YASC 2025 Award of Excellence Recipient
The Connection
Alyssa Penrod
RM Creative
The Connection is a resilient, multi-use space that acts as a microcosm of the region’s geography and community identity. Pedestrian paths curve and bend through the site, inspired by the winding flow of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, while the rising and falling topography evokes the hills and valleys of Western Pennsylvania. Programmatic alcoves are carved into these mini-hills, creating a sense of discovery as one moves through the site.
The current site of surface parking lots and major road arteries offers minimal tree cover, poor drainage, and an uncomfortable pedestrian experience. Increased risks of flooding, poor infrastructure, air pollution, and the urban heat island effect in this area. Moments of shade and greenery follow the flow of movement within the intervention. By decentralizing surface parking and replacing impervious pavement with breathable pavers, shading structures, and native vegetation, the design mitigates heat, improves air quality, and prevents excessive stormwater runoff. Staggered riverfront platforms accommodate seasonal flooding. Lower levels absorb overflow, while upper terraces remain usable, adapting to the Ohio River’s changing levels.
Accessibility and equity are central considerations. Curvilinear paths connect pedestrians from the river trail, North Side, and Downtown, eliminating dangerous crossings and enhancing overall mobility. The Connection adds a reimagined, grade-level T station and expanded bus stop to accommodate surges in transit ridership during events. With over 150,000 monthly riders, Pittsburgh Regional Transit plays a vital role in regional mobility. The North Shore Connector alone serves thousands daily, underscoring the need for a more accessible station. A welcoming, streamlined station that doesn’t require descending the existing winding staircase can act as the gateway to the North Shore.
Subterranean parking preserves surface-level beauty and safety while accommodating large crowds above, inspired by Boston’s Big Dig Project. Plazas of various sizes cut into the landscape to host formal events, performances, art installations, etc. Each appears around a bend or over a horizon as one passes through, giving uniquely private-yet-accessible spaces waiting to be discovered. The river platforms extend the usable footprint for festivals, firework viewing, and water-based transit, enabling boat travel between North Shore and Downtown. Accessibility to the river platforms from the Carnegie Science Center allows for educational events and workshops to expand outside for varied learning experiences and larger groups.
As climate challenges grow and urban spaces evolve, The Connection offers a resilient model for future development. It invites residents, visitors, and event-goers to share space equitably, experience the river intimately, and move safely and comfortably through the North Shore and Downtown.
JURY COMMENT: The jury was impressed by the project’s clear alignment with the competition prompt, both in its thoughtful written statement and final design. The proposal demonstrated strong attention to detail and a compelling narrative, presenting a vision that feels relevant in both the short and long term. The chosen site was well-suited to the prompt, and the presentation board was beautifully executed.
Metamorphic Convergence
Kiki Kuang & Leo Wu
Carnegie Mellon University
At the heart of the proposal is a circular material and cultural economy that transforms the act of reuse into an engine of creativity and community. Residents donate discarded materials that travel along the existing railway to local artists, who reinterpret them into new works. These creations return to the city through exhibitions, markets, and public workshops, creating a continuous cycle of making and sharing. The system expands to host large cultural events yet remains deeply rooted in dai
ly community life, offering an adaptable framework that connects people, materials, and place.
The adaptive reused warehouse serves as the central hub where production, exhibition, and exchange meet. Positioned between the river and the railway, it merges industrial heritage with civic life. Organized vertically, the ground level functions as a public market that opens to the riverfront, inviting large gatherings during events. The middle gallery showcases the transformation of reused materials into finished artworks, while the top level houses storage connected to the railway for easy transport and flood safety. This layered design allows the building to shift between high activity and everyday use, operating as both a festival venue and a working cultural facility.
Secondary, there is an artist residency that introduces modular workspaces designed to support diverse creative disciplines. Each shop adapts to the needs of sculptors, painters, and designers, while encouraging collaboration and openness. The front of each studio doubles as a small gallery where artists display their work and engage with the public. Between the shops, shared courtyards and workshop areas allow community participation in art making and learning. During festivals, these flexible units open outward to accommodate performances and outdoor exhibits; in quieter times, they return to focused studio use, ensuring continuous engagement between artists and residents.
Lastly, the popup-station extends the project across neighborhoods, connecting the residency and warehouse through adaptable structures made from reclaimed materials. These small, movable pavilions serve as drop off points, mini galleries, and outdoor classrooms. During major events, they transform into mobile markets or orientation nodes along the rail corridor. Between events, they act as community art hubs, sustaining local engagement and keeping the creative cycle active year round.
Together, the Artist Residency, Warehouse, and Pop Up Stations form a flexible architectural network that adapts across time, scale, and use. During citywide events, it expands to host exhibitions, performances, and marketplaces. In everyday life, it contracts into spaces for education, creation, and reflection. The project reimagines architecture as a living network that connects art, infrastructure, and people—turning what once moved goods into what now moves culture, transforming Pittsburgh’s industrial heritage into a regenerative framework for an inclusive and creative future.
Downtown & North Shore Riverfront Commons
Isaac Petti, Victoria Sanders, Haylee Fredericks, & David Buck
LGA Partners
This proposal reinvents Pittsburgh’s North Shore as a resilient, adaptive district where everyday life and high-impact events converge seamlessly. Inspired by the city’s rich culture and stunning landscape, the design transforms the riverfront into a dynamic community hub—connecting views of Acrisure Stadium, PNC Park, Point State Park, the Kamin Science Center, and the city’s iconic yellow bridges with vibrant, year-round activity.
At the heart of this vision lies a reimagined riverfront experience, anchored by a public park, an elevated water lookout, a flexible plaza, and a marina near Rivers Casino and Acrisure Stadium. The marina provides seasonal boat docking, along with kayak and paddleboard rentals, inviting new ways to access the Three Rivers and engage with the North Shore. Integrated safety lighting, stormwater-friendly piers, and native aquatic plantings promote ecological health and flood resilience. Adjacent to the marina, the new public park offers open lawns, shaded picnic groves, native gardens, flexible event spaces, and accessible multi-use sidewalks, ensuring equitable access and relaxation for all.
A central outdoor plaza east of Acrisure Stadium serves as the district’s social anchor, with flexible hardscapes, built-in vendor hookups, movable furnishings, and shade structures enabling community markets, food trucks, festivals, and tailgating. Raised planters, curated art installations, and ambient lighting foster a welcoming environment for both daily use and large gatherings. Positioned at the Allegheny River’s edge, the elevated water lookout features broad views of downtown Pittsburgh and the Three Rivers’ confluence; tiered seating, transparent railings, and refined materials invite both quiet reflection and lively gatherings for residents and visitors. The elevated water lookout is also equipped as a water taxi stop, making river transit more accessible for everyday visitors and event crowds alike.
Connectivity is strengthened through a redesigned pedestrian walkway along the Fort Duquesne Bridge, offering comfortable passage with lush plantings, gathering nodes, and improved safety lighting. A landscaped wall shields the path from highway noise, creating a tranquil corridor for people to move between the North Shore and downtown. Two new parking garages and an extended public transit system near Rivers Casino ease congestion during events and dovetail with the city’s future esplanade development in the Chateau district—signaling additional links for future growth.
During major events, vehicle circulation is rerouted along Reedsdale Street and Casino Drive to preserve the pedestrian core. Meanwhile, a cohesive network of pedestrian walkways and bike lanes along the river connects recreational, cultural, and commercial destinations, supporting low-impact, equitable transportation for all ages and backgrounds.
Guided by the Pittsburgh 2050 Comprehensive Plan, this district advances long-term resilience, economic opportunity, and quality of life through thoughtful, inclusive design. Every intervention prioritizes universal accessibility, climate-responsive infrastructure, flexible spaces for adaptive reuse, and opportunities for community and local business participation—ensuring the North Shore is not just an event venue but a welcoming, sustainable neighborhood for the future.
Steel River Crossing
Nick Oriss, Lindsey Kines, & Nathan Latta
LGA Partners
Steel River Crossing (SRC) is a multi-use gathering, circulation and event space designed to enhance and connect the existing infrastructure of four of Pittsburgh’s major destination areas: the North Shore, Point State Park, the Strip District, and the newly designed Arts Landing. Situated around and underneath the iconic Sister Bridges, the intention of this project is to breathe new life into the underdeveloped area found along the southern banks of the Allegheny River through the implementation of flowing pedestrian bridges, layered ecological infrastructure, and improved site lighting. The primary goal of the design is to both enhance the existing riverwalk already located in the area, while also creating a more safe and direct connection between each of these four identified destinations.
To do this, the design attempts to address a number of key considerations spanning several social, economic and ecological factors found within each location. Beginning with one of the primary moves in the design, SRC proposes the permanent closure of the Clemente Bridge to all vehicular traffic, and instead redesigns it as a pedestrian only byway between Downtown and the North Shore. This move, alongside the expansion of the Convention Center’s exterior lot into a physical parking garage, were made to address one key issue identified in the area, with that being the lack of direct pedestrian access between the financial and cultural centers of Downtown and the entertainment amenities located in both the North Shore and the Strip District.
The intention was that these moves would provide more equitable points of access to these areas from a larger range of locations, and would concurrently serve to both increase the flow of foot traffic and commerce traveling across the river while simultaneously improving the quality of life for both visitors and residents alike. Similarly, when considering the lateral connection along the Allegheny River’s southern bank, it was determined that the best approach would be the introduction of an expanded river walk which spanned from the Convention Center to the underside of Fort Duquesne Bridge.
These boardwalks and waterways would provide direct connections to each of the four designated areas while also serving to help bolster the river’s local ecosystem through designed wetland retention areas, which are intended to provide both native habitats for the local flora and fauna while also assisting in both flood mitigation and the reduction of embankment erosion.
However the primary role that these walkways and boardwalks would serve would be as hosts to a number of events such as the 2026 NFL Draft and annual festivals such as Picklesburgh. Here, pop-up retail stores and other outdoor performance spaces would have a year-long dedicated spaces to set up within, allowing these events to ‘bleed black and gold’ from the stadiums on the North Shore, into the heart of downtown Pittsburgh and Point State Park beyond.
