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3 architects submit revised designs for addition to Carnegie Science Center
Friday, May 04, 2001 By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Architecture Critic
The three architects competing to design a $90 million expansion of the Carnegie Science Center have completed their revisions, each addressing concerns raised by the eight-member jury over their original schemes.
"They were very responsive to the issues that we raised, especially in how they tied [the expansion] together with existing spaces," said science center director Seddon Bennington.
In the winter, the jury eliminated New York architects Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi from the competition, leaving Jean Nouvel of Paris, Daniel Libeskind of Berlin and Ben van Berkel, with Caroline Bos, both of Amsterdam's UN Studio, to compete.
Because their additions were designed for the west side of the science center, both Libeskind and van Berkel were asked to consider how to transform those parts of the existing building that face the Ohio River and the Point.
Libeskind's original design, an assemblage of intersecting, geometric volumes, left the existing building unaltered, connecting only with transparent, enclosed pedestrian bridges, including one that arcs out over the river.
In the redesign, the pedestrian bridge over the river remains, but Libeskind eliminates the landside bridge and unites the old and new buildings by converting the pedestrian ramps at the west end of the existing building into exhibition floors that connect the two structures.
The connective element is a glass-walled, wedge-shaped space, which Libeskind envisions as "an enclosed piazza [that] offers a spectacular central and public space." The rest of the new building would be clad in reflective, silver metal panels, pierced by windows, skylights and atriums.
Libeskind's redesign, however, still leaves most of the existing building unchanged.
Van Berkel's first design, clad in aluminum and transparent glass, plays with the concepts of interior and exterior space by building an inner tube within an outer one and intertwining them to create fluid, ambiguous spaces -- an idea van Berkel said is designed to "provoke reflections about science and technology."
Van Berkel has expanded his original scheme into a Y-shaped addition comprising three tubes -- each with inner tubes -- that wrap around two sides of the science center. The most prominent juts out dramatically and diagonally, extending 100 feet over the river and rising at a 45-degree angle to culminate in a cafe and terrace with a panoramic view of Downtown.
It would rise to 133 feet, about midway between the 80-foot-tall drum of the Omnimax Theater and the 165-foot-tall Steelers stadium. Inside, a ramp circles around a diagonal, glass-walled elevator that lifts visitors to exhibit floors and the terrace and cafe.
The two riverfront tubes also contain exhibition space, while the third tube, which snuggles against the drum of the Omnimax Theater, becomes the main entrance into the center.
The new design "provides the Carnegie Science Center with a new face, but leaves the old building largely intact," van Berkel wrote in the text accompanying his submission.
His addition is mostly transparent, with the possibility of using interactive lighting systems to change the colors of the tubes depending on weather conditions, much the way the pyramid atop the Gulf Tower once signaled weather changes.
In his first design, Nouvel stacked glass and metal-clad cubes, including one that cantilevers over the river, above the existing building. Each cube housed a different program or function.
Jurors asked Nouvel to show how large numbers of visitors could be moved quickly, vertically and horizontally, through his tall, complex addition. While the addition still rises six stories above the older building, Nouvel reduced the number of cubes and combined several functions within each.
"You're not left wondering how you get from one box to another box," Bennington said.
Because the existing building's ramps are effective in moving large numbers of people -- including those pushing baby strollers -- Bennington encouraged the architects to use ramps rather than stairs. Nouvel has extended the existing ramps upward and added large-capacity elevators.
The exterior walls of Nouvel's exhibit areas are all glass, some of which might be etched with images, perhaps of clouds.
In profile, the Nouvel addition still cantilevers about 80 feet over the water and sends its glass-walled restaurant soaring above the height of the Steelers stadium. The cantilevered portion houses cantilevered floors projecting into a mostly open cube with broad views up and down the rivers.
Before the jury makes its final selection in early summer, Bennington will commission an independent analysis of construction and cost factors associated with each design.
The science center hopes to complete the 160,000-square-foot expansion in 2005.
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