In a recent profile in the RIBA Journal (Royal Institute of British Architects), James Timberlake reframes the discussion of the new London embassy in the British press. Timberlake discusses how the highly performative design sets a new paradigm for American embassies, integrating a host of environmentally responsible features and creating welcoming public spaces.
Defender of the faith
by Jan-Carlos Kucharek
In 2017 London's new $1bn US embassy complex will open. James Timberlake, of its architect Kieran Timberlake, feels a realistic appraisal of the design will vanquish its critics.
Kieran Timberlake partner James Timberlake, though silver-haired, remains a strapping fellow. Especially when his face is six inches from yours and he's hauling you up off your toes by your lapels. Maybe it's something I said. ‘It's not a moat,' he intones slowly, smiling, before resting me back down on my heels and smoothing my collar down, ‘It's a pond.' True, maybe the word ‘moat', suggesting at least defensiveness, is too loaded a meaning; but we are looking over the hole in the ground that'll be the new American Embassy in London, and what's the meaning of ‘pond' anyway? Something in your garden? A component of a SuDS strategy? The Atlantic? It turns out it's actually all three to Timberlake, hence his robust distinction.
"Defender of the Faith" is no longer available online. It can be found in the May 2014 issue of RIBA Journal, available by subscription.
A recently completed housing infill project adds four new residence halls to the Northwest Campus at University of California, Los Angeles. Conceived in partnership with Los Angeles-based Pfeiffer Partners Architects, the design brings additional density and population to an already dense area of campus with the conviction that a concentrated living-learning environment is a positive force in fostering collaboration and interaction among students.
The KieranTimberlake team works in collaboration with Dr. Kerry Joels, a former NASA scientist, to build the Revit model for a virtual base on planet Mars.
By Lea Oxenhandler Created by the nonprofit Total Learning Research Institute (TLRI), Mars City is a program that uses a virtual base on the planet Mars as a means to engage high school students in novel science and engineering challenges and get them excited about careers in space and building sciences. Via a BIM model of the Mars City Virtual Base, which was designed by TLRI President Dr. Kerry Joels (a former Smithsonian and NASA scientist and educator), students learn the nuts and bolts of facilities management through simulations.
As part of this program, a team from KieranTimberlake is working with TLRI to build a detailed, realistic Revit model of the virtual Mars outpost that will help take simulations to the next level. The model includes small, private areas like sleeping pods and larger communal spaces dedicated to Mission Control, dining, recreation, and workshops—as well as a garage for the storage and deployment of Mars Rovers. Essential to the simulation is a robust COBie (Construction Operations Building Information Exchange) database built in conjunction with the model. Pulling from information embedded within the model, the database allows realistic simulations of pre-programmed facilities management scenarios. Our Revit model combined with the COBie data is translated to the user interface through a web-based maintenance management platform called WebTMA.
Annual technology award highlights "best of breed" case studies
KT Innovations, an affiliate of KieranTimberlake, today announced that its newly-released Tally™ application for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has received a Building Information Modeling (BIM) Award from the American Institute of Architects. The award, given by the Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) Knowledge Community of the AIA, highlights best practices in Building Information Modeling, a technology that uses 3D models to design, inform, and communicate about building projects. Now in its tenth year, the program shows the evolution of BIM from a specialized tool to a staple of architectural design that continues to break new ground.
Noted for Process and Technology Innovation Integrating with BIM
This is the first year the BIM Award has included software, making Tally, a joint software development project from KT Innovations, PE INTERNATIONAL, and Autodesk®, the inaugural recipient in the Process and Technology Innovation Integrating with BIM category. The jurors commended Tally as “one of the first applications that truly uses BIM as a life cycle process. It understands the issues we are trying to model in a certain level of detail.”
The steel structure of the new Center for Building Energy Education and Innovation was completed last week at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The rendering below shows the building's finished form.
The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI)—formerly the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub—at Philadelphia's 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. We are currently undertaking the retrofitting of a 1940s recreational facility for CBEI's headquarters, along with the construction of a new classroom building across the street. Both projects aim to be completed by mid-summer of 2014.
Over the past month, structural steel was erected for the classroom building, known as the Center for Building Energy Education and Innovation, revealing the form the eventual building will take. In keeping with the industrial character of the Navy Yard, the structural steel is left exposed in many of the building's public spaces, making the erection of the steel a critical milestone for the project. Now that the steel is in place, a second floor concrete slab can be poured and work on the exterior façade can begin.
A shredder hopper is loaded at Richard S. Burns & Company Inc. Our visit to this local facility allowed us to capture a series of images of waste recycling and recovery processes.
An important aspect of environmental sustainability is the careful management of construction waste through recycling or landfill diversion. Normally, the contractor specifies a waste management company responsible for dumpsters on site, transportation, sorting, processing, landfill diversion, and accounting. In order to ensure that design and construction methods efficiently integrate with the processing of construction waste, KieranTimberlake recently made a visit to a local waste recycling and recovery facility.
Richard S. Burns & Company Inc. is a family-owned business that has been in operation for over 40 years. The company pioneered landfill diversion techniques long before the practice was commonplace because of its ability to monetize the recycling streams. It operates a 10-acre facility in North Philadelphia and employs many individuals in the surrounding community.
Our visit helped us understand what happens once waste leaves the construction site and allowed us to see first-hand how it is repurposed into a variety of recycling streams, often achieving a landfill diversion rate of 99%.
New application helps achieve LEED® v4 Materials and Resources credit, MRc1
KieranTimberlake, in conjunction with PE INTERNATIONAL and Autodesk® Sustainability Solutions announce the commercial availability of Tally™, a software application for Revit® that calculates the environmental impact of building materials. It is the only application to be fully integrated into Revit, providing architects, engineers, and building professionals with insight into how materials-related decisions made during design influence a building's overall ecological footprint. Backed by the rigor and credibility of GaBi data from PE INTERNATIONAL, the application enables Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on demand, documenting information across eight life cycle impact categories that align with LEED® v4 and other rating systems.
The commercial release follows a three-month public beta, in which nearly 500 users tested Tally and provided feedback on a broad range of design scenarios. The application is already garnering an enthusiastic response for its simplicity and ease of use.
On December 8, Philadelphia's Congregation Rodeph Shalom broke ground on a significant new addition and renovation to its historic home. Founded in 1795, Rodeph Shalom is the oldest Ashkenazic congregation in the Western Hemisphere. Its current synagogue building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and, while it is an outstanding example of Byzantine revival architecture, the congregation's rapid growth created the need for more space, enhanced connectivity, and increased accessibility throughout the building. Through a series of renovations, as well as the addition of a four-story expansion, Rodeph Shalom will become a welcoming house of prayer, study, and social action that is both respectful of the existing building's storied history and flexible enough to accommodate the congregation's continued growth and development.
A custom device for studying glass details in their appropriate lighting context was developed in our Philadelphia shop.
When evaluating glass, the human eye cannot always be trusted. Our perception of transparency is influenced as much by the context under which materials are viewed as by their intrinsic optical qualities. When we study a glass sample under interior lighting conditions where light levels on either side of the glass are nearly equal, we may get the false impression that the sample will appear equally transparent when applied to a building facade. In fact, the ratio of reflected daylight to transmitted interior light can make even the most transparent glass appear mirror-like when it is viewed from the exterior.
Shop fabrication of the steel pieces for the new cafe allowed the structure to be completed in just two nights. The surface finish applied during fabrication gives the steel its white appearance.
Last week, while the city slept, the first above-ground structure emerged at Dilworth Plaza with the installation of steel columns and edge beams that will form the new cafe and stair headhouse on the northern end of the plaza. Until now, work has been concentrated below ground in the new transit concourse and on the plaza level, largely out of view of passersby. But on Wednesday evening, January 29, after most of the traffic had dissipated at Philadelphia's City Hall, a 300-ton crane and several trucks bearing shop-fabricated steel pieces arrived to begin the installation.
