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Architects Steve Kieran and James Timberlake use technology transfer to rewrite the laws of conventional wisdom in design and construction.

Architects with a mission

At the 2001 American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Convention in Denver, the College of Fellows of the AIA awarded its first Latrobe Fellowship to Philadelphia architects Stephen Kieran, FAIA, and James Timberlake, FAIA. The grant, named for the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, is awarded biennially for research leading to significant advances in the profession of architecture. As recipients of the inaugural award of $50,000, the architects immediately aimed their research at the restrictive paradigms that have segregated the four major disciplines critical to the construction process—architecture, construction, materials science, and product engineering. One existing paradigm states that although innovation occurs within each discipline, historically there has been very little collaboration among them. Kieran and Timberlake envision a new model in which all four disciplines share a “collective intelligence.”

 

Rendering courtesy Kiernan Timberlake Associates The facade for the Melvin and Claire Levine Hall at the University of Pennsylvania is a factory-made, pressure-equalized, double-glazed unit.

Since Henry Ford began mass production of the Model-T in 1907, his repetitive and fast assembly-line method has been improved on and mechanized, but the principle remained unchanged until recently. Timberlake, an automobile enthusiast who has researched the industry exhaustively, says that in the mid-1990s market forces pressured American automobile manufacturers to build cars faster and cheaper and, at the same time, to make them better. In short, with the extensive use of computer technology, the automotive industry responded with a modular system of production, whereby the role of suppliers changed from merely delivering parts to the factories to assembling collections of parts—such as doors, dashboards, and HVAC units—off-site and delivering them ready for installation on the assembly line.

This is no small innovation. Not only has this modular-assembly system produced better quality and allowed for customization, it has reduced the time from concept to release from 58 months a decade ago to 38 months today, and it has reduced labor costs by a third.

What does this have to do with constructing buildings? Plenty, according to Kieran and Timberlake, who have found parallels to the production of automobiles in the design and construction of buildings. In their Latrobe Fellowship proposal (www.latrobefellowship.com), they list the attributes shared by cars and buildings: “affordability, weather-tight construction, economical operation, durability over a reasonable period of time without major repairs, integrated mechanical and electrical systems, and an acceptable level of safety.” Building codes, site restrictions, and building-department approvals notwithstanding, the comparison is still convincing when one considers that buildings don’t have to travel safely at 60 miles per hour, and they don’t have to be produced in quantities of 25,000 units to be profitable. And, like the automotive industry, a high percentage of the cost of construction is field labor.

Just as the automotive industry had to respond to the market or perish, architects are beginning to feel the heat from clients who want their buildings delivered faster without additional costs or compromise in quality. In the age of rapid production in almost every other industry, savvy clients are less accepting of the conventional wisdom that states that it takes three to five years to produce a substantial new building. They are also wary of the long-standing equation that quality times scope equals cost times time. In other words, they don’t buy the concept that complex, well-constructed buildings cost more money and take considerably longer to build.