Fisher ARCHitecture plans to transform Jan Loney’s art work into a metal screen that will clad her new industrial Lawrenceville studio!  First we added two stories of new construction to an existing brick garage she owns located on Plummer Street just off Butler.  Then we borrowed a leaf motif from one of Jan’s recent Metalier sculptures, replicated it with our parametric software, and wrapped the pattern around the proposed addition.  Here are the before and after pics.  As I wrote last year in my Naked Architecture lecture,

“As a general rule, my personal point of view is to let new be new: Copying the look of old buildings does those old buildings no favors, because modern construction techniques do not lend themselves to the kind of details old buildings feature. Besides, it’s not sincere. We live in the present and I feel our new buildings should reflect that truth. Our needs and aspirations reflect our times. And let old be old: We should certainly restore worthy old buildings because our shared history is worth preserving. It is what binds our culture together. And these buildings are often beautiful, with spatial configurations and decorations that cannot easily be duplicated today.”

We care A LOT about the  architectural character of existing Pittsburgh homes.  So we decided to precisely preserve the existing garage.  After all, it relates to the existing buildings up and down the street.

Our primary intent, certainly, will be to showcase Jan’s art.  Yet, rather than relate the proposed screen to the neighboring buildings, we decided to connect it to the trees of Pittsburgh’s lush urban forest, which will be present – hopefully – long after we are gone.  That being said, the renovated garage does connect to its neighbors in terms of its shape and size. Our proposal  may look different, but with it’s massing and industrial character, it won’t look out of place.

We’re also working with Jan Loney on another Fisher ARCHitecture project, our Beacon Street “Garden in the Air”.  We took the same leaf motif we presented here and transformed it with our software  software into a railing.   A variation of that pattern forms an overhead steel canopy. You can see a preview of that project here.