Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
The fledgling nature of OFFICE 52 as a competitor in this event does not by any means go unnoticed by Crosbie, and he declares that their strategy to challenge the campus plan for the site—a totally different tact from what was anticipated from the others—was a risk worth taking, even at the cost of disqualification. The essay heading for his Introduction, “The Architecture of the Not So Obvious,” captures OFFICE 52’s strategy in a nutshell. “Recasting the site planning problem that Scott Hall presented for the Carnegie Mellon University campus allowed OFFICE 52 to develop a response that questioned how the problem was conceptually framed.” Crosbie then goes ahead to describe in detail the firm’s logical planning concept, which not only solved the site problem for the new building, but revealed a clever solution to opening a previously inaccessible section of the Mall to make it more inviting. Their design managed to not only accommodate the entire building program into this interstitial site, but also accomplish all of this harmoniously and logically. Instead of a building that would mark an end to a visual journey at the campus edge, it opens up new vistas.
Finally the book reveals the firm’s artistic bent, turning the façade into a work of art with its Dichroic glass panels, providing a light show depending on the play of light on the building’s surface at different times of the day and the position of the viewer. The amount of research time the firm invested in this area to bring it to reality has certainly played dividends, enhancing the aesthetic value of the building.
So now we come back to the authors of this project, Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell, the two principals of OFFICE 52. Both worked under Cesar Pelli, the author of the book’s Forward, and undoubtedly brought much of his approach to the architecture in their own practice. According to both Pelli and Crosbie, there was a little more to it than that: Pelli sees the influence of his mentor, Eero Saarinen, “with the focus on the importance of the physical model to study the form, texture and color of the architecture and the spaces they’ve created.” Thus, in spirit and practice, Pelli sees the Saarinen tradition passed down in OFFICE 52’s successful competition-winning project.
Having followed the evolution of Carnegie Mellon University’s Scott Hall, both at a distance and up-close, this book was a welcome addition to the all too rare studies surrounding the gestation of a project, from competition process to realization. And for young architects, it is an example of what can be accomplished, not just with talent, but also with a solid foundation accumulated over several years of practice.
Oh, and by the way, OFFICE 52 can no longer be considered a “wild card.” -Editor
Foundation non-profits are no strangers to good architecture. Ford Foundation’s forward-looking headquarters in New York City by Roche Dinkeloo was an early example of a non-profit using architecture as a vehicle for serving to brand it as a progressive institution. In 2001 the California Endowment went one step further, staging an invited competition for their new headquarters in Los Angeles.
Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
Master plans have been around for ages; but master plans for very large cities with all their support systems are relatively new. Milton Keynes (MK), located in Buckinghamshire in southern England, and begun in the late 1960s, is one of the most successful of the new cities, now having a population of almost 250,000. Its success lies mainly on the lessons learned from the establishment of the planning which generated the new towns in the U.K. during the 1940s and 50s, many of which have not fared well in the test of time. MK’s success was based primarily on the careful separation of high density from residential where the influence of the “garden city” could be seen. Here the idea of a live/work environment was even incorporated.
The updating and modernization of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport has been well overdue. Aside from occasional problems caused by Chicago’s winter storms, congestion at the airport has led air travelers to avoid the airport when catching a connecting flight is on the agenda. So Chicago, noted for its modern architecture and the home of several high-profile architecture firms, decided to turn to an invited competition for a solution to these issues.
Competitions in Chicago in the recent past have been anything but encouraging, especially when transparency is an issue. During the competition for the Obama Center on the South Side, the Obama Foundation, which was responsible for the administration of that “competition,” was anything but a model of transparency; and to this day, none of the finalist designs, other than that of the winner, have seen the light of day. In the case of the O’Hare project, videos submitted by the five finalists teams were on public display, and the public was even asked to vote for their favorite.
In these times when political emotions run high and gun violence is the norm, not the exception; and when emotions no longer are held in check, but encouraged by our leaders, minorities become easy targets for those who adhere to ideologies based primarily on exclusivity and hate.
The LGBT community has long been the target of various segments of our society; but the massacre that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a favorite hangout for gays, elevated this phenomenon to a new level. After an event that claimed the lives of 49 victims, injured 68 others, and left hundreds permanently traumatized, it should come as no surprise that a memorial to this tragedy has been front and center in the minds of the community ever since. Because the very nature of this event has drawn nationwide attention, the community wanted to get it right. So it was only logical that they would turn to a competition as the most viable vehicle for arriving at a solution for the design of a memorial, as well as a museum. For this, the onePULSE Foundation was formed, to memorialize this tragedy and “ensure that Pulse”s legacy of love, acceptance and hope will never be lost.”
As part of a policy to relocate archives of local interest outside of major Bavarian cities, a competition was staged for the design of a new archive in Kitzingen, 12 miles from the provincial capital city of Würzburg, Germany. The competition was open to qualified teams in the EU, with 25 firms identified to take part in a competition. Since five firms were preinvited, 20 openings were available for the 79 applicants that vied for participation in the competition. In the end, 23 firms submitted designs for the final adjudication process.
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