An 18th-century Federal farmhouse had multiple lean-to additions tacked onto it over its first 200 years. These served not so much to reach out to the landscape but to separate those within the house from it.

In addition, plantings that were once under control began to consume not only the home's walls but also any potential for a view from the windows that actually caught a glimpse of a backyard pond.  Published 2013.0605

At the same time that middle-class children gained space in the general living areas of the family house and their bedrooms were decorated to enhance self-esteem and creativity, they also acquired their own miniature dwellings.  Published 2013.0515

Stairs, ramps, and slopes are specific types of flooring assemblies that join two or more different levels.

Their design is guided, in part, by larger design intentions that involve human movement through space, along with scale, location, orientation, wayfinding strategies, and their contextual fit within the immediate and surrounding environment.  Published 2012.0418

Compelled by sentimentality and the knowledge that the former owners (a farm family) would be retained to work the land, a Chicago couple commissioned architect Margaret McCurry to convert a 26-acre (11-hectare) farm in Galien, Michigan, into an expanded family compound while preserving as much as was practical of the original farmhouse.  Published 2012.0411

There are over 80 million single-family homes in the United States, and it's estimated that 18 million of these are "under water," meaning the mortgage is larger than the value of the house. Millions of families feel trapped, living a life sentence of domestic frustration in homes that do not work for them while being unable to move to solve the problems they confront on a daily basis.  Published 2012.0208

The exhibit "Metabolism, the City of the Future" at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is a major retrospective looking at Japan's most widely known and perhaps least understood modern architecture movement.

Subtitled "Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan," the exhibit throws up images depicting a sci-fi world of floating cities, metropolises in the sky, and soaring geometric shapes and patterns repeated over and over with little apparent correspondence to the psychological needs of humans.  Published 2011.1214

In the last few years, fans of the Portland Trail Blazers may have noticed some changes to the Rose Garden arena, the basketball team's home court in Portland, Oregon. The white roof may look a bit brighter, after cleaning to improve solar reflectivity.

At KieranTimberlake, we frequently conduct postoccupancy building monitoring to verify the performance of our buildings. Preproject monitoring services are used to diagnose and treat existing buildings.

A monitoring program preceded renovation work at Yale University's Sage Bowers Hall, a 1920s-era classroom and office building. The study compared existing uninsulated construction with mock-ups that added new insulation and energy-efficient window assemblies.  Published 2011.0928