In the early morning hours of July 11, a major concrete pour raised progress on the Dilworth Plaza renovation to a new level—quite literally. Previously, work on the plaza at Philadelphia's City Hall had been restricted to the transit concourse below ground. Now, with the addition of a roof over the north concourse, the floor of the plaza has been formed, and work can continue on the two levels simultaneously.

Harvard University's residential housing system includes twelve residential houses, each endowed with its own character and culture that provide undergraduate students with a smaller community within the university as a whole. Following their freshman year in one of the dormitories in Harvard Yard, students transfer to a residential house, where they remain for the rest of their college careers. As part of a larger House Renewal project at Harvard, we recently completed a full renovation of Stone Hall (formerly Old Quincy Hall), a project which improved the living spaces within the building and added social spaces and a smart classroom in the previously underutilized basement.  
 
The building is five stories, each of which includes two historic fireplaces—used for heating in the past but now decorative. Early in the design process, a desire emerged for a graphic treatment representing the history of the house to be placed above the mantles of these eight fireplaces. Through a brainstorming process involving members of both Harvard University and KieranTimberlake, we developed the idea to create sculptural wall panels using thousands of old room keys used by former residents.

KieranTimberlake researcher Ryan Welch presented a paper on BIM-integrated environmental impact assessment at the 29th annual PLEA (Passive and Low Energy Architecture) Conference in Munich. PLEA 2013 brought together architects, engineers, and academic researchers from over 50 countries to present research around the theme of Energiewende (German for "energy transition"), which considers the shift to a low- or zero-carbon economy. Research topics explored a range of scales, from the human body to the urban environment, and examined sustainability through both cultural and technological lenses.  
 
"Quantifying the Embodied Environmental Impact of Building Materials During Design," coauthored by Roderick Bates, Stephanie Carlisle, Billie Faircloth, and Ryan Welch, examines the potential for architects to consider embodied environmental impacts as an integral part of their design process. The paper lays out a methodology for resolving the discrepancy between the abstract representation of materials in BIM and the higher resolution of materials required for Life Cycle Assessment. When combined with life cycle inventory data, this information allows architects to understand and refine their designs through the lens of environmental impact. 
 
While approaches to reducing operational energy are well established within the discipline of architecture, methods for quantifying embodied environmental impacts of building materials have yet to gain traction within the architectural, engineering, construction community due to the difficulty in quantifying building materials and the high cost and limited availability of pertinent life cycle inventory data. Our presentation served as a prescient counterpoint to the operational energy discourse of the conference—and in his closing remarks, Douglas Mulhall posed the quantification of building materials and their impacts as the paramount challenge for next year's PLEA conference.

The Harvard Gazette reported last week that our renovation of Old Quincy Hall on the campus of Harvard University is a success among students who recently moved in. The first in a series of renewal projects, Old Quincy was used as a test case to gauge future renovations. On September 7, the house was rededicated as Stone Hall.

Updated Quincy a Happy Home 
Colin Manning 
 
Old Quincy has “wow” factor. 
 
That's according to students who were moving into the 80-year-old neo-Georgian on Thursday. After 15 months of construction and renovation, Old Quincy, the first test project in the House Renewal initiative, began welcoming students this week. What they found was a fully transformed building designed to enhance the interactions of the multigenerational community living within it. Based on first impressions, the project was a success. 
 
“I haven't been in a room as nice as this anywhere on campus,” said Fola Sofela '16, as she walked into her six-person suite. 
 
Sofela marveled at the size of her bedroom, and grinned as she examined the suite's common room, furnished with couches, chairs, and tables. One of her roommates, Lauren Greenawalt '16, pointed out some of the room's details, such as built-in desk lights and electrical outlets, and a mirror on the wardrobe door. 
 
“Having the rooms fully furnished is nice. It immediately made me feel at home,” Greenawalt said. “Some people say there isn't enough social space on campus, but I think this building goes a long way in addressing that.” 
 
Modern features were brought into the House to meet the needs of students in the 21st century, but the distinctive character of Old Quincy, based on its unique architectural design, history, and traditions, was maintained. 
 
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The full-scale prototype for Loblolly House is a central feature of the Prototyping Architecture exhibition, which runs at Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside and Waterloo Architecture in Ontario, Canada, October 17 to December 17, 2013.

Organized in conjunction with the ACADIA 2013 Adaptive Architecture conference held October 24-27, 2013, the exhibition includes a post-digital prototype for the Passion Façade of Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família Basilica; a laser-sintered additively manufactured violin; lightweight prefabricated fabric formwork for on-site cast concrete; an additive manufactured titanium aircraft component; and a Rolls Royce high pressure turbine blade cast and "grown" as a single nickel alloy crystal.

Work continues apace at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and renovation projects are planned to open to the public late 2013. A new entranceway is among the renovations, as is a new restaurant at street level to be operated by Chef Jose Garces. Both projects were identified in our master plan for the Kimmel Center, which seeks to provide transparency and activity to the building perimeter.

We developed this animation to demonstrate the components that come together and the assembly methodology used to create Ideal Choice Homes. Watch as the pieces fly into place!

The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies announced a selection of 60 new buildings, commercial and institutional developments, and urban planning projects from 20 nations for The International Architecture Awards for 2013. 
 
Charles David Keeling Apartments at UC San Diego, Edgar N. Putman Event Pavilion at James A. Michener Art Museum, and the Center City Building at UNC Charlotte were among the winning projects, and will be part of the 14th International Biennial of Architecture Buenos Aires 2013, September 19-October 15, 2013.

“From an impressive and visionary array of new submissions, the New York Jury selected 60 outstanding projects, each of which positively impacts its larger community—sometimes modestly, but most often massively,” states Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, President, The Chicago Athenaeum. “The finalists span the globe, from South America to Asia, from North America to Europe, and we are particularly happy to share that diversity. All projects exhibit innovation in design, acute sensitivity to the environment, sustainability, adaptability to their surroundings, and provision of enjoyment to their many users. In one way or another, each finalist wowed the jury, which will make selection of the winners a real challenge.”

 
This year's selected buildings were from 20 nations, including: Australia, Burundi, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Norway, People's Republic of China, The Netherlands, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Vietnam, and the United States.

Principal David Riz and Senior Researcher Roderick Bates recently traveled to Singapore to share their rich experiences with the integrative design process undertaken for the design of the Energy Efficent Buildings (EEB) Hub in Philadelphia, a project of the Department of Energy.  
 
Integrative process is based on the idea that sustainable design is most easily achieved and sustained through a whole-building design process. This process is a multidisciplinary strategy that effectively integrates all aspects of site development, building design, construction, and operations and maintenance to minimize a building's resource consumption and environmental impact while improving the comfort, health, and productivity of building occupants. This kind of process ideally leads to a building that is economical in terms of lifecycle costs, including operations, maintenance, and repairs, and leads to reduced user turnover by making buildings that are more desirable to users. An inclusive process is key to whole-building design and is most effective when applied at the earliest stages of design. 
 
Drawing on their experiences in the design of EEB Hub, David and Roderick facilitated a design charrette (workshop) to identify feasible, cost-effective sustainable measures for a “high performance, innovative and iconic living lab” housed in the new North Spine Academic Building (NSAB) for Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. They worked in collaboration with the Scientific Planning and Support (SPS) team at the university's Energy Research Institute (ERI@N) to host the one-day charrette in downtown Singapore.

What is Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) and how does it relate to the practice of sustainable design?

We undertook a research query with the goal of using feedback from actual buildings to track design outcomes and define future inputs for design optioning.