Each semester, Arts and Humanities Librarian Lynn Kawaratani visits classes in the School of Architecture to introduce students to the resources available to them through the University Libraries. One resource she shares is the Architecture Archives, which collects, conserves, and promotes the use of architectural records that document the architects and architecture of Carnegie Mellon University, the city of Pittsburgh, and its region.
The popularity of the Architecture Archives is growing across the Pittsburgh community — architects and building enthusiasts request to view everything from original blueprints of CMU buildings designed by Henry Hornbostel to Cornelia Brierly’s landscape designs, and a current exhibit in Hunt Library celebrates the 40th anniversary of the resource. Yet one collection within the Architecture Archives was rarely requested for research — the Ryan Homes Collection.
“In all of my time at CMU, no one had ever inquired about it,” Kawaratani said. “Ryan Homes are often considered so standard and ubiquitous that nobody seems to give them much thought.”
Then Laura Miles, a College of Fine Arts masters student studying architecture, learned about the collection during one of Kawaratani’s class visits. She realized it was exactly the resource she needed to elevate her work on her thesis project about the adaptive reuse of suburban homes.
Goal
- Use the Ryan Homes Collection to investigate the way materials usage in suburbia informed ways of living in suburban homes, and could even enforce political ideals from the times they were built.
- Explore ways existing homes can be retrofitted to account for shifting demographics moving to the suburbs.
How We Helped
- The Ryan Homes Collection, part of the Architecture Archives, includes a variety of details about houses designed and built by the company Ryan Homes, which was started in the Mt. Lebanon suburb of Pittsburgh, mostly from the 1950s and ‘60s. The collection contains drawings of neighborhoods, marketing pieces like flyers and catalogues, documents that outline specific types of materials used, and even files that list more exact specifications.
- With Kawaratani’s help, Miles was able to do a deep dive into the collection for her research.
Results
- The collection offered Miles a glimpse into the lives of typical Ryan Homes owners at the time. They lived in home designs with titles like “Valley Forge” and moved into neighborhoods with strict expectations and standards. Buyers could even request specific colors of paint or items of furniture to be present when they moved in. “I found really funny work orders — things like, ‘This pillow was missing from this house,’ or, ‘You chose the wrong shade of pink to paint this wall,’” Miles recalled. “That’s obviously not typical today.”
- From there, Miles began to consider how these houses and neighborhoods might impact people today — especially those who aren’t part of a typical nuclear family, like single mothers or groups of college students. “Much of what my project is leaning toward is making knowledge about home maintenance more widely accessible,” she explained. “If your gutter falls down, you probably won’t call a design professional — that would be a super frivolous use of money. By considering how to adapt existing housing stock to accommodate more types of living, we can make homes accessible for a much wider group of people who will use them in different ways.”
- Miles will present her findings in an exhibition with other thesis students from the School of Architecture and School of Design at Rockwell Park. The exhibition will open on May 2nd and is open to the public through May 11th. Using one particular model suburban house as a case study representative of the entire typology, the exhibition will display a series of writings, photos, drawings, and models that aim to unpack the story of suburbia and push it towards a healthier, more adaptable future.