Schuylkill River Land and Water Emergency Response Location System. The goal was to establish an emergency management information system that would allow land and water-based travelers to accurately communicate their location to emergency service personnel in the five-county Schuylkill River National & State Heritage Area.
The assignment was to plan an exhibit environment and to develop a section for that environment. The chosen theme was Vespa, an icon of modern freedom, celebrating its 60th anniversary. The shaping of the space was designed to reflect the signature contours of a Vespa. The story is told around the perimeter, incorporating some interactive elements, and uses the center area as a gallery featuring Vespas on pedestals of varying heights.
Laurie Tappen, Stephanie Salerno, Sara Leventhal, Drexel University
The Pennsylvania Military Museum was an under-attended facility occupying a popular and well-used site. (Located 300 yards back from a major highway, the museum was often mistaken for a storage facility.) Beyond adding needed visitor amenity and gallery space to the museum's interior, the architects employed environmental graphic design to broaden the significance of the building as an object in the landscape.
Stephanie Bohl’s senior thesis project at Drexel University was an exhibit environment for a traveling exhibit space. Her chosen topic was World War II, focusing on the 3rd Marine Division in the Pacific War. Her intent was to create an environment that informed visitors of the realities of war and established a sense of personal connection with the individual soldiers.
Business software company SAP America’s new U.S. headquarters in Newtown Square, Pa., is also its first “green” building. ex;it was commissioned to create an “understated” wayfinding system for visitors and employees, including those who work on the campus and those visiting from other locations worldwide.
Once perched above steel mills and heavy industry, Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes grew to become the proximate bedroom community for workers in the South Side Flats. In defiance of the challenging topography, buildings and parks were dotted about the wooded hillside. Connecting them, if gradients were too steep for streets, were stairs by the hundreds that served as public rights-of-way. Today the mills are long gone, and the Flats are better known for a hip urban mix of shops, galleries, and entertainment.
Philadelphia’s Main Street runs through the city’s Manayunk neighborhood, an industrial mill town reborn in the late 20th century as a vibrant strip of restaurants, bars, condos, and nightlife. Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates relocated its office to Manayunk at the dawn of this renaissance. One of the architecture firm’s contributions to the life and excitement of the street is through displays in the two huge storefront windows that span much of the building’s ground-floor façade.
