary lines at site boundaries
Site Mapping - Ground level developed from mapped reference lines
Site Mapping - Upper levels developed from mapped reference lines and ground level
Developing form - diagrams of passages through the site, the slope from the West End Village to the West End Bridge, areas to provide direct sun, capping of the fastest roads, upper apartments, lower plinths.
The architecture takes ques from local vernacular - iconic steel structures resting on heavy stone plinths.
