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August 24, 2006
When it is completed around 2014, ribbons of green will run up, down, and across a 6-acre site in downtown Pittsburgh: Vertical gardens will wrap the interiors of apartment buildings; a thrilling two-block-long elevated park will surmount a roadway and provide city dwellers with access to the nearby Allegheny River. This vision earned a win for the international design and development team RiverParc, headed by Behnisch Architekten, in the Cultural District Riverfront Development Competition; additional team members included Gehl Architects of Copenhagen, and Toronto-based architectsAlliance. In July the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust announced that RiverParc would design the $460 million project, the “nation’s first green, mixed-use, arts/residential development,” beating out teams led by design architects Konig Eizenberg and MVRDV. Finalist Steven Holl Architects withdrew prior to deadline due to competing project demands, according to the Trust.
A 14-person jury of recommendation chose RiverParc unanimously. Despite the non-descript nature of the buildings in the contest submittal, the thoroughness of the planning effort prevailed. The Cultural Trusts’s guidelines stated “It is more important to have a well-designed master plan…than to seek ‘iconic’ design.”
Residential development pervades the winning master plan, which features 700 new residential units distributed among condominiums, townhouses, and rental apartments. The first of two phases is scheduled to commence in mid-2007. It includes construction of four residential buildings (350–400 units) with ground-floor retail spaces, townhouses, parking lots and structures, and infrastructure improvements. A second phase calls for a performing arts venue, a four-star hotel, plus additional residential buildings.
In creating a “three-dimensional garden city,” RiverParc’s scheme includes four outdoor public plazas and pedestrian streets to accompany the planted zones inside the residential buildings. Also, the new Three Sisters Gallery park, named after the group of three bridges that span the Allegheny River, will occupy an innovative span that captures space above the 10th Street Bypass. The architects say that, in addition to LEED-certifying the planned buildings, they will enter the project in the USGBC pilot program to be one of the first LEED-ND certified neighborhood districts in the country.
Jennifer Lucchino, AIA
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