Matt McMahon and Adam Longenbach, two Penn State alumni from the Stuckeman School, are working together in New York City at Snøhetta, an internationally renowned practice of architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, product and graphic design.
McMahon, a 2004 graduate with bachelor’s degrees in landscape architecture and biology, and Longenbach, who graduated in 2011 with master’s and bachelor’s degrees in architecture, have found comfort in sharing the workplace with someone not only from the same alma mater, but also from the same home state of Pennsylvania.
McMahon grew up in the north hills of Pittsburgh with his mom, who was a school teacher, and dad, who worked in the natural gas industry. His upbringing in the waning industrial Pittsburgh of the 1980s gave him an appreciation of the value industrial sites hold. Uncles and cousins who had worked in the declining steel industry shared stories of the mills and coal barges, and his father spoke of scrubbing coke ovens as a summer job. His family instilled the significance that industrial sites had to their workers; ugly, environmentally harmful sites may also be places of collective memory and identity. This thought has become a theme in his career as many of his projects fall upon sites where industry has been abandoned.
McMahon initially came to Penn State to major in biology with the intent of pursuing a career in medicine; however, after taking Bonj Szczygiel’s course on the history of landscape architecture, he became fascinated with the subject. Dan Jones, Tim Baird and Sam Dennis, who were members of the Department of Landscape Architecture faculty at the time, helped him grow his interest in design and revealed the opportunities that were possible as a landscape architect.
“With landscape architecture, I realized that I would be able to improve the lives of people and the environment in our cities, and simultaneously convey cultural value and meaning,” said McMahon.