Kennedy & Violich Architecture

Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx) was founded in 1990 by Sheila Kennedy and Frano Violich. KVA MATx works collaboratively with business leaders, manufacturers, cultural institutions and public agencies to create designs that advance the integration of new and traditional materials and material fabrication techniques in architecture. MATx has developed designs and technology applications for Dupont, Siemens, Osram, Herman Miller, Saint-Gobain, The North Face, the City of Porto in Portugal, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States Department of Energy.

The MATx Portable Light Project, a non-profit global initiative that enables people in the developing world to create and own portable energy harvesting solar textile kits has been recognized with a 2012 Energy Globe Award, 2009 US Congressional Award, a 2009 Energy Globe Award and a 2008 Tech Museum Laureate Award for technology that benefits humanity. The KVA MATx studio is located in the former Blue Bird Bottling Plant on the industrial edge of Boston’s South End, a district for building industry manufacturing and supply workshops. The studio workplace and interdisciplinary organization creates a platform for an applied research praxis that seeks to transform inherited conventions of practice from within. To do our work at KVA MATx we have established a new type of studio environment that enables us to integrate material research, digital electronics, and architectural design.

Biography
Sheila Kennedy, FAIA
Kennedy studied architecture at the Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris and received the Masters of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. As Associate Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Kennedy was Director of the M Arch II Program from 1991-1995 and is currently Professor of the Practice of Architecture at MIT.

As a Principal of Kennedy & Violich Architecture Ltd. (KVA), Sheila Kennedy has established an internationally recognized design practice that explores architecture, digital technology and emerging public needs. Kennedy's work has been exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the International Rotterdam Biennale, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MoMA), and the Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) “Design & the Elastic Mind” exhibition on breakthrough designs for new technologies.

Kennedy has served as an advisor to the United States Department of Energy, the National Academy of Sciences' Government-Industry Partnerships, and the Vision 2020 National Technology Roadmap. She is the author of multiple patents for the integration of digital technologies into architecture, building materials and textiles. Kennedy's research and work in architecture have been recognized by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Academy of Sciences.

J. Frano Violich, FAIA
Violich received his Bachelor's degree in Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, and received the Masters of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Violich has directed the winning competition projects for the University of Pennsylvania Law School, now under construction, the Clemson School of Architecture Charleston, and the Internationale Bauaustellung's (IBA) Smart Materials Housing Program in Hamburg, Germany (construction 2012). He was a co-recipient of the Emerging Architects Award and Young Architects Award from the Architectural League of New York with his partner Sheila Kennedy and has had his work exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the International Rotterdam Biennale, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MoMA), and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

In addition to his work at KVA MATx, Violich has held private shows at MassMoca in North Adams, MA, the Max Protech Gallery in New York City, NY, the Phillip Bonafont Gallery in San Francisco, CA, and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporanea in Merida, Mexico. Violich has been a lecturer and keynote speaker at several international conferences including the Centro Metropolitana de Diseno Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, the 2008 Plastics Electronics Conference, in Berlin, Germany, the Royal Australian Institute of Architecture in Sydney, Australia, the 2008 World Sustainability Conference in Melbourne, Australia, the Society for College & University Planners in Montreal, CA, the 2010 Design & Innovations Conference in Sao Paolo, Brazil.