PJ Dick Innovation Fund Teaching Grant: The Pittsburgh Sequence

Course 2024
Francesca Torello, Special Faculty
colorful graphic plan drawing of downtown Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh Sequence
Francesca Torello, Special Faculty, Carnegie Mellon Architecture

In collaboration with: Jongwan Kwon, Assistant Teaching Professor, Carnegie Mellon Architecture; Stefan Gruber, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Rather than a single course, this proposal refers to the development of a Pittsburgh sequence of courses. This will include the first year course “Exploring Pittsburgh” in spring 2024, a component on Pittsburgh urbanism integrated into third year, and an urban history elective provisionally called “Pittsburgh Through the Archives,” an urban history class that includes hands-on research on the city.

Image Credit: “Fortune” magazine cover, June 1952. From “Imagining the Modern: Architecture and Urbanism of the Pittsburgh Renaissance” el Samahy, Grimley, Kubo eds., Monacelli Press, 2019.

About the Instructor

Special Faculty

  • Carnegie Mellon Architecture is committed to the mission-defining challenges of climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The PJ Dick Teaching Grants Program recognizes that the future of architecture and its related industries start with the education of the profession’s next generation of practitioners through innovative pedagogies. The teaching grants are focused on supporting changes to existing courses and development of new courses that focus on the three challenges.

  • The Faculty Grants Program will award a total of $400,000 over four years and is open to all full time faculty at the school. The 2024 proposals were evaluated by a committee comprised of school head Omar Khan; associate heads Joshua Bard, Mary-Lou Arscott and Kai Gutschow; Erica Cochran Hameen, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Theodossis Issaias, Special Faculty; Jenn Joy Wilson, Assistant Dean for Research Development and Sponsored Projects; and Aaron Martin, Associate Director, Institutional Partnerships, College of Fine Arts.

    The Faculty Grants Program, established in 2023 by PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group, supports faculty research and teaching innovations that address the school’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The proposals were assessed on their impact in furthering a faculty member’s research and teaching, their contribution to interrogating the school’s challenges, and their viability to garner further research support, make an impact on the discipline and expand the pedagogy of the school.