In an ever-evolving profession, our advancing staff enriches the work and culture at Payette while cultivating the talent, creativity and growth among the very project teams they make up. Today we celebrate Karen Robichaud’s promotion to Director of Creative Engagement.
Karen joined Payette in 2012 as a graphic designer and has since led several communications initiatives from the ground-up for the firm. From the outset, Karen established Payette’s presence and strategy with social media, which leveraged many voices across the firm. As she positioned the firm in the social media sphere, Karen took on our firm’s external communications strategies and PR initiatives, such as planning outreach events, co-project managing “You Are Here: Wendy’s Welcome to the ED” and editing all written content published by Payette staff. In addition to her work leveraging the firm online and in print, Karen introduced the firm to hackathons, which led to a successful design competition. In 2016 Karen shared the Payette Hackathon experience at the Lab Design conference, the Equity by Design Symposium and led a hackathon for the AIA COTE Annual Summit. As an industry leader in social media strategy for architecture firms, Karen has spoken at SMPS Boston events, BSA events, ABX and AIA Convention.
Karen is an active member of the BSA, chairs the BSA Equity Roundtable and works with the AIA COTE Communications Task Force. Karen received her Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Theater Arts from the University of Richmond.
This Earth Week, we’ll be covering five landmark buildings exemplifying new approaches to building performance and sustainability.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Klarman Building is the first hospital in the northeast to implement chilled beams in an inpatient setting. Early energy analysis demonstrated that the use of chilled beams would be the best way to reduce building energy use.
For this strategy to work, however, the peak thermal loads of the façades could not exceed the capacity of the chilled beams. An integrated design approach and in-house modeling allowed for constant tuning of the façade to optimize glazing, solar exposure and massing. The building orients glazing to face true north and south to minimize heat gain and maximize occupant comfort, resulting in a 15% reduction in peak solar load.
Beyond performance, the distinctive serrated terracotta façade reflects the scale and cadence of individual patient rooms, providing a delicate scale and texture to the façade.
#earthweek #designalways #buildingscience #performalism #facade