For years, the lab bench has be considered the ‘rockstar’ of the laboratory. But are scientists using it as much as they have in the past? Is the type of science, flow within the lab, or reliance on specialized laboratory spaces and equipment making the lab bench in need of a makeover? We targeted interviews... Read more »
Perkins&Will supports small, focused explorations proposed by staff members with micro-grants of money and time through the Innovation Incubator program. The Innovation Incubator promotes the exploration and development of ideas that improve our work, open new areas of business and stretch our collective creativity. The results of these explorations further our design work, improve our design process and contribute to the knowledge base of our industry.
The program was launched in 2010 and was an immediate success. With more than 700 entries over 20 cycles, sustained interest in the Innovation Incubator at all levels of the firm is testament to its relevance in our ever-growing culture of innovation.
Browse some of the Innovation Incubator projects that have helped grow the profession’s intelligence over the years. Explore more at: innovation.perkinswill.com.
Increased opportunities and the ability to work from home supported by unbroken technological connectivity have allowed the stressors and anxiety of the workplace to creep deeper into our personal lives. Hence, it is essential to reset the brain while increasing separation between work and personal life. TRANSITion is a passenger-focused solution that helps regain control... Read more »
“Confronting the Sexist City” is a study that helps reimagine our cities and understand how we can create better opportunities for women, girls, and other gender-diverse individuals in the public realm. This first exploration involved a group of participants traveling along a 2.2km stretch of Queen Street in Toronto, documenting their range of emotions and... Read more »
The post-acute care space is in dire need of innovation. Post-acute care facilities provide rehabilitation and long-term support for patients’ continued recovery and management of chronic illness or disability. With the increasing need to improve patient care and demographic shifts, healthcare systems have been focusing on quality improvement. However, there are several instances where patients... Read more »
The architectural model is both a tool for communication and a vehicle of exploration; not only does it reflect a formal design idea, but also ethics in material selection. Just as the building industry can generate enormous amounts of waste, so too can the ideation process. Copious amounts of single use materials are used and... Read more »
This Innovation Incubator “Design Object Morphologies” examines model building within Perkins&Will Architects. The first part of this research explored model building knowledge bases across our studios to understand how we fabricate models, what they look like, the resources they require, how we pay for them and why out clients love to see them. The second... Read more »
Many transportation projects require developing street segment geometries for the aggregation of related data at a level useful to local clients and policy makers. A system of bus routes may share some street segments and not others, and we want to precisely understand the extent of shared street segments – this requires a systematic segmentation... Read more »
In the United States, the maternal mortality rate is 23.8 per 100,000 pregnancies representing 861 maternal deaths in 2020.1 Hospitals have made pregnancy a medical condition rather than a life event and it lacks patient-centeredness and empathy.2 To resolve the issue of maternal mortality and solve the physical challenges evolving during care, the need for... Read more »
This research aims to study the needs of birthing women, focusing on enhancing the delivery of care and developing a new obstetrics program supporting patient-centeredness. A narrative literature review of the clinical needs of labor and delivery care is described to understand the importance of spatial conditions. The study will involve a descriptive evaluation of... Read more »
The Neurodiversity Toolkit provides strategies for evaluating and implementing design solutions in the workplace, to support the spectrum of neurological needs found within society. Support for Neurodiversity responds to the reality that we’re all wired differently. Through strategies that provide choice, flexibility and variety, environments can accommodate the diversity of people. Just as the varying... Read more »
The methodology presented in this report is developed to assist refurbishment projects in the early stages to establish a sustainable retrofit strategy. Through an analysis of the energy efficiency, life cycle carbon and cost of various retrofit measures, the method can give guidance on what measures should be pursued in a project and which ones... Read more »