read moreThe Philadelphia firm of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris begins with the basic constituents of architecture - a room, a structural bay, a water-shedding detail - to design structures of surprising diversity.
The Philadelphia firm of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris begins with the basic constituents of architecture - a room, a structural bay, a water-shedding detail - to design structures of surprising diversity.
by Thomas Fisher
The Philadelphia firm of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris begins with the basic constituents of architecture - a room, a structural bay, a water-shedding detail - to design structures of surprising diversity.
One of the more important - and most difficult - aspects of designing is deciding how to begin. Where, amidst the myriad facts of a project, is the path that leads in a promising direction, along which design solutions are likely to be found? Every designer must find his or her own way in this. Nevertheless, seeing how others make such decisions, how they begin the design process and then develop it, still has value.
In that regard, it is worth studying the work of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris, a ten-year-old architectural firm in Philadelphia. All three partners - Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, and Samuel Harris - worked in the office of Venturi & Scott Brown, but their approach to design recalls that of another Philadelphia great: Louis Kahn.
Kahn's Influence
Kahn's architectural influence has generally been twofold. Close adherents have tended to borrow from his formal vocabulary, especially his late work: large-scale arched or circular openings in brick walls, for example, or naturally finished wood or metal infill within concrete structural frames. Others have drawn inspiration more broadly from Kahn's metaphysical musings about architectural phenomena: the quality of natural light, the presence of space, the nature of a material.
Kieran, Timberlake & Harris have pursued a third direction: evolving a systematic design process from Kahn's more poetic perceptions. This process results in buildings that sometimes recall those of Kahn (their classroom building at The Shipley School), and sometimes don't (the laboratory at Rider College). But Kahn's ideas about the spatial and temporal nature of architecture are everywhere present in this work.
Spatial Beginning
Kieran, Timberlake & Harris begin a design with a very simple spatial idea, drawing from Kahn's view that the room remains the most basic architectural element and that space is inseparable from the systems that serve it. "In many of our projects," says James Timberlake, "we have developed an incremental structural unit which guides the making of the building." In the Shipley School, that unit is the classroom; in the Rider College building, the laboratory; in the Stufano Residence, the individual room. "This unit is rigorously scrutinized," adds Kieran, "as to program accommodation, proportion, and materials."
From this basic block, other choices follow. "Structural systems are sought that are consistent with this unit," says Kieran. Sometimes those systems are clearly expressed on the exterior of the building, as in the exposed timber frame of the Allingham Residence; other times, they are handled more subtly, as in the East Stroudsburg University student center, whose concrete structure has a definite grain that separates the new construction from the old. Integrated with the structure are the various mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems, which "are didactically exposed in each building," says Kieran, "making the delivery of services legible." At the Shipley School, for example, the exposed mechanical ducts run down the hallways and branch into each classroom, reiterating the movement of students through the building.
Temporal Layering
Layered onto this assemblage of structural units and systems is a conception of their buildings over time, an idea they call differential longevity. "Unlike high Modern theory," notes Kieran, "which assumed all new structures to be temporal, or Classical theory, which assumed all building elements to be permanent, we assume some portions of our buildings ... to be permanent, including structure and enclosure, and other portions, such as partitions and mechanical enclosures, to be temporary." This is perhaps most evident on the buildings' interiors where, for example, bearing walls or piers are exposed and naturally finished, while nonbearing partitions are painted and detailed in such a way that they can be removed with a minimum of trouble.
This strategy stems from Samuel Harris's long experience as a building diagnostician. "We know how materials fail," says Harris, "so we have tried to reverse that process and to explore its formal implications." For example, the firm tries to avoid using sealants or exterior coatings, both of which are prone to failure. Instead they detail exterior walls to shed water and to weather naturally, reducing the maintenance cost and increasing the life of a building.
The Process, Pro and Con
The simplicity and clarity of this process are unassailable, but it is not without pitfalls. A design that evolves from basic units, for instance, may never reach a point where the parts get synthesized into a figurative whole. An example is the Shipley School, which has fine details, but a certain disjointedness in overall form. Also a logical process such as this can become too closed a system, obscuring other values. While the location and massing of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris buildings are unerring, the logic that drives the selections of exterior materials - the slate at Shipley or the granite at East Stroudsburg - does not always jibe with neighboring structures.
Still, there is much to admire and learn from this work. Counter to many current design trends, these buildings make no overt historical references, allude to no literary or philosophical theory, and indulge in no personal expression. As such, they produce no identifiable style or signature image - a liability given the media's near obsession with categorizing or personalizing things. But the strength of this work lies precisely in its resistance to such trends. Kieran, Timberlake & Harris remind us that, whatever value architecture has as a cultural artifact or as an expressive medium, basic issues such as structural simplicity, spatial clarity, and physical durability remain central to the architect's task and still open to formal exploration.
The Ends of Finishing
by David Leatherbarrow
David Leatherbarrow of the University of Pennsylvania discusses the implications of rain screen walls in two Kieran Timberlake & Harris buildings.
Finishing in architecture is generally understood to be the process of bringing to an end, of completing or putting the final touches on a building. While we commonly assume that this end is unambiguous and definite, finishing is quite indefinite in contemporary practice - not really final at all. Because Kieran, Timberlake & Harris have accepted this fact, they have designed some of today's better buildings, to be studied as successful projects, but also because they lead us toward a new idea of built architecture as an "open work."
Mass-produced elements are found in varying proportions in all contemporary buildings. Unlike the materials of preindustrial production, these (dry) elements are finished in factories, not on (wet) building sites. As construction utilizes more elements of this kind, for reasons of efficiency, economy, accuracy, and control, site work becomes an assembly process.
Further, when mass-produced elements are conceived together as a system - a cladding system for example - not only are they premade before site work begins, but their position with respect to one another is pre-fixed in the proscribed "logic" of construction. Selection of a system thus "finishes" the design (or some of its aspects) at the very outset of the design process, just as mass-produced elements "finish" construction before site work begins.
To those architects for whom invention is a goal, this realization might seem very discouraging. In the work of Kieran, Timberlake & Harris, however, an alternative conclusion presents itself: mass-produced elements and systems can sustain architectural invention when influences of place and climate are acknowledged and incorporated into the building.
My point of focus is the rain screen wall, different forms of which Kieran, Timberlake & Harris have used in both the Shipley School and the East Stroudsburg University buildings. Unlike conventional curtain or cavity wall systems, rain screen cladding counters the widespread and seemingly natural prejudice of sealing the outer surface of a building. Rather than imitate the unbroken skin of an airplane or a submarine (enclosures that are essentially placeless), the outer surface of these buildings contains "open" joints that allow (some) rain, wind, and temperature to "pass through" the building's skin into an intermediate vertical channel, bounded on its inside by a weatherproof membrane.
The fact that the building's resistance to climate is on the inside of the wall suggests that the points of potential problems are all those places perpendicular to the waterproof membrane, such as the window and door surrounds, which seem somewhat awkward at Shipley and vulnerable at East Stroudsburg. But my hunch is that the rain screen wall's mediated resistance to climate, which is also a graduated acceptance of place, will prove to be successful in both projects.
These buildings are "open works," then, in two senses: they are open physically to rain, wind, and temperature, and they are open conceptually to systems of industrialized production and to the longstanding characteristics of place, especially of weathering, but also of orientation. When design opens its operations in this way, it brings the project closer to the actual conditions of weathering, while also enriching that "idea." The most instructive, if difficult, lesson to learn from these buildings is that their indefinite beginnings and endings strengthen the project by weakening the controlling hand of the designer.
The author is Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His recent books are The Roots of Architecture Invention: Site, Enclosure and Materials and On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time, coauthored with M. Mostsafavi.
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Credits and Captions from Original Article
"Finishing is quite indefinite in contemporary practice - not really final at all."; The Shipley School KTH team: Scott Wing, project architect; James Timberlake, Stephen Kieran, Samuel Harris, Patreese Martin, John Poros, Richard Blender. Consultants: French & Parello (structural); Yerkes Associates (civil), Vinokur-Pace (MPE), George Patton (landscape), Tigue Lighting (lighting); East Stroudsburg University Center; KTH team: Christopher Macneal, Steven Irvine, project architects; Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, Samuel Harris, Richard Blender, Richard Hodge, John Poros, Charles Waldheim. Consultants: Brinjac, Kambic & Associates (structural, civil, MPE), Lisa Roth (landscape), Tigue Lighting (lighting); Rider College Science & Technology Center KTH team, phase I: James Wallace, project architect; Stephen Kieran, James Timberlake, Samuel Harris, Amy Floresta, Charles Horak, Richard Maimon; phase II: Richard Hodge, project architect; Claire Donato, James Wallace. Consultants: French & Parello (structural), Boles, Smyth Associates (civil), Vinokur-Pace (MPE), Payette Associates (laboratory); photo legends/misc: This matrix indicates how the firm proceeds from an analysis of structural and spatial units to their assembly into integrated systems accommodating the program and the site. The Shipley School Middle School Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; East Stroudsburg University Center East Stroudsburg, Pennyslvania; Rider College Science and Technology Center Lawrenceville, New Jersey; Stufano Residence Dover, Massachusetts; Allingham Residence Kent County, Maryland; Unit, Assemblage, Systems, Floor Plan, Site; The process begins, says Stephen Kieran, with an "intensive study of the basic block or spatial unit of the building. This unit is rigorously scrutinized as to program, accommodation, proportion, and materials (and) becomes the basis for much of what follows."; "The nature of the basic block," continues Kieran, "determines much of the assemblage strategy, as structural systems are sought that are consistent with this unit. The particular system selected depends largely upon its ability to contain and order the assemblage of basic spatial units."; The firm then proceeds to integrate the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems with the structural assemblage, usually following the overall spatial order. These systems, says Kieran, "are didactically exposed in each building, making the delivery of services legible."; The floor plans, as a result of this process, tend to be very straightforward, mirroring the firm's emphasis on the legibility of building systems. As in much of Kahn's early work, the appeal of these projects lies not so much in spatial diversity as in the richness of materials and assemblies. The placement of the buildings - especially evident in the school projects - respects the spatial order (if not always the material palette) of surrounding buildings. The Shipley School building, for example, defines a quadrangle that hardly existed before.
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