Talk at Carnegie Mellon University School of Design part 2

I just returned from my trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I had a talk at the Carnegie Mellon School of Design. I thought I'd share some photos from my trip.

The Margaret Morrison building where my lecture was held


One of Dylan's design students created the poster for my part in the School of Design lecture series.. a little tank.. sweet.

my talk in progress.. actually this was the very end once the lights came on and I was doing a little Q&A

After the talk, Dylan and some of his students took me to some famous sub/sandwich shop where we proceeded to eat insane heart attack inducing white bread filled with meat, sauerkraut, and french fries.. yummy..


Dylan, the one responsible for bringing me out there, gave me an extensive tour of Pittsburgh and it's history.. it was dope! A lot of cool architecture, lots of brick.. a real working class feel. And a ton of abandoned and boarded up buildings.. it was crazy.


He took me to this little town outside of Pittsburgh, called Braddock.. basically a shell of a former town. I guess in it's heyday 50 years ago, it had a population of 35,000 people. Today, it's around 3,500. There are entire blocks of totally abandoned and boarded up buildings.. banks and churches empty.. stores and business all closed and boarded. It was nuts..




There was a bunch of Swoon pieces all over the town. Apparently she travels to this remote little burnt out town to just hibernate and work on stuff for a couple months every year.



Dylan knows the Mayor of Braddock. He's a 30 year old guy who wears shorts and Nike Dunks. This is his car.

Apparently, the guy is actually trying to revive this area.. buying up a lot of old buildings and putting in a lot of work to convert a lot of these spots into art spaces. In fact, Dylan was telling me, the city of Braddock would give anyone willing an entire city block.. it's just crazy.. anyone want to go in with me??