Dennis, Clark & Associates/TAMS
University Center Competition, site plan
rendering (1987)
Subsequently, in 1987 the university conducted an architectural competition for the design of a University Center, and the conceptualization of a dormitory and dining facility, an athletic stadium, and a performing arts theater. Since the scope of this program entailed a major redesign and expansion of campus facilities, the university established careful parameters for the competition. The general direction for growth was shifted from the west (as in the CRS Sirrine plans) to the east. Development zones were plotted in advance. And it was a given that new buildings should relate directly to the historic Carnegie Tech campus.
Because so much of the Hornbostel design was developed, the original plan continues to be a force in future planning...the plan of the original Tech complex, however often it may have changed, imposes upon any building the basic Beaux-Arts formulae of order and symmetry. (Keating 1986)
[The University Center] should strengthen and enhance the "cut" as a clearly identifiable spatial axis for the campus. It should extend and have continuity with the architectural and spatial character of the Hornbostel Mall...It should be in scale with the campus. (Spreiregen 1986)
A new wrinkle was the establishment of a new pedestrian avenue linking the cut to the so-called hill dorms. This axis was established through consultation by noted architect Leon Krier, an advocate of traditional urban environments composed of public streets, public squares, and continuous urban facades. For Carnegie Mellon, Krier further recommended colonnaded facades to define outdoor spaces.
The competition participants were selected from a large international pool. Selection criteria included experience with university projects and relevant building types; experience with contextual design, especially within a classical context; and alumni participation. The field was chosen to include a mix of large capable firms and small creative firms. The invited competitors were Damianos & Associates (Pittsburgh) with Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham (Philadelphia); Dennis, Clark & Associates/TAMS (Boston); Jung/Brannen Associates, Inc. (Boston); Koetter, Kim & Associates (Boston); Machado and Silvetti Associates (Boston); and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (New York). Leon Krier declined an offer to participate.
Dennis, Clark & Associates/TAMS submitted the winning design. Their proposal stuck closest to the architectural language of the existing campus and was judged to best incorporate the university's vision. The Dennis and Clark plan struck a balance between the urbanization of the campus and the enhancement of the natural landscape.
The project centers around the idea of the "urbanization" of the campus through density of development and the definition of the public domain. Specifically, a measured and varied sequence of new outdoor spaces is designed to relate to and complete the original quadrangle by Henry Hornbostel. ("Kudos" 1995)
Large public rooms will be embedded in a perimeter of contiguous buildings, which will provide definitive margins where there had once been an aggregate of object-buildings. (Arcidi 1990)
This scheme, with some revisions, ultimately gained the status of a master plan, and supplanted the CRS Sirrine plan. Though one of its most compelling features--a restored ravine, bridged as in Hornbostel's 1911 plan, rising from Junction Hollow to a new amphitheater--was set aside, the Dennis and Clark plan has been substantially realized over the subsequent decade.