Architect magazine recently featured KieranTimberlake in an article about the fusion of design and research at select top firms—including the embedding of new specialized roles like computational designers and materials and sustainability experts among designers. KieranTimberlake, Perkins+Will, and The Living are three firms profiled for integrating research into design processes and services. The author spoke with Billie Faircloth about KieranTimberlake's research ethic, which she says is "intrinsic to what we do."
Three Top Firms That are Pursuing Design Research
Perkins+Will, The Living, and KieranTimberlake are among a new class of architectural practices investing in research. By Daniel Davis
In architecture, it can be difficult to determine where research ends and practice begins. In sectors such as medicine and aerospace, research is distinct from the rest of the business. But architectural research tends to mix with practice. Some argue that design and research are intertwined—that architects are conducting research as their design process leads them to better understand the site and other peculiarities of the project. In this guise, all design is a form of research.
While design may be considered as a form of research, not all research is a form of design. Ajla Aksamija, leader of Perkins+Will's Tech Lab and co-organizer for this year's Architectural Research Centers Consortium, says that differentiating between actual research and mere marketing is essential. Firms may claim to do research as part of their design initiatives, but historically, few firms have actually invested in research.
The Quaker Meeting House and Arts Center at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, has been rated LEED® Platinum—the highest level of environmental certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The building represents a maximum reuse of existing resources, transforming a large former gymnasium built in the 1950s into a space of filtered light and silent contemplation. As a retrofit, it does not add additional embodied energy nor create a greater footprint that would impact stormwater flows. The project also makes use of reclaimed materials wherever possible. To eliminate the need for harvesting standing timber, the oak flooring and paneling of the meeting room were made from reclaimed wood sourced from barns in West Virginia and Maryland. New pervious paving in the front courtyard makes use of concrete removed during the renovation to create a porous infill that minimizes stormwater runoff, which causes flooding, erosion, and pollution of local waterways.
Our Philadelphia-based firm of nearly 100 professionals is growing. We are currently seeking qualified candidates for a diversity of roles, including Architect, Digital Resources Librarian, Environmental Researcher, and Building Performance Specialist. Please see our Employment page for more information about these positions and details on submitting your application.
As a firm, we strive to create an atmosphere of highly imaginative problem solving and idea generation within a collaborative, open office environment in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia. Learn more about KieranTimberlake.
In 2013, Philadelphia's School Reform Commission announced the closure of 23 public schools. As part of an initiative to offer community-focused pro bono architectural services, KieranTimberlake worked with the Community Design Collaborative, a local nonprofit, to address the pressing issue of these newly vacant school buildings in the City of Philadelphia. In an intensive full-day design charrette during the November Design on the Delaware conference, the KieranTimberlake team worked with community members, private and nonprofit developers, city agencies, and local designers to propose both short- and long-term solutions for two of Philadelphia's closed schools.
The overarching purpose of the charrette was to answer the question: How can we create feasible, community-oriented reuse proposals to encourage the redevelopment of buildings that currently have no interested buyers?
We are delighted to announce that the Brockman Hall for Physics at Rice University has won an Institute Honor Award for 2015 from the American Institute of Architects. The award is the design profession's highest recognition of excellence, and this year, 23 recipients were selected from a pool of 500 submissions from across the globe.
Project Description from Architect Magazine
According to [James] Timberlake, Brockman Hall represents “one of the more perfect examples” of his firm's holistic strategy of design. KieranTimberlake “seemed to find inspiration in the overwhelming technical constraints and resonance in the building's important research mission,” Rice's [Barbara] Bryson says, noting that other firms might have been daunted by the building's litany of programmatic demands. “The result is a building that works brilliantly while providing an … elegant home for some of the best physicists in the world.”
This project is a total knockout in every way—from the incredible planning to the spectacular detailing—yet it is extremely simple and very flexible.
Gorgeous ceilings—pipe, conduits, everything is so neatly coordinated! Even the mechanical room is beautiful! The palette of neutral colors is very warm and beautiful.
This is a very tight building in the way it fits the site, but it's very comfortable on all sides. The photos do not do it justice.
KieranTimberlake is proud to announce two new book publications to be released in spring 2015.
Alluvium: Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the Crossroads of Water
Extracts from Seven Years of the Dhaka Design-Research Lab at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake Published by ORO Editions
Imagine the most extreme urban environment on earth—a place three times as dense as Manhattan, enveloped in a constant flow of water, beset by a relentless stream of rural migrants, plagued by annual monsoons, and threatened by climate change. Since 2007, architects Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake have directed a design-research laboratory on Dhaka, capital city of Bangladesh, for graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. What began as a desire to help a city in need became an immersion in investigating its ebbs and flows, mapping its urban systems, and charting its development via annual visits. The result of this extended study is Alluvium: Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the Crossroads of Water, a cross-genre book that incorporates first-person narrative, documentary photography, and research-based infographics and maps to encourage new readings and perspectives.
In 2014, KieranTimberlake team members worked together with Total Learning Research Institute President Kerry Joels and participants from Gilbane Building Company and Travis Alderson Associates to create a building information model (BIM) of a virtual base on the planet Mars.
The team recently received a National Institute of Building Sciences Member Award for its support of the STEM Initiative for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The awards ceremony will take place during the Building Innovation 2015 conference in Washington, DC, this week.
The BIM model is a key aspect of the Mars City Operations Challenge, which teaches high school and community college students to act as facility managers responsible for maintaining the virtual base. The Challenge will launch at schools nationwide in fall of 2015.
KieranTimberlake and Davis Brody Bond have been selected to design a new facility that combines classrooms, performing arts spaces, athletics, and housing for New York University. The site for the new building sits along Mercer Street between Houston and Bleecker in Greenwich Village. It will replace the existing Coles Sports Center.
James Timberlake said, “We are committed to an open and inclusive process with NYU, Davis Brody Bond, and our talented consultant team to realize an extraordinary outcome for an engaging mixed use building that contributes mightily to the neighborhood.”
At the Center for Building Energy Science and Engineering, the original wooden arches of this World War II-era building have been retained in the retrofit, and a new steel mezzanine rises within them.
The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI)—formerly the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub—at the Philadelphia Navy Yard is a research initiative funded by the Department of Energy and led by Penn State University that seeks to reduce the energy usage of commercial buildings 20% by 2020.
At the retrofit project at Building 661, known as the Center for Building Energy Science and Engineering, work is almost complete on the comprehensive transformation of the former Navy recreational building (unoccupied since the late 1990s) into a facility that will welcome the public and educate visitors about energy-efficient building practices. Staff and researchers have begun moving into the workroom and offices. The ICon visualization lab—dedicated to facilitating the use of virtual reality techniques in design, construction, and other disciplines—has been installed, and the telepresence room recently held its inaugural Building Steering Committee session. During the renovation process, the exterior envelope of the building was completely refurbished, and large expanses of new glazing were introduced in concert with a pair of new and retrofitted skylights to suffuse the workroom interior with natural daylight, reducing lighting usage and energy loads. Per the CBEI mission, all building systems are completely visible, including the main mechanical room, passive and active chilled beams, a low velocity underfloor system, and a split system in offices. Installation of landscape, punch listing, and commissioning should be complete by the end of the year.
