KieranTimberlake has been looking to buy a building for over a decade now, and after a long search, the Philadelphia firm is putting down roots in the Northern Liberties neighborhood with the recent purchase of the 1948 Henry F. Ortlieb Company Bottling House. The firm’s substantial growth first prompted the partners, James Timberlake and Stephen Kieran, to search for a new home, and this two-story, 63,000 sq foot building located on the Ortlieb campus will provide more than enough space to accommodate the firm’s 90 plus employees.
Timberlake and Kieran have drafted a preliminary plan for all three levels of the building, designed by architect Richard Koelle of William F. Koelle & Co. and a protégé of Paul Cret, and will begin renovations in 2013. The exterior will remain the same, but the ground floor will house a workshop and the second floor will be transformed into studio, office, and conference space. Timberlake says the building features the hallmark details of contemporary post-war era design such as stripped windows, industrial sashes, and linear light on the top floor.
“What appealed to us about it is that it is a piece of modern industrial architecture from the late 1940s still intact in Philadelphia. And from the outside it is a contributing piece to the neighborhood,” says Timberlake. “It affords a column free space that suits our culture very nicely.”
KieranTimberlake will begin to make improvements to the envelope within the next six to nine weeks and the firm is currently moving ahead with a sustainability study to devise a strategy to make the project environmentally ethical. They’re exploring the possibility of ventilating the building naturally and implementing day lighting with the help of lighting designer Charles Stone from Fisher Marantz Stone.
KieranTimberlake has been the architect for projects such as the US Embassy in London and the Sculpture and Gallery Building at Yale University, and will be working on a series of buildings and a 1700-acre site design for the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center.
