The skyline of Pittsburgh, once America’s Steel City, is now dominated by towers belonging to two local giants of ‘Eds & Meds’ – education, and healthcare. Does this mean the city has successfully grown itself a resilient new economy?
If architectural bravura was an indicator, the answer would be yes. The older tower [above] which looks like something out of Batman, is the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. The brutal black one [below] is the HQ of UPMC, an $8 billion healthcare colossus. The black tower, says its main tenant, is ‘tangible evidence of Pittsburgh’s transformation into an international center of medicine, technology and education’.
UPMC, which runs 20 hospitals in the Pittsburgh area, and has 48,000 workers, is by far the city’s largest employer. Across the US, only Boston has a higher proportion of health workers.
Their sheer size makes some people in the city nervous that Eds &Meds might be economic bubbles, and that their dizzy rates of growth – in prices, as much as in jobs – might be unsustainable.
Second menu
Do eco learning journeys need a travel agent?
I’ve written and spoken quite a lot in recent times about the changes designs institutions need to make. Sometimes, I was even asked to do so.
Examples include a talk I did in Delhi earlier this year, What kind Of Design Institutes for India?; and a paper for Cumulus, the design schools network, called ‘Make Sense Not Stuff: A three step plan to connect design schools with the green economy’.
I’m also having encounters [that I write about on this site and here] with a growing number of inspirational projects.
Wherever I go, I usually meet one or two people who are ready and eager to make a fundamental transition to a new kind of design. But only one or two.
At the edges, where I often hang out, things are moving faster than at any time I can remember. But the mainstream remains stubbornly wedded to business as usual.
So I have a question: Does the world need a professional development programme for mid-career designers, architects and design professors? Do they – you – need organized help to acquire the ideas, skills and connections needed to help your organization, or community, change course more determinedly than is happening now?
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