Archinect - News

Crystal Williams is announced as the 18th RISD president

2021-12-16T16:21:00-05:00

When we began the search for RISD’s 18th president, we sought candidates with not just the experience, education and wisdom that the job requires, but also receptivity, an aesthetic sensibility, the skill to communicate in a community that trades in images and materials, and something even more intangible: a deep, abiding empathy that can bind us all together

Williams has held similar positions at Williams College, Bates, and as the first-ever Dean for Institutional Diversity at Reed College in Oregon. While at Boston University, Williams was responsible for staff training and a host of successful diversity and inclusion initiatives in addition to her role as a full-time Professor of English in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“Crystal’s creativity and her talent for helping manage complex and challenging situations related to race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic differences have been invaluable in moving BU forward,” BU provost Jean Morrison said in a statement. “She has consistently produced programming that not only answers the issues facing us, but also helps to initiate structural change.”

Williams is a graduate of NYU and Cornell and is considered a prolific author and poet, with superlative works featured in the MOMA poetry project and the American Poetry Review, among other places. Her writing has received multiple awards an...

KPMB Architect's new building for Boston University reaches for carbon neutrality

2020-03-05T12:52:00-05:00

Boston University's new Center for Computing and Data Sciences building is set to be the largest carbon-neutral building in Boston when completed. The 19-story structure will house the university's mathematics, statistics, and computer science departments.

Previously covered on Archinect back in 2018, the goal for the project, according to Toronto-based architecture firm KPMB Architects, is to create a structure that would be "an iconic fixture on campus." Besides, its stacked, podium-like volumes, which are meant to resemble stacked books, the structure will also stand as the tallest—and greenest—building on campus.

A press statement by university president Robert A. Brown expresses, "This building is a physical statement about our commitment to the field. We wanted architecture that would signal to everyone that this was a special place, the center of campus,"

Boston University's Center for Computing and Data Sciences. Image courtesy of KPMB Architects

Boston University's Cente...

This new 'acoustic metamaterial' can cancel the sounds of anything—without blocking airflow

2019-03-11T14:16:00-04:00

A team of Boston University researchers recently stuck a loudspeaker into one end of a PVC pipe. They cranked it up loud. What did they hear? Nothing. How was this possible? Did they block the other end of the pipe with noise canceling foams or a chunk of concrete? No, nothing of the sort. The pipe was actually left open save for a small, 3D-printed ring placed around the rim. That ring cut 94% of the sound blasting from the speaker, enough to make it inaudible to the human ear.

"The mathematically designed, 3D-printed acoustic metamaterial is shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from," explain the Boston University researchers behind the discovery: Xin Zhang, a professor at the College of Engineering, and Reza Ghaffarivardavagh, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. "Inside the outer ring, a helical pattern interferes with sounds, blocking them from transmitting through the open center while preserving air's ability to flow through."

Precisely this capacity of maintaining airflow and enabling light to shine through while muting nearly all of the noise opens up a vast field of practical applications, including architectural.

KPMB Architects takes Boston University's data science building to new heights

2018-10-22T13:19:00-04:00

We wanted architecture that would signal to everyone that this was a special place, the center of campus...We wanted a building that in 2100 would stand up and mark the dynamic change in the University and talk about the century we're in. - Robert A. Brown Boston University President

Boston University and KPMB Architects have announced their plans to construct a 17-floor tower which will house BU's new Data Sciences Center. A program booming within the field of academia, BU plans to be a leader in this area of education. Alongside the team at KPMB, the architecture firm aims at building a structure that will be an "iconic" fixture on campus.

The monumental teaching center has a "podium" like base that is 4 stories high. On top of this base are 13, slightly off centered, floors that were designed to resemble an image of stacked books. The visual representation was made to play homage to the university's mission in its passion for research, artistic creativity, and scholarship among the staff and students on campus.

Also functioning as a public building, the interiors of the center are designed to foster innovation and collaboration. The space will be filled with whiteboard walls and terraced platforms that will serv...