John Beale, Post-Gazette "From Pavement to Paradise: The Urban Evolution of Schenley Plaza" documents the environmental and design history of the Oakland square over the past century. The exhibit runs Sept. 15 to Oct. 21 at the University of Pittsburgh's University Art Gallery, Frick Fine Arts Building.

A new season of architecture-related lectures, conferences, exhibits and programs is on the horizon. Here's what's up, in order of appearance:

Tomorrow: Good news for teachers, home-schoolers and ultimately students -- The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., launches its first national design education program, providing curricula that make connections among art and design, math, science and engineering.

The program fills a need to make design and art education relevant to math and science subject areas, and to education in general.

The museum's "Bridge Basics" program teaches fifth- through ninth-graders about bridge engineering and design through lesson plans in which students are challenged to solve transportation problems while balancing issues of materials, cost, geography and aesthetics. The curriculum kit costs $110 and is available through the National Building Museum Shop or by calling 1-202-272-7706.

The museum also is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Labor to introduce the "Design Apprenticeship Program: Building Blocks." Available next summer, it challenges high school students to conceive, develop, test and construct a design solution.

Two of the museum's other successful youth programs are being prepared for national distribution: "City By Design," an urban planning curriculum for kindergarten through sixth grade, and "Investigating Where We Live," a photography, creative writing and exhibition design program for secondary students. The museum's design education programs serve about 54,000 students annually.

Sept. 15-Oct. 21: From 5:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 15, the University of Pittsburgh's University Art Gallery opens the exhibit "From Pavement to Paradise: The Urban Evolution of Schenley Plaza," presenting the environmental and design history of the site over the past century.

Sept. 22-Dec. 10: "Connections: The West End Pedestrian Bridge Competition" opens at Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center, presenting the winning proposal by the Berkeley, Calif., architecture and engineering firm Endres Ware, with landscape architects Olin Partnership of Philadelphia. Also on view will be the five other final-stage proposals and five projects commended in the competition's first stage.

Sept. 24: At 1:30 p.m., Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation historical collections director Al Tannler will present an illustrated lecture, "Architectural Glass in Pittsburgh," at the Frick Art & Historical Center, examining some of the city's most important windows, the artists who created them and the buildings that house them. Fee: $10, or $8 for Landmarks and Frick members. Registration is recommended; call 412-371-0600.

Sept. 26: "Water and the City: The Regent Square Gateway Project for Frick Park" is the subject of a presentation by Michele Adams, principal engineer, Cahill Associates, and Marijke Hecht, executive director, Nine Mile Run Watershed Association. At 6 p.m. in the University Art Gallery of the University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Building, they will discuss the design efforts under way to create a new gateway into Frick Park at Braddock Avenue, where the Nine Mile Run stream emerges from a sewer system into a restored stream bank. The free talk is co-sponsored by the Interior Architecture and Landscape Architecture programs at Chatham College and Pitt's Department of History of Art and Architecture.

Sept. 27: Sidney Pollack's feature-length documentary, "Sketches of Frank Gehry," which played at the Squirrel Hill Theater this summer, airs at 9 p.m. on PBS.

Oct. 3: Artist and thematician Martin Wattenberg, whose digital work explores mapping the invisible, heads the Visual Communication Lab at IBM Research, where he develops visualization techniques that help people see and exchange information in novel ways. In "Apartment," for example, when users type on a keyboard, the software program "creates a dynamic virtual dwelling with a floor plan reflecting underlying themes in the text, while the text itself becomes the occupant, moving and behaving in ways that reflect its meaning." Wattenberg will speak at 5 p.m. in Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium in the University Center.

Oct. 4: The restoration and reconstruction of Buffalo's Darwin D. Martin House complex, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903-05, is complete. It's the first time in more than 40 years that all of the property's structures -- Martin House, pergola, conservatory and carriage house, Barton House, gardener's cottage and greenhouse -- will be seen together. The house has remained open during restoration; the newly rebuilt structures open Oct. 4.

Oct. 9: New Urbanism in New Orleans will be the topic of architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who will give CMU's annual David Lewis Lecture at 6:30 p.m. at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Oakland. "Stepping up to the Scaffold: Post-Katrina Planning on the Gulf Coast" is the title of the talk, sponsored by Urban Design Associates, the firm Lewis founded in 1964. It's free and open to the public, as is the pre-lecture reception at Carnegie Museum's Hall of Architecture from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Oct. 31-Nov. 5: The National Trust for Historic Preservation opens its annual conference at three Downtown hotels here, with an emphasis on greening historic buildings. A pre-conference, charrette-style summit on Oct. 30 at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center will bring together national experts and other professionals in both green design and historic preservation to develop goals and guidelines for greening historic properties.

Public input will be solicited through a town meeting immediately after the charrette, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the history center. Field and education sessions throughout the conference will focus on green renovations of historic properties.

Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and the Green Building Alliance will co-host the summit and produce a report that will be shared with U.S. Green Building Council members at their Greenbuild conference in November. To register, visit www.phlf.org/events/preservationconference/greenhistpres.html or call 412-471-5808. Online registration for the conference ends Oct. 20.

Nov. 1: "Organic Architecture for a Sustainable Future" is the topic of retired Swedish architect Lars Danielsson, who'll present new ecological building experiments in Sweden. The free talk, which starts at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of Pitt's Frick Fine Arts Building, considers whether the pioneers of organic architecture have anything to teach today's designers of environmentally sensitive buildings. Co-sponsors: Interior Architecture and Landscape Architecture programs at Chatham College and Pitt's Department of History of Art and Architecture.