Eclectic Contemporary Architecture

A building can and should exercise its ability to communicate its internal program, and this proposal for the new Collaborative Innovation Center on the Carnegie Mellon University campus does a thoughtful job of reflecting its function. Incorporating a diverse range of spaces from offices and studios to classrooms and exhibition halls, this building embodies a sense of interconnectedness inside and out.

Looking at the exterior of the institution, it's visibly assembled of a handful of different masses. Broad block-like edifices abut expansive transparent trelliswork and inflated quilt cladding meets translucent mesh facades. Although each of these structural elements is remarkably mismatched against the others, Giacomo Tinari has composed the Collaborative Innovation Center in a way that evokes an unexpected harmony to match the cooperative work within.