The AIA Conference on Architecture 2022 (A’22) was held recently in Chicago, bringing together architecture professionals from around the country. Being the largest conference in the industry for professionals to explore from the Architecture EXPO to exhibitions and presentations, A’22 was also a great opportunity to connect readers with the authors of our recently published monograph, Fusion — The Performance of Architecture.
Kevin Sullivan, FAIA, Andrea Love, AIA and Peter Vieira, FAIA greeted bibliophiles at the A’22 store located in McCormick Place Grand Concourse. It was a very lively event with multiple book signings occurring, and we exchanged many valued thoughts with our readers and sign their copies of Fusion.
For decades, our work has embodied the integration of design and performance that is essential to the creation of humane and sustainable buildings of any type. To achieve this integration amidst the programmatic intricacy, technological complexity and intense energy use of hospitals and laboratories, we draw on our almost ninety-year history of progressive innovation in addition to an inclusive, collaborative, research-oriented culture that has become a model for the profession.
Fusion presents Payette’s philosophy and traces the firm’s contributions through concise histories of laboratory and hospital design. It explores the core principles that underlie our work—Identity and Transformation, Materiality and Craft, Taming Complexity and Measuring Performance—and digs deeply into seven of the firm’s most recent projects. Other chapters describe the process of nurturing the design excellence and practice culture that earned Payette the 2019 AIA Architecture Firm Award.
With a preface by Z Smith, Director of Sustainability and Building Performance at Eskew Dumez Ripple, and an introduction from Kevin Sullivan, President of Payette, Fusion includes essays by Sullivan and partners James Collins, George Marsh, Leon Drachman, Andrea Love and Peter Vieira, as well as a critical reflection by Mark Lee, Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Fusion can be found on Monacelli Press.
This Earth Week, we’ll be covering five landmark buildings exemplifying new approaches to building performance and sustainability.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Klarman Building is the first hospital in the northeast to implement chilled beams in an inpatient setting. Early energy analysis demonstrated that the use of chilled beams would be the best way to reduce building energy use.
For this strategy to work, however, the peak thermal loads of the façades could not exceed the capacity of the chilled beams. An integrated design approach and in-house modeling allowed for constant tuning of the façade to optimize glazing, solar exposure and massing. The building orients glazing to face true north and south to minimize heat gain and maximize occupant comfort, resulting in a 15% reduction in peak solar load.
Beyond performance, the distinctive serrated terracotta façade reflects the scale and cadence of individual patient rooms, providing a delicate scale and texture to the façade.
#earthweek #designalways #buildingscience #performalism #facade