Alan Magee Scaife Hall of Engineering

How can a new campus cornerstone merge arts and sciences to become a hub for cross-disciplinary gathering?

The LEED Gold Alan Magee Scaife Hall of Engineering is a 6-story research facility sited at a prominent corner of Carnegie Mellon’s campus. Bound by Schenley Park to the south, a deeply sloped hillside to the west, and the original campus buildings to the north and east, the new building forms a contemporary cornerstone and gateway to the historic campus core.

The 85,000 square-foot building is home to the Mechanical Engineering Department and is comprised of labs, offices, classrooms, collaboration workspace, and a café. The three-volume massing is carefully considered, merging zoning restrictions, Pittsburgh’s steep slope development requirements, surrounding context, and programmatic requirements.

The building’s design layout and massing have a 360-degree relationship with its surroundings and is user focused, prioritizing its connection with daylight, views, and the exterior on all sides. When approached from the street level, the building’s full scale does not reveal itself. The dynamic massing allows the visitor to experience the building unfold as they progress through the site.

Complimenting historic context

Scaife Hall was designed in deference to its surroundings and to fulfill the 1900 master plan’s vision of a public gateway.

Complimenting historic context

Scaife Hall was designed in deference to its surroundings and to fulfill the 1900 master plan’s vision of a public gateway.

The southwest corner of Carnegie Mellon was originally intended to include a forecourt, as seen in early 1900s master plan drawings by Henry Hornbostel, then a recent graduate of Paris’s École des Beaux Arts who would later become the first dean of Carnegie Tech’s (now CMU) architecture school.

The corners of the plan were left open, and later filled with Modernist buildings. For the last 80 years, the bend at Frew Street favored cars over people, prioritizing parking and service access.

The systems and facilities of the site’s existing buildings could not keep up with the rapid pace of scientific innovation and approach to teaching Mechanical Engineering. A new Scaife Hall provided an opportunity to plan for the physical demands of the research, meet the sustainability goals of the institution, and realize Hornbostel’s vision of a welcoming gateway to the larger campus.

Proportions of CMU

We studied the whole of Frew Street, specifically the forms, rhythms and proportions of the existing historic buildings.

Color and texture of CMU

The predominant material across the neighboring historic campus is Pittsburgh’s native yellow brick. We wanted to ensure Scaife Hall respectfully integrated into its surroundings, both the historic and contemporary. An audit of neighboring colors and textures informed the material choices. Scaife’s dynamic aluminum facade was designed with performance in mind, and in reference to the 1960 Hunt Library which bookends Frew Street to the north.

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A two-story lower volume is strategically and efficiently integrated into the hillside to house laboratories. The deep below grade footprint allows for an efficient but flexible lab program layout and controlled conditions by taking advantage of ground coupling, reducing the heating and cooling demand. The labs are designed to support innovative research in a variety of subjects and include wet and dry lab space, a drone arena, robotics lab, open wet lab, and BSL-1 lab. Each requires complex systems, including elements such as pressurization controls, fume hoods, and source capture exhausts. To promote collaboration, research workstations are located adjacent to the lab spaces and take advantage of the existing sloped hillside to provide daylight and views out.

Two additional volumes float above the labs, unify the spaces between adjacent buildings, and form a landscaped courtyard where all Engineering programs can socialize and collaborate. A large operable door extends this communal space to the inside where a much-needed café and lounge support student and faculty interaction.

Teaching facilities, including flexible classrooms and lecture spaces, anchor the first two levels of the building, while offices occupy the upper levels. Woven around and within the building’s circulation are flexible spaces for collaboration and study, creating an active hub for research, teaching, and learning.

A dialogue between the arts and sciences

Integrating site-specific artwork “Making Way” by Jessica Stockholder

A dialogue between the arts and sciences

“Making Way” by Jessica Stockholder integrates vibrant colors, translucency, and light throughout the building and landscape. A highly collaborative partnership between the artist and architect enabled these creative elements to be fully incorporated into Scaife Hall’s design and construction.

The artwork sits both inside and outside, supported and contained by the building’s structure and the landscape design. The artwork does not stay within the lines. It slips in and out of the forms established by the site and opens up a space for imagining the many pathways open to us within any structure or system.

Jessica Stockholder

The dynamic piece utilizes built elements such as light fixtures, terrazzo flooring and treads, decorative wall panels, window film, and stair guardrails, contributing to a memorable campus gateway.

“Making Way” is experienced in layers, starting outside the building.

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Scaife Hall’s design marries advanced Engineering research with site-specific public art, fostering an ongoing dialogue between the arts and sciences. The dynamic piece utilizes built elements such as light fixtures, terrazzo flooring and treads, decorative wall panels, window film, and stair guardrails, contributing to a memorable campus gateway.