Industrial Past Meets Sustainable Future

Part of the shuttered, 178-acre J & L Steel Mill, the 10-bay roundhouse originally serviced and turned train engines, redirecting the materials they carried to different stops in the production process. Now, as a co-working space for technology accelerator OneValley, the roundhouse will not only speed the delivery of groundbreaking innovations, but it is elevating sustainable development in the Pittsburgh region. Seeking LEED Gold certification, the roundhouse was also the first project tracked against Pittsburgh’s new resiliency standards.

Preserving this important piece of Pittsburgh’s past, the design uses a light touch to celebrate the existing structure while adapting it to a human scale. Partially built into a hillside, the roundhouse was a cavernous two-story space, darkened by decades of industrial use and abandonment, but the removal of a century of soot from the brick walls and underside of the pine roof deck warms the interior. 

The addition of a partial second floor provides more office space (and a featured, glass-walled conference room) while also scaling the space down for its human inhabitants. At the same time, the removal of unnecessary walls and the replacement of its giant garage doors with windows enables occupants to appreciate the volume of this light-filled space.

The giant windows open to views outside, where a new public space uses native plants to integrate the site’s industrial remains—its turntable, the steel frame of an old shed—into the landscape of the Monongahela River.