February 27, 2013

A Challenge in Embassy Design

A view of the public park proposed for the Embassy of the United States in London.

NPR's Tanya Ballard Brown asks whether U.S. embassies can be safe without being unsightly—addressing one of the many requirements involved in designing the New London Embassy, scheduled to open in the Nine Elms district in 2017.

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February 22, 2013

Invigorating the Nine Elms District

The new U.S. embassy in London has sparked a wave of urbanization in a gritty industrial zone on the South Bank, the Wall Street Journal reports.

A Diplomatic Breakthrough 
By Ruth Bloomfield 
 
Nine Elms, a neighborhood along the banks of London's River Thames, is an urban wasteland, scarred by railroad tracks and littered with idle factories and vacant parking lots. 
 
It's also an unlikely hot spot in London real estate right now, with some two dozen developers investing well over $15 billion in new hotels, offices, retail space and as many as 16,000 high-end homes.

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February 01, 2013

Technology Informs Design Decisions at Historic Bottling Plant

Data readings from wireless sensors display in a web interface.

The first external deployment of our Wireless Sensor Network on an existing project took place in an exposed masonry building in Philadelphia, Ortlieb's Bottling House, which is presently being transformed into a new studio for KieranTimberlake. Given the building's historic significance, one of the critical questions this research sought to address was whether to add perimeter insulation or to retain the exposed terra cotta tile that gives the interior its distinctive character.

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