Architect Magazine announced today that two of our projects, the Wireless Sensor Network and the Green Roof Vegetation Study, won 2013 R+D Awards. They are featured in the magazine's July issue along with six other winning projects deemed exceptional by jurors Jing Liu, Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, and Bill Zahner, Hon. AIA. Now in its seventh year, the R+D Awards program celebrates exploration and innovation in architecture.

London's Centre for the Built Environment announced the winners of the New London Awards 2013 at an annual luncheon yesterday at Guildhall. The Embassy of the United States was recognized with a prize in the Office Buildings category. New London Awards recognize the very best in architecture, planning and development in London. New and proposed projects across all sectors of the built environment were eligible and were judged by an eminent international jury. The jury was looking for schemes for both built and unbuilt projects of the highest design quality that demonstrate a positive impact on their surroundings and make a wider contribution to life in the city. A full list of winners is featured on the NLA website.

Philadelphia, PA – Renovation work continues on the Henry F. Ortlieb Company Bottling House at the corner of N. American and Poplar Streets in Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood. The Philadelphia architecture firm KieranTimberlake will move into the renovated building in early 2014. 
 
Work currently underway includes exterior envelope restoration and roof replacement, with new windows to be installed beginning in September. Brick repair has proven to be more extensive than expected, which has led to the temporary closure of the 800 block of North American between Brown and Poplar Streets. Residents should expect one or two additional street closures in August and September as windows are installed.

The Master Plan for the Central Delaware has received a 2013 Award of Excellence from AIA New York State. The goal of this 30-year plan is to transform this six-mile length of Philadelphia's Central Delaware River Waterfront into an authentic extension of the thriving city and vibrant neighborhoods immediately to its west, breathing life back into a post-industrial waterfront once at the heart of Philadelphia's economy.

Hidden City's Vivienne Tang reviews two in-progress projects at the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub in Philadelphia--both of which will serve as demonstration projects for energy-efficiency strategies in commercial buildings. 
 

Testing And Proving Building Innovation At The Navy Yard 
 
Philadelphians spend 29 percent more on energy costs in commercial buildings than Americans do on average and energy spending is only higher in New York City, Washington, DC, and Boston. The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub–know as the EEB Hub–headquartered at the Navy Yard, wants to change that. 
 
The federally-funded 27-member consortium led by Penn State University was the first Energy Innovation Hub created by the Obama administration. The goal of the project is to develop affordable tools for design, construction, and operation that will significantly reduce energy waste–and therefore costs–in commercial buildings under 250,000 square feet. Now, several years after its launch, the EEB Hub will try to prove its point by creating two demonstration projects–one retrofit and one new construction–on the Navy Yard campus. Both buildings, substantially funded through state grants given to Penn State during the Rendell administration, are expected to be open by spring 2014.

Opened in 2011 and designed by James Corner Field Operations, Race Street Pier is the newest space along the Philadelphia waterfront to open to the public as a component of the Master Plan for the Central Delaware. Now the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that work is underway to bring new life to Pier 53—once Philadelphia's arrival point for new immigrants—with a public park that will be part of the plan to create park land every half-mile along the six-mile stretch of waterfront.

Phila. counterpart to Ellis Island will get recognition 
By Jennifer Lin - The Philadelphia Inquirer Saturday, Jun 1, 2013  
 
To look at Pier 53 today, a thin finger of tree-covered land stretching into the tidal waters of the Delaware River, you would never guess that this was the front door to America for a million immigrants from Europe.

KieranTimberlake Research Group Director Billie Faircloth and Fabrication Studio Manager Peter Curry went to Ahmedabad recently to conduct a site visit and workshop with the goal of building a full bay prototype of the Ideal Choice Homes structural system.

PlanPhilly's Eyes on the Street reported recently on our adaptive reuse project at Ortlieb's Bottling House, the former bottling plant of a brewery that will be home to our new studio in 2014. Writer Ashley Hahn spoke with James Timberlake about plans to make use of natural ventilation and daylighting in the historic 1948 building, and to monitor the work spaces for comfort once we move in.

At Keeling Apartments, a residence hall on the University of California, San Diego campus, the exterior and interior walls, floors and ceilings are exposed concrete, constructed with intense focus on composition, formwork, and craft. The exterior is clad with precast concrete panels hung in front of the structure as rainscreens, supplemented by cement board cladding and window infill at the open bays of the concrete frame. Given their large size, the precast panels must be anchored to the building frame from the interior, before the weatherproofed back-up wall behind is installed.

According to a survey conducted by the Smithsonian Institution, Philadelphia has more public art than any other American city. Dilworth Plaza will be no exception. The transformation of the space adjacent to City Hall includes an installation called Pulse that will trace the paths of the three major transit lines in columns of orange, blue, and green illuminated mist.