Recent News
- Strada Wins Two AIA Pittsburgh Awards
Mifflin Project: Honor Award, Design
The Mifflin Elementary School project was a new addition woven into an Art Deco and International Modernism historic structure. The principal architectural challenge was to create an image for the new addition that could blend harmoniously with the strong vocabulary of the original building, as well as that of the ‘50’s addition. The Strada project team was John Martine, AIA, Alan Cuteri, AIA, Michael Stern, ASLA, and Cas Pellegrini, AIA. The client was Pittsburgh Public Schools and Yarborough Development, Inc was the contractor.
Jury comments: This project is very in-control but without being overbearing. Everything is done by intention. Working with an established institution in a neighborhood context presents a challenge: to add a quite substantial new area and contend with the issue of continuity of identity of the school and issue of scale. Mifflin School controls these issues ARTFULLY. There is care in every part: massing, fenestration, spatial & circulation, connection between old & new. There are no accidents here and the whole has great consistency and character.
Hermitage Master Plan: Certificate of Merit, Regional and Urban Design
The Hermitage Master Plan was a community-based planning initiative that addressed a common problem: the anonymous nature of suburbs. Working with Mercer County Regional Planning Commission, Strada’s team of Michael Stern, ASLA and Abigail Mountain created a new town center with a sense a place.
Jury Comments: This is an important project because it takes a suburban condition that is very common and typical and greatly improves it. It is a good model of tools for analysis of prototypical conditions. The plan stands out for rigor of analysis of existing conditions. Commended for attempting to make something out of nothing….trying to create a center where there is not a center. Tough task, still ahead, is dealing with the human scale of the inordinately large horizontal difference (the street) – not convinced by the figure of the circle. Longer-term effort of the master plan continues to evolve with rigorous observation.
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