The 2017 Spring Perkins+Will Innovation Incubator project proposed to develop the next generation of net carbon negative, low embodied energy wood composite structural elements. The team created composite fibers composed of a bio-based thermosetting plastic and fiber additives (carbon, aramid, and two types of wood fiber), and evaluated their sustainability and began the process of... Read more »
P+W researchers partnered with Autodesk BUILDSpace to use robot arms to stretch and manipulate molten plastic. This project was a continuation of research performed at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. View the complete white paper here. PROJECT TEAM: Soulaf Aburas, Phillip Ewing PROJECT DATE December 2016 :
Perkins+Will Chicago teamed up with Autodesk BUILDSpace in Boston to fabricate two full scale nodes of the proposed River Beech Tower. The wood, concrete and steel hybrid constructions were assembled at Pepper Construction’s warehouse in Chicago and are currently on display in the Chicago office of Perkins+Will. The proposed 80-story wood tower design was produced... Read more »
Andrew Tsay Jacobs is a committee member of the International Code Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Tall Wood Buildings. Code change proposal will be submitted January 8, 2017. Proposal includes provisions for buildings of fire-protected mass timber construction to be up to 18 stories and 270ft in height. Fire-protected mass timber construction with limited exposed... Read more »
P+W researchers collaborated with Autodesk BUILDSpace to fabricate an all-wood space frame using 2x lumber and wooden dowels. Using Dynamo to create the geometry and Fusion 360 to create the executable files, the 2x members were cut using a 5-axis CNC machine. Two assembled truss prototypes were created – one is housed at P+W Vancouver... Read more »
Most skyscrapers are behemoths of steel, glass, and reinforced concrete. As part of an ongoing project, researchers at Cambridge University, architects at Perkins+Will, and engineers at Thornton Tomasetti are proposing a timber skyscraper, called the River Beech Tower, in Chicago, Illinois. The team sees the wooden tower concept as an especially sustainable type of architecture since... Read more »
The Precautionary List is a compilation of the most ubiquitous and problematic substances that people encounter every day in the built environment. Hosted on the Transparency website (transparency.perkinswill.com), it allows design professionals to search for key substances and chemicals of concern using filters like project type, product type, and health and environmental impacts. The information... Read more »
Flame retardants (FRs) are a group of additives that include toxic chemicals shown to be harmful to human and environmental health in many ways. With the enactment of California’s TB117-2013 for furniture fire safety and The Chicago Tribune’s scathing investigative report about FR manufacturers’ misleading marketing efforts, we learned that toxic chemicals are not the... Read more »
Sustaining a reasonable level of safety and quality in our day-to-day lives now requires that we collectively respond to weather extremes, economic disruptions, and resource depletions that are becoming commonplace globally, regionally, and locally. Resilience involves interactive social, economic, and environmental elements that respond to both acute short-term and systemic long-term topics related to the... Read more »
Paper presented at this year’s TechConnect in Washington, D.C. Now published via TechConnect Briefs.
This article presents a study of a Pitt River Middle School (built in 2013) and, analyzes how close the project comes to achieving the International Passive House standard and what changes would need to be made to achieve the standard. The article reviews the target metrics associated with the Passive House Standard and processes involved... Read more »
