KPF visit in New York

11 April 2011: During the New York field trip, we visited the office of KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox) one of the leading architectural practices in the world, and very very important in the world of tall buildings. They are architects for the Heron Tower in London, and the Shanghai Financial centre.
    Their commitment to Sustainable Design is underlined by employing two specialist architects, Krista Raines and Gera Feigon who are involved in all projects, from day one. Their presence ensures that sustainable design thinking starts from the very first outline design, through to final completion and validation. There is a strong ethos in the practice that every project must achieve high LEED ratings.
    During the talk, they showed us slides of : Islin Metropark (major refurb); Boston design project with emphasis on shading (unbuilt) ; Minnesota student centre (emphasis on daylight and columns design) ; Unilever HQ London (rebuild behind facade); Hysan Place in Hong Kong (complex shape with breezeways through building); Endesa HQ in Madrid (major atrium design with ground exchange); Hudson Yards, NYC, north of Chelsea (neighbourhood and tower cluster built on deck above rail-lines); Lang Fang master plan (city of 20 million), trying to achieve energy balance, with energy, water, urban agriculture etc. (mentioned that they had done project for Djakarta as large as Manhattan).

After the talk, we had a tour of the office areas - they use the long side walls of the core as a running exhibition of the work of the practice. They also have a large model display space.