Transient thermal behavior across wall sections in Building 661

Architects rely on energy models to verify that buildings will perform to desired energy standards, but simulation alone does not provide a tacit understanding of the nuanced conditions buildings experience over time. To supplement energy models, we deploy sensor networks to monitor environmental attributes such as temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide. This is particularly relevant to building retrofits, where the data informs performance modifications, targeting both energy efficiency and occupant comfort, all intended to improve existing building stock and advance our knowledge of the interaction of materials and climate.

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Prototyping Architecture exhibition opening from The Building Centre on Vimeo.

Opening remarks given at the London debut of the Prototyping Architecture exhibition by 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. The exhibition runs from 11 January to 20 March 2013 at The Building Centre in London.

We are honored to have our Loblolly House critical detail included in this exhibition, which features works from Amanda Levete Architects, Barkow Leibinger, Philip Beesley Architects Inc, Yves Ebnoether, and many more. Many thanks to the team of architecture students from the University of Nottingham for their expert assembly/disassembly of the prototype in Nottingham and London.

View of underground addition and courtyard, photo © Peter Aaron/OTTO

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. From over 700 total submissions, 28 works located throughout the world were selected by the jury.

Completed in 2011, the renewal of Morse and Ezra Stiles College, one of Eero Saarinen’s last works, marked the final phase in Yale’s campaign to renovate its twelve original residential colleges. Three major aspects to the renewal were the creation of 25,000 square feet of student life and activity space in an underground addition; reconfiguration of the prevailing courtyard hardscapes into a sustainable landscape dominated by water and greenery; and transformation of the student housing mix from stand-alone single rooms into suites. See more >

Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake outside Ortlieb’s Bottling House in Philadelphia

Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake have announced their purchase of the Henry F. Ortlieb Company Bottling House, at the corner of N. American and Poplar Streets in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood.

KieranTimberlake will renovate the Bottling House beginning in 2013, and relocate their current studio in the Art Museum neighborhood to Northern Liberties by early 2014.

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Edgar N. Putman Event Pavilion, James A. Michener Art Museum, photo © Michael Moran/OTTO

In a ceremony this week the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects awarded the Edgar N. Putman Event Pavilion at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA, with its highest honor, a Gold Medal for Design Excellence. Continue Reading »