The plants aren't in yet, but PNC Firstside Park is shaping up. Its 101 trees, put in last fall, are sizable ones that have leafed out beautifully. On Friday, California artist Albert Guibara installed three of his whimsical sculptures (see more on www.guibara.com) along the winding paths. The larger-than-life bronze sculptures depict a pair of monkeys, a frog steadying a smaller frog riding a unicycle, and a seated rabbit.

Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette
Lee Sallach, left, and Mark Szczypinski, right, of Anderson Maintenance and Construction help sculptor Albert Guibara install one of three bronze sculptures at PNC Firstside Park.
Click photo for larger image.

"The sculptures are meant to appeal to children, and the quotations on the benches are meant for adults," said project manager Susan Golumb, adding that the rabbit is large enough that a child can sit in its lap and have his or her picture taken. PNC operates an employee child-care center in PNC Firstside Center across First Avenue.

Perennials will be planted in the next couple of weeks in the Downtown park at Grant Street and Boulevard of the Allies.

Wines on green design

Environmental designer James Wines will present a free public lecture tomorrow at 5 p.m. at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh's gallery, 420 Blvd. of the Allies, Downtown. His talk, "Green Light -- Re-thinking Public Space in the Twenty-First Century," addresses ways to integrate art, architecture and context in public places.

A charismatic speaker, Wines energized the audience at the U.S. Green Building Council's national conference here four years ago, by emphasizing the aesthetics of sustainable building, as he does in his book "Green Design," published by Taschen in 2000.

Wines, a professor in the architecture department at Penn State, founded his influential firm, SITE (www.siteenvirodesign.com), in New York in 1970; its mission is to integrate building design, art, landscape and green technology. He's also a prolific speaker, taking his message to more than 1,000 schools and conferences in 24 countries. On Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland, he'll give the keynote address at AIP's graduation ceremony.

Walk the Rocks

McKees Rocks Community Development Corp. is sponsoring an architectural scavenger hunt to call attention to its historic buildings.

For its "Walk the Rocks, Win a Wii" contest, the CDC will post a new photograph of a building segment every two weeks through Oct. 12 on its Web site, www.mckeesrocks.com. When players identify the building, they can e-mail its name or address to mckeesrocksnews@ yahoo.com. Everyone who submits a correct building entry during the contest will be entered into a drawing for a Nintendo Wii game console. The first correct entry for each building also wins a prize, such as a restaurant gift certificate.

Heart pine at the Junction

Construction Junction has received a large cache of densely grained Southern heart pine flooring, about 60 lots, each with 175 square feet. The nonprofit Point Breeze building materials recycler is planing the wood before sale. It came from Emerentia Hall, a former Vincentian convent in Ross.

The tongue-and-groove planks are 2 3/8 inches wide, and the majority of the bundles range from 12 to 14 feet long. The cost? About $6 per square foot. "That's a challenging price for the average CJ shopper, but we are at the low end of the market for this product," said director Mike Gable. Information: 412-243-5025.

First Published: June 11, 2007, 10:15 p.m.