Loblolly House :
Elements of a New Architecture
KieranTimberlake Associates

Known for their in-depth research and innovative, inventive, and meticulously constructed architecture, KieranTimberlake Associates put its ideas about streamlining the making of architecture to the test. The results took the form of a fully modular and award-winning house, featuring an active and adjustable double-skin facade so advanced that no client would consider it. KieranTimberlake Associates boldly took he project upon themselves, using partner Stephen Kieran's own summer house as a laboratory.

Situated on idyllic Taylors Island, off the coast of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, Loblolly House inaugurates a truly new, more efficient way of building. Through the use of state-of-the-art building information modeling (BIM), the architects were able to streamline the design-build process. Thousands of parts were collapsed and integrated into a few dozen panels and blocks that slid into an aluminum frame set on wooden pylons. Consisting of 70 percent prefabricated components, the kit-of-parts house was assembled (mostly with a wrench) and lifted into place on-site in less than six weeks.

Unlike most houses, even those built with sustainability in mind, Loblolly disassembles as easily as it assembles, making it an ecologically sound structure with a manageable environmental footprint. Focusing on a single built project and illustrated with extensive photographic documentation and numerous detailed drawings, Loblolly House is the manual for componentized prefab. The book includes a DVD of the film "A House in the Trees" by producers Rick Deppe and Kathleen Blake, a real-time documentary of the design, fabrication, and assembly of Loblolly House.

"If prefabs are assembly-line Fords, Loblolly is a custom hot rod, begging for mass production."—Andrew Blum for WIRED magazine


KieranTimberlake Associates LLP is an award-winning and internationally published architecture firm noted for its research, innovation and inventive design and planning services. Founded in 1984 in Philadelphia by Stephen Kieran, FAIA, and James Timberlake, FAIA, the firm is comprised of fifty four professionals. KieranTimberlake Associates' projects include the programming, planning and design of all types of new structures and their interiors; and the renovation, reuse and conservation of existing structures. The firm's clients include arts and civic organizations, cultural and educational institutions, corporations, industrial and research partners, and private residential clients.

They believe in process as the first art. Great and wonderful architecture cannot be made without the clear vision and guidance of a provocative client working in critical unison with the aspiring architect. They employ collective rather than singular intelligence in the making of architecture. Their process is holistic involving many layers of information and participants at one time. We believe the core acts of the architect are the creative selection, organization, integration and articulation of systems about the ideas, ideals and daily use of the inhabitant. Their art is the discovery of external and internal logic derived from this exploration. It is the needs of the inhabitant, in the context of site circumstance, that lead to a masterful articulation and expression of landscape, light, materials and systems. The result is a vision that is unique.
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Editorial Reviews

Loblolly House, Architectural Record:
"Elevated on a foundation of loblolly tree stumps, this two story abode features prefabricated floor and ceiling cartridges that contain heating, ventilation, and electricity, and a fully intergrated mobile bedroom and bathroom units." (May, 2008)

Lightweight Facade Systems, Architect Magazine:
"Whats great about this is that it is not trying to make a product. This is a firm that is investigating an entire way of working on buildings." (September, 2007)

Sea Change, Plenty:
"The news that the Loblolly house is slated to go into mass production with Steve Glenns LivingHomes prefab development company represents a great leap forward in whats also known as flatpak housing: modular, eco-friendly homes aimed at reducing construction waste." — Heather Wagner (February/March, 2008)

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