Great places bring out the best in us, stir us to aspire to greater heights. Great design can make a place unforgettable, bring it life with personality, energy, and promise.
We create places that are gracious in context, and iconic to our clients’ communities. We design for impact, bringing to life innovative places of learning, commerce and community.
KSS is relentless, fearless in imagining what places can be and how they can function. Yesterday’s solutions cannot solve today’s challenges.
We embrace developing the new place that straddles building archetypes, unlocking the potential within the complex program or the challenging context.
From Guidance Comes Greatness
Our ideation process is singular in the architecture profession. We are inclusive in our collaborative imagining, and deft in consensus-building. We think like owners, stewarding all resources to the greatest benefit.
Our clients trust us to lead them. And we trust our clients, involving them completely and collaboratively in a uniquely transparent process.
We Are United by Design
We believe that design can only achieve greatness when built upon human relationships.
Trust—between client and their community, between architect and their client—rises from accountability. Within that trust we design places that facilitate and celebrate interwoven relationships, creating rich and rewarding communities.
Trends
Integrated Development
A new paradigm for development is forming as we continue into the 21st Century. The need for more equitable human development is emerging as a central concept as the economy transforms in what many are calling the fourth industrial revolution. At this moment, we have the opportunity to lay a new foundation that can facilitate systemic change to champion human development. To do so, we will have to think about and practice development differently.
All aspects of our society are accelerating rapidly, yet obstacles abound creating friction at every intersection – increased traffic and congestion battle shorter customer expectations, longer work schedules yet limited access to daylight and fresh air, demand for energy conversions, but not enough energy or failing energy grids. The need for creative design-driven development is becoming more essential than ever to overcome these friction points. We believe that industrial development has never been more important, and can serve as a catalyst for this change.
Institutional resilience has never been more critical. To explore this important topic, KSS facilitated a discussion with representatives from the University of Pennsylvania, a leader in planning and designing for long-term resilience, at the Society for College and University Planning’s Mid-Atlantic Conference.
KSS Architects is pleased to announce Mayva Donnon as a new partner. An exceptional architect and leader, Mayva has led several of KSS’ most noted projects and built many of the firm’s lasting client relationships.
Sustainability in Practice: How KSS Architects Approaches Sustainable Design
Amidst an array of existing sustainability rating systems and frameworks, KSS Architects sought to dig deeper into our own understanding and approach to sustainability as a firm.
Nascent Trends in the Built Environment Validated & Accelerated by COVID-19
COVID-19 is a catalyst of change. Several evolving architecture and design trends have not only been validated but accelerated to meet this moment: the value of open space, empathy, the balance of convergence and decentralization, blending boundaries, and wellness.
A SUSTAINABLE ENGINE FOR INNOVATION IN PHILADELPHIA
The University of Pennsylvania’s new Pennovation Center is a rebel, a futurist, a disruptor. It’s a phenomenon of a building that is also a machine for sparking new growth in the fields of learning, commerce, and community across greater Philadelphia and beyond. What’s more, its bold approach to sustainability that leverages its industrial heritage as an engine for research and learning has earned it a LEED Gold rating.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, business press headlines have declared a range of impacts on the workplace, from the end of the office as we know it to the absolute necessity of in-person workplaces like never before.
We believe it comes down to ‘why.’ Why do we go to the office, and why is the communal workplace important?
We believe that environments can fundamentally alter the behavior of individuals with ASD, and that, all too often, individuals find themselves struggling against the parameters of a space. Building ASD-friendly environments has become part of our vocabulary.
What is an urban food desert? Often located in low-income, high-development areas urban food deserts or “nutritional wastelands” are running over with fast food restaurants and expensive convenience stores, but little to no affordable healthy food options. For the folks who live in these areas the fresh produce that does exist is outrageously expensive, which makes the trip to the corner fast food restaurant more appealing and economical. As one of the leading issues facing New Jersey, much has been said about the concept of urban food deserts. According to the federal government, New Jersey contains 134 “nutritional wastelands.” How can New Jersey solve this problem locally? Enter the entrepreneurs.
When university expansion provides tangible improvements to the community and engages community in the planning process, everyone benefits. Community resistance becomes community support. The Charter High School and West Side Campus are models of this approach and provide a new, positive meaning behind the phrase “town and gown.”
