Payette Associates
Roberts Hall
perspective rendering (1994)
Roberts Hall is located on a difficult site, though Hornbostel, too, originally conceived of building here. It scales down a steep hillside, and provides a visual plinth for Hamerschlag Hall, the University's most important visual icon.
Two abandoned schematic designs for the project reflected programmatic goals to link the new building with Wean Hall on one hand (by way of a circular "headhouse" and extensive walkways), and to create a public terrace above the building on the other. The final scheme dismisses these concerns in favor of architecture, wherein the architects sought to embrace Hamerschlag "without concealing science and program in historic fashion."
The west elevation overlooking Junction Hollow is five monolithic stories of poured-in-place concrete. Triangular concrete stair towers anchor the ends of the building and double as exhaust flues. The concrete walls respond to the concrete foundation of Hamerschlag and the concrete walls of Wean Hall nearby. They were equally inspired by the concrete buildings of noted architect Louis Kahn.
The concrete is discontinuous, however, and the building as a whole is not so monolithic. A metal and glass top story sits lightly on the concrete base, and a cylindrical conference room that rides the crest of the building is a flattened offspring of the Hamerschlag tower. It carries the prow of the U.S.S. Pittsburgh--previously a ground-level artifact on the site--like a tiara. Large portions of the side and rear elevations are composed of brick, block, metal, and glass. An orange-colored cast concrete appears throughout as dressing.
As at the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute, there are three ranges of occupied spaces. Offices line the west facade, and laboratories are located in the center and along the building's inner edge. Walkways cross above and below an adjoining road to connect to Hamerschlag and its "clean room."
Roberts Hall may be one story too high. Hornbostel's buildings nearly always sit high on exposed basements as a matter of proportion and a practical acknowledgment of the variable terrain. When viewed from the west, Roberts Hall blocks Hamerschlag's lower levels in a way that disturbs the proportions of the older building. The buildings share breadth and posture, however, setting them in partial balance.