Pittsburgh Botanic Garden Pavilion

The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden was sold to Allegheny County in 1971 in an effort to rehabilitate the environmental health of the city of Pittsburgh after the industrial period. The Horticultural Society of Western Pennsylvania has worked to restore over 5,200 native trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. The pavilion design is meant to sit in the Dogwood Meadow at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden and is inspired by the white flowers that grow from Dogwood tree symbolic for rebirth and renewal. The conic section used to develop the form is a parabola, reflecting the symmetry and repetition of the dogwood flower petals. The four parabolas taken at various intervals of a cone were then assigned a direction of orientation and are then lofted to form double curved ruled surfaces referencing the delicate forms of the petals that blow in the spring winds. The directions reflected the four stages of life in nature, based on the practices of the local Ojibwe people; East represents birth, South represents growth, West represents death, and North represents rebirth. The journey through the pavilion is meant to remind the visitor of the mortality of nature and inspire them to honor Pittsburgh’s post-industrial legacy that is moving toward rebirth and regrowth. Mark Pittsburgh's rebirth as a city that is becoming more conscious of ways in which we can look to practices of the past to learn how to preserve and protect the natural environment.