KieranTimberlake's innovative work with prefabrication was recently highlighted in a WIRED Magazine article on sustainable building practices.
As the global construction industry creates about one-third of the world's waste, the article emphasizes a necessary shift towards circular building, or "the practice of making buildings that can be more easily disassembled, moved, or repurposed."
In a list of recent examples, they note "KieranTimberlake's innovative prefab, sustainable homes Loblolly House and Cellophane House™."
Completed in 2006, Loblolly House used integrated assemblies of parts, fabricated off-site, to build a house in an entirely different way. The conception and detailing were formed about four new elements of architecture: scaffold, cartridge, block, and equipment. The connections between elements were designed to be made using only simple hand tools.
As our renovation of the Folger Shakespeare Library continues, Partner Stephen Kieran joined Folger Director Michael Witmore and Anneliza Kaufer of Olin for a discussion on the project's architectural vision scope.
Earlier this month, KieranTimberlake researchers Billie Faircloth, Christopher Connock, and Ryan Welch attended the Smartgeometry conference in Toronto and conducted a week-long workshop called "Materials as Probes." The workshop was an outgrowth of an ongoing research collaboration between KieranTimberlake and the Center for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) in Denmark about the design potential of thermodynamic modeling.
Watch the video above and read more about the workshop on the Smartgeometry website.
Fátima Olivieri, architect at KieranTimberlake, moderates a Facades+ panel about Philadelphia’s design trajectory with Danielle DiLeo Kim of Locus Partners, Eric Oskey of Moto Designshop, and Scott Erdy of Erdy McHenry. Image courtesy of The Architect’s Newspaper.
The Architects Newspaper recently hosted Facades+ Philadelphia, a multi-city conference series that brings together architects, industry experts, academics, and building owners to discuss “all things building skin.” The event was co-chaired by Partner Matthew Krissel and moderated by KieranTimberlake staff Efrie Freidlander, Fátima Olivieri, and Jon McCandlish.
Last week, KieranTimberlake partnered with Metropolis Magazine to host a Think Tank discussion about new paradigms for planning and designing 21st century cities. The event, titled “Pedestrians, Bikes, and Cars: Designing a Balanced Multi-Modal 21st Century City,” was moderated by the magazine's Director of Design Innovation, Susan S. Szenasy.
Using Philadelphia as a case study, Szenasy led a panel of experts to explore how the city might re-balance its infrastructure as equitable for all modes of transportation. The panelists were KieranTimberlake partner James Timberlake, former Mayor's Office of Transportation Chief of Staff Andrew Stober, Sarah Clark Stuart, director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, safe streets advocate Dena Ferrara Driscoll, and Drexel University professor and department head Alan Greenberger.
At the 2015 Greenbuild Conference in Washington DC, KieranTimberlake researcher Roderick Bates presented regarding the evolution of Tally®, the firm's custom Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool for designers. Speaking to a room of sustainable building practitioners and advocates, Bates explained how this tool has the unique capacity to allow designers to quickly assess the environmental implications of different materials used in their projects. As an example, his presentation articulated KieranTimberlake's experience using Tally in the selection of materials for Brown University's new School of Engineering building.
KieranTimberlake partner Matthew Krissel presented on the topic of digital design culture at KA Connect 2015, a knowledge management conference for the AEC industry.
He talked about how KieranTimberlake created a platform to facilitate knowledge sharing and innovation—with a focus on the firm's members, and their relationships to one another, rather than solely the tools they would use. By developing a formalized network of exploratory behavior in the office, team members could experiment with and even implement new technologies in a matter of months. Watch as he describes the facets of this platform at KA Connect.
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.
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
Few studies track the dynamics of green roof plant species over the long term. In this study, researchers returned to survey vegetation of two green roofs several years after their initial establishment.
Environmental researchers Stephanie Carlisle and Max Piana recently presented green roof research findings at the 11th annual Cities Alive Conference in San Francisco, attended by international green roof professionals, designers, and researchers. The theme of this year's conference was resilience, with presentations and research exploring the many ways in which green roofs and walls contribute to social, environmental, and economic resiliency within our cities. The role of green roofs in urban water management and the potential for agriculturally-based green roofs were topics of particular interest.
Growing Resilience: Long Term Plant Dynamics and Green Roof Performance
Focusing on studies of two mature green roofs, one intensive and the other extensive, Stephanie and Max discussed changes in green roof vegetation, challenging the audience to consider the long-term dynamics and transformations of these living systems. Questions under consideration included:
How does green roof vegetation change over time?
How does vegetation performance relate to building and site context?
How do the growth trajectories of an extensive and intensive green roof compare?
