ALCOA CORPORATE CENTER, Pittsburgh USA 1994 - 1998.

"linear volumes"

• Model of extruded zones, linear volumes parallel to the river.

Located right across the water from downtown Pittsburgh, the building aspires to be "urban" rather than "suburban" (office in the park). The building fills the entire city block right-up-to-the-river, with a hard edge waterfront. The massing of its form is "dense," or "congested," almost independent of the actual density of the building program. This formal congestion is intensified by confining all articulation of building programs within the linear volumes parallel to the river. The programmatic "frictions" between these juxtaposed linear volumes insures casual and impromptu interactions among building's users.

The overall building is organized as layering of extruded zones -- distinct, linear building volumes: the serpentine office block, the thin vertical-slab/ core -building, and the skyline silhouette street-pavilions.

These extrusions also include the non-volumetric zones (the Allegheny River, the riverfront terraces, the cobblestone-paved Isabella Street) and the non-programmatic zones (the lightwell/ atrium's glass-wedge). They all are arranged as linear zones parallel to the river-edge.

©1996, 1997 Agus Rusli / Rusli Associates

"extruded zones"

• Programmatic additions and substractions within the extruded zones, linear volumes parallel to the river-edge.

• "Linear Cities" along the riverfront: linear deposits of concrete, asphalts, parks, and buildings along the edge of the Allegheny River. Shown above is the construction of a two-level linear promenade right across the river from Alcoa site by others.

description continued :

• . . . non-hierarchical skin
• . . . floating boulder : the serpentine block
• . . . the checker-skin wrap
• . . . skyline-silhouette

• . . . building description

next : free floors/ outer infrastructure . . .

curtainwall/ drawing-list . . .

river view of building; curving filigree skin wall . . .

atrium, core-building . . .

floor plan, section . . .

excerpt; or go to building description . . .

ALCOA contents-page . . .