Company builds a sense of community on campuses
WTW Architects has earned national reputation
College and university student centers have been a hot market for North Shore-based architectural firm WTW Architects over the nearly 60 years it has been in business.
During that time, it has earned a national reputation as a top designer of student unions.
“One of the big focuses of our practice is university work, particularly what I would call quality-oflife facilities,” said Rich De Young, president and CEO of WTW Architects.
The founders of WTW Architects made a decision in 1959 to gain a foothold in a crowded marketplace by specializing in academic institutions.
Since then, the firm has designed every type of building found on a campus: student housing, dining facilities, recreation centers and, especially, student union buildings.
“What we found through studies in some of the work we do is, if you have a really good student union, and you have really good housing, recreation centers and these kind of interactive places where students can feel a sense of community and feel they belong, they don’t leave,” Mr. De Young said. “They stay and finish their degree. If they don’t have these things, they feel like a grainof sand on the beach.”
The 35-employee firm tucked behind the Alcoa building on the North Shore has racked up a number of accomplishments that illustrate the work it has done across the country.
The company’s designs for student unions have garnered 13 awards in 12 years from the Association of College Unions International. The American Institute of Architects presented the Pittsburgh firm with an award last year for its design of the University Center at the University of Houston. It also received the 2016 American Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design.
WTW Architects has designed 50 residence halls that house more than 56,000 students, as well as 107 student unions — starting with the University of Pittsburgh’s William Pitt Union, which had been the former Schenley Hotel.
“It was an old hotel that hadn’t been functional for years,” Mr. De Young said. “The University of Pittsburgh was trying to figure out how to use it and decided to make it a student union. And that is a particular sub-niche that we have. I would say probably 80 percent of our work involves some sort of renovation in addition to a project, not just a brand new project.”
Within the first two years of opening the firm, its architects landed a contract to design the New Kensington campus for Penn State University, and the firm has worked continuously on projects for Penn State.
But its imprint on college campuses extends as far north as the University of Connecticut, as far south as Miami, and as far west as the University of California at Irvine.
Elmer Burger, university architect and planner for Point Park University, Downtown, said he has known Mr. De Young and others at WTW Architects for more than 30 years and had worked at the firm for five years.
“They have done numerous things for us here at Point Park University very successfully,” Mr. Burger said, adding that WTW created a conception design for theconvocation center Point Park has planned for the former YMCA building on the Boulevardof the Allies.
Student centers and housing at colleges and universities account for 60 percent to 70 percent of WTW’s total business.
Although student centers are the bread and butter of what the firm does, the going has not always been easy.
When the Great Recession was in full force between 2008 and 2009, one of the markets for architects that did not stumble completely was colleges and universities. But many other architects were looking for a way to get a piece of the action, according to Mr. De Young.
“The competition for college and university work became much, much stronger,” he said. “All of a sudden, we had three to 10 times the number of architects chasingthe same work.”
During the recession, the firm began to focus more effort on doing work in the Pittsburgh region, which included office buildings and apartments in the Strip District and designing 250,000-square-foot Thomas Jefferson High School in Jefferson Hills.
Other projects in the Pittsburgh region include community recreation in Peters and Upper St. Clair. WTW Architects also partnered with firms to design Heinz Field,Fifth Avenue Place and Theater Square. The firm was involved with the 3 Crossings project in the Strip District as well as Hot Metal Flatson the South Side.
Mr. De Young, 65, joined the company in 1976. He figured he would get a year or two experience and move back to New Jersey where he grew up. But he kept moving up through the ranks. He became president and CEO in 2003 when the last of the three founding partners retired.
“When I got hired here, I told my wife when I stopped having fun, we will leave,” he said. “I’ll tell you I’ve never stopped having fun. I get up every day and it’s new, it’s exciting. There are neat people to work with and fun clients and we’re doing important projects that make a differencein people’s lives.
“I just couldn’t imagine doing anything better. People ask me when will I retire and do what I want to do. I tell them if that’s the definition of retirement, I’ve been retired for close to 40 years now.”