hang your bike

hang your bike

Posted by eve on Apr 13, 2011 | No Comments

Here’s a proposal for an efficient transportation solution – enormous bike ferris wheels, tucked into forgotten spaces between downtown buildings.

vent or bench?

vent or bench?

Posted by eve on Mar 22, 2011 | No Comments

I love these benches built to cover air vents in Queens, New York. 

secret no more

secret no more

Posted by eve on Mar 13, 2011 | 3 Comments

When I tell people I live in Pittsburgh there is generally a startled silence.  Over the last twenty years, as Pittsburgh has shucked off its image of smoke and steel, the pause has grown shorter, but it is still a recognizable pause.

310,000 and counting

310,000 and counting

Posted by eve on Feb 24, 2011 | No Comments

From 700,000 to 310,000 in just 30 years.  This is Pittsburgh’s heritage.  Catastrophic and transformational.

Where did those people go?   Many went to the suburbs that ring the city.   Their children, educated here, went further, to other cities, looking for jobs that eluded them here.   They may have left, Jim Russell contends, but they left their hearts in Pittsburgh.

heads up Pittsburgh!

heads up Pittsburgh!

Posted by eve on Jan 6, 2011 | No Comments

It’s year three! of 10 opinionated souls giving us outstanding ideas for change.

urban is hip now

urban is hip now

Posted by eve on Dec 13, 2010 | No Comments

Now this is worth writing about.  Today the WSJ reports that there are signs of recovery in the office space market.  Great news.  Perhaps the miserable economy is finally righting itself.

a gift to the city

a gift to the city

Posted by eve on Dec 13, 2010 | One Comment

Twenty-seven young architects in training put their minds to downtown Pittsburgh this fall.  They explored, documented and analyzed the compact neighborhood carefully, logically, with no preconceptions.

don’t be square

don’t be square

Posted by eve on Oct 31, 2010 | No Comments

In Spring 2010, Huffington Post listed Pittsburgh as their #2 pick on their Best Cities for the Newly Graduated list.  “Pittsburgh seems an unlikely place for a renaissance but the city escaped the recession relatively unscathed and is moving forward in many areas”, Huffington Post noted.  “Besides having bustling education and health care sectors, the city is also generous with arts initiatives.”

creativity + bureaucracy

creativity + bureaucracy

Posted by eve on Sep 22, 2010 | No Comments

On Wednesday night Czech architects Mjölk architekti made their presentation at the Pecha Kucha Night in Prague. They did not stop at the slide show.  On Thursday morning they presented a gift to the city of Liberic.   Eight hours of laboring produced a perfect little public sauna on an abandoned concrete platform near the local swimming hole.

not very fast

not very fast

Posted by eve on Jun 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

Four hours and forty-one minutes outside Pittsburgh, anger slapped me in the face.  How ridiculous is this, I thought.  Only two hundred and thirty-three point eight miles in four hours and forty-one minutes?  If I were flying, I’d almost be in Paris.

ownership

ownership

Posted by eve on May 19, 2010 | 9 Comments

I was disappointed.   And then I wasn’t.

Every month Kim, Sara & I host a cityLIVE! event.  We are interested, as we believe our audience is, in understanding issues that impact our city and region.  We are interested in holding a forum that allows everyone to attend.  And we are most interested in nurturing a thoughtful exchange of ideas.

time to young up

time to young up

Posted by eve on Apr 15, 2010 | No Comments

The next time someone tells you that Pittsburgh is losing population, yell at them.

dreaming red

dreaming red

Posted by eve on Mar 1, 2010 | No Comments

We sold our Lake House a couple of years ago.   It had become a burdensome retreat, large and a lot to care for.   Most days we’d sit in the tiniest room just off the kitchen, reading and looking at the gorgeous lake view.

design a Pgh pop up

design a Pgh pop up

Posted by eve on Feb 12, 2010 | No Comments

cityLAB is going to pop Pittsburgh up in some other cities.  We are hosting a one-day creative event (a charrette) at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Architecture in Pittsburgh. Designers, architects, artists and wanna-be artists will work in teams to design a pop up that describes Pittsburgh best.

the wage debate

the wage debate

Posted by eve on Jan 19, 2010 | 4 Comments

Everyone deserves to earn enough money to pay for their daily essentials.  On face value alone the proposed prevailing wage bill in Pittsburgh makes sense.  It speaks to the basic decency of employers and their willingness to take some responsibility for their employees lives.

city of angels

city of angels

Posted by eve on Jan 1, 2010 | 2 Comments

Every city needs its angels, and Los Angeles has plenty of them.

It has been several weeks since I returned from Los Angeles.   My trip there as a panelist for an American Institute of Architects SDAT was a rich, if exhausting, experience.  Three intense days there bred a familiarity I will never shake off.  I know downtown Los Angeles now.

a winner

a winner

Posted by eve on Dec 10, 2009 | 2 Comments

Last night’s cityLIVE event, 10 people. 3 minutes, was a rollicking success.  10 brilliant people with 10 brilliant ideas.

sleepless in LA

sleepless in LA

Posted by eve on Dec 3, 2009 | No Comments

Just back from Australia, with my internal time clock still off kilter, I’ve turned around and headed back to Los Angeles for an intense, but fun, three day project.  The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has invited me to participate as a panelist in an SDAT in Downtown Los Angeles.  What an honor.

under the freeway

under the freeway

Posted by eve on Dec 2, 2009 | No Comments

Endless miles of freeway have always irritated me.  They plow through neighborhoods, dissecting blocks and turn well worn paths and local connections into dead ends.  Instead of sustaining cities they perpetuate sprawl.

streamlining government

streamlining government

Posted by eve on Oct 29, 2009 | No Comments

Streamlining city government:  What can we do NOW?

churn

churn

Posted by eve on Oct 20, 2009 | 3 Comments

Will we always be second best?

Over the last month I have been corresponding with a young man from Tokyo.  He will be moving to Pittsburgh for a job, with wife and baby daughter in tow.   He is in fact an American  but has lived abroad for years now.  He believes that America can offer a better life for his family.

population debate

population debate

Posted by eve on Oct 4, 2009 | No Comments

Is the rush out of Pittsburgh finally over?

Was there ever really a rush?

at the epicenter

Posted by eve on Sep 22, 2009 | 3 Comments


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I’m at the epicenter.  Just a block and a half from the entrance into the David Lawrence Convention Center.  The seismic wave has to be at least a level 9 here.

On Thursday the G20 summit begins in Pittsburgh, right on my doorstep.  There is no escape for me. Both my business and my home are here. When I step out of my front door, sometime on Thursday, I will  be greeted by an unfamiliar landscape.  I’m having trouble imagining myself in the midst of it.  Youtube’s videos of past G20 events don’t help me very much.  They are surreal documentaries of events that don’t belong in this compact little downtown.

I, like many Pittsburghers, am slightly nervous.  There are protesters who will be here to protest honestly.  And then there are those who just want to wreak havoc.   Still, my nervousness gives way to excitement when I remind myself what this means to Pittsburgh.  Like a movie star on the rise, Pittsburgh has been analyzed, criticized and inspected in detail for months now by the world press.  Stories of reinvention abound.  Who can deny the image changing effect this will have?   

I wonder, when the fences come down, when the jersey barriers are put back from wherever they came, and when we have reclaimed our downtown, whether the stories will continue?   That should be our task.  To keep the world’s eyes on us forever more.

to brand (or not to brand)

to brand (or not to brand)

Posted by eve on Sep 20, 2009 | No Comments

Join me at the first event of cityLIVE!’s third season,  as we examine how to brand (or not brand) Pittsburgh.

changing my ways

changing my ways

Posted by eve on Sep 11, 2009 | No Comments

There’s another transformation going on, and I’m going to have to leave my old habits behind to explore it.