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

Research into reality

Kieran and Timberlake’s research is solid and their conclusions logical. Buildings, like cars, are made of components, which, in turn, are made of many smaller elements. If a car door can arrive at the factory completely outfitted with steel exterior, fabric interior, locks, speakers, glass, and controls, then why can’t a building door arrive at the construction site with its hardware, automatic or mechanical closer, weather seals, security apparatus, exit light, alarm, and signage assembled? The same is true of other building elements, especially if they are considered systems, or in the language of Kieran and Timberlake, “modular building assemblies.” To date, the architects have taken their research from a theoretical framework to a real building—the Melvin and Claire Levine Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently under construction and expected to be completed this spring, the 40,000-square-foot glazed pavilion will contain offices, laboratories, meeting rooms, and an auditorium for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

While the structure and the floor plates are a conventional post-tensioned concrete system, the architects conceived the curtain wall as a modular building assembly. Their search for a fabricator who could achieve this led them out of the U.S. to the Permasteelisa Company in Veneto, Italy. (Permasteelisa fabricated the modular titanium panels for Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the double-glazed curtain wall at Galeries Lafayette in Berlin by Jean Nouvel.) Like a car door, the Permasteelisa curtain wall is comprised of panels that are assembled in the factory of separate components—in this case, an external, pressure-equalized, double-glazed unit; an internal, single-glazed unit; and a mechanically ventilated cavity with continual air flow supplied by room air from an inlet at the base that exits through an outlet at the head of the glazing frame. Because fabrication in a controlled environment can be extremely precise and yield small tolerances, coordination of concrete pours, inserts, and attachments with the base building is critical. Yet, the curtain wall drives the coordination. Permasteelisa provides full-scale shop drawings that show every component the company is providing as well as details of how the panels will interface with the structure. When completed, the panels will be shipped to Philadelphia and anchored to the structure.

Project architect Richard Maimon, AIA, identifies the curtain wall as “unitized construction” to differentiate it from the conventional “stick-built.” “Unitized construction allows more work to be done at the shop, offering a higher level of quality and precision. Unitized, modularized, or componentized construction is a direct transfer from the automobile, aerospace, and shipbuilding industries,” explains Maimon. The higher level of quality means that the joints are tighter, which means the risk of moisture penetration is lower, which, in turn, means reduced liability for the architect and contractor. The curtain wall at Levine Hall will have only four field joints, as opposed to dozens had it been stick-built, giving the architect reason to anticipate a short punch list.

The economic value of unitized construction must be reckoned in terms of first costs versus long-term costs. “When clients, such as institutions, weigh the value of the system over the life span of the building, unitized systems come out ahead,” explains Timberlake. From an operational and energy-use perspective, the client can expect a 15 to 20 percent savings over the life of the building.

Brave new world of building

There’s nothing like a successful project in the real world to turn hypothesis into fact and validate one’s research. Levine Hall is only one, relatively small success story for technology transfer and an integrated approach to design, but Kieran and Timberlake’s research will no doubt yield more. To verify the proper direction of their research, they are organizing a symposium this fall through the auspices of the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, where they also conduct a Master’s Research Laboratory.

The revelation alone that the automotive and aerospace industries have successfully exploited developments in information technology, computer-aided design (CAD), and fabrication techniques to provide more scope or higher quality in less time and for less money should, at the very least, inspire the architecture profession to critique its self-imposed boundaries. As Timberlake acknowledges, “We have to start thinking like everybody else.”

 

Spinoffs from NASA for architects Structures. During the Apollo program, NASA searched for a durable, noncombustible material for space suits that was also thin, lightweight, and flexible. At the time, Owens-Corning was developing a glass-fiber yarn, which it wove into a fabric and then coated with Teflon for strength, durability, and hydrophobicity (the ability to repel moisture). A heavier version is now used to cover shopping malls and stadiums. Space-based fabric reduces lighting needs, and its reflectivity lowers cooling costs. Flat Cable. To make aircraft and spacecraft more compact, NASA devised space-saving, weight-shaving measures. One such measure is the use of extremely thin flat wires known as flat conductor cable (FCC). Only as thick as a credit card, FCC dramatically reduces the space occupied by the many miles of power lines in aerospace vehicles. A consortium of manufacturers pooled their resources to develop complete FCC systems, which encompass not only the cable but the sheathing, connectors, tools, and other equipment needed to facilitate FCC use by designers and builders. Source: “The Best of NASA’s Spinoffs,” from Spinoff magazine (vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html#BEST)