Our latest experiment with building sensor networks—undertaken as part of the retrofit of Building 661 (The Building Energy Sciences Center) for the Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) Hub, one of three innovation clusters created by the Department of Energy in 2011—has yielded some interesting results.

Through a week-long "Architecture as Catalyst" workshop at the University of Minnesota, KieranTimberlake researchers Billie Faircloth and Ryan Welch challenged architecture students to recast whole material assemblies as "fast" weather probes. Using low-cost wireless sensor technology developed by our research group, students were able to align their materials and construction know-how with real-time studies of the environment and open a discourse on how real-time environmental feedback can influence design practice.

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.

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.

Our 2012 holiday card featured diagrams of green roofs surveyed in our Green Roof Vegetation Study. Kira Gould offers her perspective on the Metropolis POV Blog.

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.

The American Institute of Architects has selected Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges at Yale University to receive a 2013 Institute Honor Award, its highest professional award for architecture, urban design, and interior design. This project was one of 11 awarded for architecture, including the Barnes Foundation and the New York Public Library. From over 700 total submissions, 28 works located throughout the world were selected.

Spencer de Grey, Head of Design at Foster + Partners and Chairman, The Building Centre Trust, and Professor Michael Stacey, Chair in Architecture and Director of Architecture at the University of Nottingham, made opening remarks at the London debut of the Prototyping Architecture exhibition last week.

The KieranTimberlake Research Group undertook a survey of the green roof located atop a new residence hall on the western edge of the University of California, San Diego, campus as part of a larger study of green roofs at six of our university buildings.

Designed in partnership with Gantt Huberman Architects, Center City Building received an Honor Award from AIA North Carolina. The jury called the building “very striking from the exterior,” saying they liked “the boldness of the scheme.” The building represents the university's first urban campus.