Response 03

One sentence that caught my attention in the Notes on the Adaptive Re-use of Program by John McMorrough was when he writes that “what architecture has been least equipped to face [is] the inhabitation of the social after the realization of the schematic.”

I think that it speaks very well to the fact that one cannot design a building uniquely looking at program with thinking about all the social issues that is going to implicate. Whenever designing a building, I think that program is very important, however, it only tells us what has to be placed in that building. It is the role of the architect to understand it, and to figure out a way to arrange it in order to fit with the social aspect of the given site.  

This reading also made me think a lot about my thesis and how the program should maybe start by looking at what are the social implications on my site, which will most likely be Pittsburgh, and start understanding what disconnects people in the city.

One thing that I have noticed is that the only way to get around in this city is either by car/bus or by bike. All these modes of transportation however are on the same level, meaning that whatever you use to get to a certain place, it will approximately take the same amount of time as the traffic is the same – especially for cars and buses. Another thing that I have also noticed, and which I love, about Pittsburgh, is the enormous amount of bridges creating connections between hills and neighborhoods.

Looking at these two aspects of the Pittsburgh traffic system made me ask myself: what if there was a way to create faster and bigger connections between neighborhoods of the city? Would an elevated subway system be a solution?