#ArchiTalks 29 "homecoming"

“Homecoming”

So it's 4 am and I’m lying awake thinking that on top of the rush towards deadlines and other projects that I’m doing and "the baby" starting his senior year, the middle is going back to the local college, our oldest is applying to grad schools and working on the GRE and I’m wondering how: I am going to write on "homecoming"???

There was a little bit of confusion, I was hoping we were going to do "looking back" instead of "homecoming" because I have not been to a homecoming in a long time, and I can't even remember if I have ever gone  to a homecoming game. I know that the homecoming dance at Keystone Oaks High School in 1981 was cancelled due to a lack of participation. I do know I was nominated for homecoming queen in my home room but I probably received 5 votes, and as there were other infinitely more popular girls in my class than me. I'll never know how that worked out for them as I’m not going to the 35th high school reunion at the end of September but I wish everyone a wonderful time. I am 3000 miles away and maybe I will have a glass of good California wine at a restaurant overlooking the Pacific.

St. Francis Winery designed by an arc friend of mine, Neil Peoples, i couldn't find an image and I hadn't kept the bottle of Cabernet Franc but that is the best one and as Neil and the wine expert gave us a personal tour and tasting he said, "For a person who doen't drink red wine, you sure picked a great red wine to like"

When I google it because I thought perhaps there was another meaning that I was more knowledgeable about but "Spider-Man: Homecoming was the top Search and because I don’t really know anything about superheroes either. I suppose it's homecoming in the traditional American High School/College sense.

Spider Homecoming by Marvel

The college I went to for architecture school didn’t have a football team so there was no homecoming and I think they may have one now but I have never attended and probably still won't. I did have a chance to talk with the head of the architecture program there who is a personal friend and past classmate of mine (and Steven O’Leary’s) so if you want to go to architecture school at Cal Poly Pomona, perhaps George Proctor can  give you some advice after you get there for a tour.

Cal Poly Pomona Architecture buttons, image by George Proctor

So there was a football team at my high school,  Keystone Oaks High School (where the stadium was actually a mile away from the school) and needless to say, I have never been involved in high school activities (well, maybe the blood donating thing) and/or sports (except for the sidenote below) but I will give a shoutout to the school for the architecture and the architects who made it possible and a shoutout to quite possibly the school’s most famous alumni, Dennis Miller, which might give you all insight into my sense of humor, maybe it’s in the water or maybe it’s the self-deprecating style that most people from Pittsburgh have (at least the ones who leave).

I took a drafting class with Mr. Rohe in the 10th grade and in the drafting room there was this great model of the high school.  Now I didn’t know this at the time, but the school was designed by the architecture firm of Kuhn, Newcomer and Valentour and it wasn’t until recently that I looked it up (now it is the firm of VEBH Architects) because I always thought it was a really good building and i still remember it.  I looked them up and it seems that they did a lot of school work but also had designed the original hospital where I was born as well as subsequent additions.

Yearbook photo by Martin Hensel and the humorous quote is by Betsy Neubert

From Wikipedia

History

The main building of the high school was built in 1969, four years after the three suburbs of Green Tree, Dormont and Castle Shannon combined their students to form a common school district. The high school was built on a 43-acre (170,000 m2) tract of land in neighboring Mount Lebanon, just outside the southwest border of Dormont. The site adjoined the Kelton Avenue Elementary School, which no longer exists.

The name 'Keystone Oaks' refers to the merger of the three school districts: 'key' for the 'door' in Dormont; 'stone' from the 'castle' in Castle Shannon; and 'oak' as a tree in Green Tree. The name was suggested by Thomas Clark, of the Class of 1965, and was chosen as part of a student competition to name the new school district.

Due to the deteriorating state of the district's Jay Neff Middle School (the original Dormont High School), a new middle school was attached to the old high school in 1996. This precipitated a massive redesign of the grounds, including the demolition of a little-used outdoor amphitheatre and the construction of a band practice field and new tennis courts. These tennis courts were later repaved in 2006.

Through the summer of 2001 and the 2001/2002 school year, the high school was renovated.

The Building

Keystone Oaks High School is a  2 1⁄2-story red brick building. Its shape is rectangular, with a one-story library bisecting its longest sides. Two arms extend out from its western and southern corners; the western arm houses the gymnasium, weight room, and pool, and the southern arm links to the middle school, auditorium, and art classrooms. The bottom floor of the main building houses lockers, administrative offices, and (since the 2001–2002 renovations) middle school classrooms. The top two floors are almost entirely classrooms.

The pool has a 12-foot (3.7 m) deep end, and roughly a 4-foot (1.2 m) shallow end, and has a diving board, an electronic scoreboard, and bench-style stadium seating. The swim team has its own separate locker rooms, apart from the larger locker rooms designated for the basketball, wrestling, and football teams.

The High School also contains a planetarium complete with a fully automated Spitz A4 projector. Built in 1969, it languished in disrepair from the mid-1980s into the late 1990s. It was temporarily refurbished, but now once again remains broken. It's housing space is currently being used for desk storage.

Yes, we had a planetarium!!!  However, it is my kid's school Grossmont High School that has more astronauts in it's alumni than any other.

A guy I went to school with was replacing boilers and chillers here.

Another pic by him also and the locker room and in the distance the doors to the janitor's and to the left the room where I spent one season of tenth grade, on the rifle team, yes the rifle team and we used real bullets...

Later I found out that one of my good friends had attended an elementary school by the same architects and they had really liked the school and even though they ended up not pursuing architecture, (which caused me to make a not so smart move but maybe caused them to make a much smarter one) they can remember the school in profound detail and i think that that really speaks volumes to the effect that a well -designed place can have on one’s life.

Ad for the cladding material 

This was my take on “homecoming” for #ArchiTalks 29th installment, thank you for reading my blog and please take a look at some other architects and their take on “homecoming”.

I am now offering sponsorship opportunities and I am grateful for that. Please contact me via my website below for more information.

MGHarchitect: Michele Grace Hottel, Architect

-->Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
"homecoming"
-->Matthew Stanfield - FiELD9: architecture (@FiELD9arch)
Coming Home to Architecture

-->Lee Calisti, AIA - Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
looking back i wonder

-->Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Coming home as an architect

-->Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
9-11 -- A Look Back

-->Michael Riscica AIA - Young Architect (@YoungArchitxPDX)
Homecoming & Looking Back

-->Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
Homecoming Memories

-->Emily Grandstaff-Rice - Emily Grandstaff-Rice FAIA (@egrfaia)
Letter to a Younger Me

-->Drew Paul Bell - Drew Paul Bell (@DrewPaulBell)
Looking Back...Was Architecture Worth It?

-->Kyu Young Kim - J&K Atelier (@sokokyu)
Homecoming, in 3 Parts

-->Nisha Kandiah - ArchiDragon (@ArchiDragon)
Just give me a reason : Homecoming

-->Jim Mehaffey - Yeoman Architect (@jamesmehaffey)
Is It a Homecoming If You Never Left?

-->Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
Homecoming

-->Gabriela Baierle-Atwood - Gabriela Baierle-Atwood (@gabrielabaierle)
My Ode to Fargo

-->Jane Vorbrodt - Kuno Architecture (@janevorbrodt)
Looking Back Through the Pages

-->Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
homecoming, and looking back: #architalks