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 »
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 »
Considering the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Architecture and Urban Design, in this Innovation Incubator we explore how AI can be leveraged to provide environmental analysis and trained to assist Perkins&Will in creating sustainable urban design proposals. Specifically, we propose to create an AI model to automate and speed up initial environmental analysis... Read more »
Through ongoing conversations with manufacturer’s representatives focused on material health and embodied carbon, it became evident that take-back programs for materials such as carpet and ceiling tile were not apparent to project teams, leading to a gap in the circular economy. This project employed a series of surveys completed by building owners, general contractors, and... Read more »
This research incubator explores the concept of flexible streets championed by leaders in the planning and mobility industries, including our own colleagues at Nelson\Nygaard, to establish a “flex street” definition that planners and urban designers can use to communicate with communities and local officials. In establishing this flexible street definition, we looked to recent street... Read more »
Researchers in the Process Lab have developed the Design Optimization Toolset (DOTS), a user-friendly, freely accessible generative design plugin for Rhino Grasshopper. DOTs allows designers to interactively develop design alternatives that reconcile project-specific constraints with the geometric complexity of architectural forms. Perkins&Will designers have applied DOTs in space planning, site parcellation, massing, and urban design... Read more »
