The design of the University of Pittsburgh’s Biomedical Science Tower III is meant to facilitate the percolation of scientific ideas throughout the building, from the ground floor to the top level. But scientific ideas permeate BST3 right down to its very floors.
Color diagrams of mouse chromosomes mapped by researchers provided the impetus for a unique interior color strategy. By assigning sequential strands of mouse chromosomes to each floor, a different color strategy evolved for each corridor. This gave a seemingly random and surprisingly complex colorful pattern to each floor’s identity.
Level 2
Level 10
A similar approach was applied to vertical surfaces in the stairwells.
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.