October 27, 2014

New LOVE for a Famous Philly Park

Former Philadelphia City Planner Edmund Bacon and architect Vincent Kling established Love Park in 1965.

On the heels of the opening of Dilworth Park at Philadelphia's City Hall comes the announcement that KieranTimberlake will also participate in the redesign of nearby Love Park (officially named JFK Plaza), home of Robert Indiana's famous LOVE statue. Together with Hargreaves Associates and Pentagram, KieranTimberlake will work to re-envision this significant public space, incorporating sustainable systems, stormwater management, and high-performance building materials. The new park will retain the beloved statue as well as a water feature, landscape connecting to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and diagonal pathways across the square.  
 
Learn more about this project at "Build New LOVE Upon Old Strengths." 
 

October 24, 2014

Greenfield Lawn Debuts at Dilworth Park

Pedestrians take an inaugural stroll across the new lawn at Dilworth Park after the dedication ceremony. Planted atop complex transit infrastructure, the lawn is essentially a green roof.

An important part of the new Dilworth Park adjacent to Philadelphia's City Hall—a 6,900 square-foot lawn—opens today on the southern end of the park. Dedicated as the Albert M. Greenfield Lawn, the green space will host a variety of public events, including open-air concerts, markets, and movies. It will be open daily as a recreation and relaxation space for people to linger with a view of the surrounding activity at the heart of Center City.

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October 24, 2014

Green Roof Study Published in CATE

The intensive green roof under discussion in Cities and the Environment grows atop House 5 (the Flora Rose House) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

For the last three summers, members of our research group have been conducting ecological research and monitoring of plant communities on seven KieranTimberlake buildings at Cornell University, Middlebury College, University of California San Diego, and Yale University. The research has allowed us to revisit projects up to a decade old, meet with numerous building and landscape managers, consult with green roof experts from across the country, and learn a great deal about how the design and detailing of green roofs on our projects have fared over time.  
 
Additionally, the study has yielded some interest in the research community for its use of novel field methods and its graphic representation, which has allowed for spatially explicit data collection and mapping. The study of community dynamics is rooted in the ability to discern, test, and communicate the relationship between landscape patterns and ecology function or performance. As designers, our ability to diagram and draw relationships analytically has allowed us to explore green roof systems in new and revealing ways. 
 

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October 24, 2014

Revising Tulane's School of Architecture

A view through the proposed addition looking toward Tulane's Gibson Quad.

The Architect's Newspaper last week announced that Tulane University has released plans for the KieranTimberlake-designed addition and renovation of its historic Richardson Memorial Hall, home to the School of Architecture. Currently in the design development phase, the project adds more than 30,000 square feet, which includes studios, pin-up spaces, fabrication and media facilities, a gallery, and a cafe. The project aims to achieve LEED Platinum and the goals of Architecture 2030. 
 
Richard Maimon, the principal in charge of the project, commented, "Our goal is to align Richardson Memorial Hall with Tulane's agenda for 21st century architectural education—collaborative, community-focused, and informed by technology. The 1908 masonry building will be complemented by a transparent, high-performance, flexible addition that promotes connectivity across studio work, fabrication and community outreach, while serving as a teaching tool itself."  
 
Renovation work on the historic building includes monitoring of temperature and humidity via a wireless sensor network.

October 20, 2014

Investigating Site Geology

The site for Pound Ridge House presented an opportunity to design a home within the rocky terrain created by glacial activity across the ages.
© Peter Aaron/OTTO

In 2010, a property in Pound Ridge, New York, presented a unique building site—with steep, uneven terrain defined by forest, exposed rock, and a ridge rising more than a hundred feet from the nearest road. As we began design on a home for this site, our design goals included allowing the geologic history to inform the house's conceptual design, anchoring the house to the site, and seeking out interior and exterior materials that would have contextual relevance in this rich setting. A research query was undertaken to allow us to better understand the geologic context and history. 

SITE GEOLOGY

The town of Pound Ridge is representative of a unique and complex regional geologic history that extends back to some of the earliest rock formations on the East Coast (approximately 1 billion years ago) up to the most recent glacial event (approximately 15,000 years ago). Pound Ridge is one of the northernmost areas of the Manhattan Prong, the primary bedrock formation of Manhattan Island. As such, it contains the same granite gneiss formations that can be found in Manhattan's Central Park and throughout the larger Highlands Province region that covers parts of New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

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October 15, 2014

A Historic Brewery Transforms

Bottling lines of the original bottling house. An article in American Brewer magazine reported, "Line No. 1 is used for 12 ounce steinie, export and non-returnables as well as 7 ounce splits. Line No. 2 is used mainly for 32 ounce bottles though it also takes 12 ounce bottles and cans." Courtesy of the Ortlieb family

The historic building that will soon house KieranTimberlake's new architecture studio was once part of a complex of properties belonging to Ortlieb's Brewing Company in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia.

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October 13, 2014

Datapalooza at Greenbuild 2014

Researchers Roderick Bates and Ryan Welch are heading to Greenbuild this month to take part in several events tied to the Tally application for Revit, including a special USGBC Master Series session, “Transforming Markets through Data Collaboration.” This two-hour session will celebrate innovative tools and information technologies that can accelerate market transformation and achieve impact at scale. It will feature commentary from a panel of leading data experts and a set of ten “lightning demos” featuring transformative new tools and services—including the Tally app. 
 
This “datapalooza” is the second of two events on data that USGBC has convened as part of its LEED, Materials, and Health Initiative. It builds on the Building Materials Data Jam held in Chicago in June in conjunction with the 2014 AIA National Convention. The Data Jam brought together representatives from 40 organizations specializing in data, tools, and services related to human health and environmental attributes of materials. The group discussed data-related challenges facing the building industry and identified opportunities to drive large-scale data transformation.  
 
Now, USGBC's "Transforming Markets through Data Collaboration" session at Greenbuild will follow up on the success of the June Data Jam and celebrate the latest developments in tools and services. The industry leaders featured at this event are driving positive change in the green building industry and realizing the vision of accessible, actionable building materials data.

October 03, 2014

Architects Live: Fall Lectures in Full Swing

KieranTimberlake has a busy season of lectures and other appearances on the East Coast and overseas this fall. Matt Krissel kicked off the month of September in London as a speaker at the Big Cities, Big Ideas conference presented by the AIA Committee on Design, followed by a panel discussion by David Riz at a workshop on the Future of Design and Construction Management, and a keynote by Billie Faircloth at the Wood Urbanism conference at Harvard Graduate School of Design. 
 
Topics for upcoming talks run the gamut from live demonstrations of our Tally LCA application, to an education session and tour of Dilworth Park, to a "power talk" by James Timberlake at AJ Footprint Live, a conference focusing on sustainability in cities. 
 
Highlights include: 

  • Oct 11 - Richard Maimon, Saratoga Design Conference, AIA New York State, Keynote Address: Research Culture, Saratoga, NY
  • Oct 14 - Billie Faircloth, Reinvention 2015, Presented by Architect and Residential Architect, Washington, DC
  • Oct 23 - Roderick Bates and Jonathan Rowe, Greenbuild 2014, Autodesk Education Session, New Orleans, LA
  • Nov 13 - Marilia Rodrigues and Christopher Boskey, Design on the Delaware, Education Session: Re-visioning Infrastructure in Center City, Philadelphia, PA
  • Nov 20 - James Timberlake, Architects' Journal Footprint Live, Power Talk: refabricating Architecture, London, UK

Click here for the full list of upcoming talks.