ISU Student Innovation Center

Iowa State University | Ames, Iowa

KieranTimberlake | 2020 | 146,000 SF

The Student Innovation Center at Iowa State University is a multidisciplinary hub with an iconic performative envelope. KieranTimberlake worked with faculty and students to establish a unique program that includes fabrication shops, a glass blowing studio, a test kitchen, a media production suite, and student retail space. Extensive research on collaboration culture and modern learning environments led to a design that blends flexibility, transparency, and discovery.

My Role

My work on the Student Innovation Center spanned 5+ years from kickoff to final punch list— an invaluable experience in its entirety. I wore many hats and worked with a talented team across multiple states.

As a researcher, I mapped campus resources, parsed student survey results, and compiled a report on the culture of innovation to help develop the building's unique program.
As a designer, I led rendering efforts, crafted presentation graphics for biweekly client meetings, and pushed design options from massing concepts through to construction details.
As BIM lead, I managed our Revit cloud models, defined team tools and workflows, and held monthly BIM sessions to maintain model health. I personally built the majority of the Envelope Model, ran organized facade analysis spreadsheets, and conducted rapid iteration of VE options.
As a shepherd of the Contract Documents, I reviewed submittals, answered RFIs, and flew to Iowa biweekly to walk the site, troubleshoot with contractors, and report on construction progress.

An analysis of existing resources, academic distribution, and cross-disciplinary programs at ISU. Diagram created using Rhino, Grasshopper, Excel, and Illustrator.

Research

Our team studied ISU's academic structure and existing innovation spaces scattered across campus. A student survey helped us understand the building's potential (and the overwhelming demand for Starbucks and outlets). We translated metrics collected from this survey, existing space analysis, stakeholder feedback, and precedent projects into a building program with five categories: Co-working, Hacking & Making, Interaction, Special Projects, and Gross Area.

Envelope Design & BIM Development

The undulating, pleated unitized curtain wall mitigates solar heat gain by self-shading transparent glazing. Its dynamism—transforming throughout the day as sunlight plays on its geometries— was achieved using 18 different panel types and over 130 subtypes.

I led the creation of complex Revit families, developed the system logic, carried the model through Design Development, and trained our Architect of Record, Substance Architecture, to work in the model throughout Construction Documentation. The structure of this model was critical to VE optioning, as the team was able to quickly collect metrics such as glazing area and panel counts using custom parameters.

Shadow Box RQ: The Perfect Shade of Pink

The green-blue hue of the curtain wall glazing is amplified in front of a white shadow box panel, so our team was curious about alternate back pan colors that could neutralize the shadow box appearance. I wound up working with KT's Research Group to pilot a research query for the perfect shade of pink.

We developed a 3-phase method to determine the perceived RGB value of a glass sample, calculate a neutralizing color, and test paint samples in a mock-up. The team hand-picked dozens of other shades of pink for testing, but ultimately returned to select one of the two paint colors originally recommended by this study.