Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects selected to design new Andlinger Center

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, a New York firm known for its careful attention to context, creative use of materials and innovative modernist work, has been chosen to design Princeton University's new Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment . The firm is led by the eponymous husband and wife team, who have worked together since 1977 and been in partnership since 1986. Williams earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture in 1965 and 1967, respectively, from Princeton. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designed Skirkanich Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, which binds formerly disparate spaces by embracing the intimacy between the surrounding buildings of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. (Photo: Michael Moran) Perhaps most noted for its 2001 award-winning American Folk Art Museum in New York, the firm also has designed a number of academic buildings, including Skirkanich Hall, an advanced bioengineering laboratory that opened in 2006 at the University of Pennsylvania. Inga Saffron, architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote that the "meticulously designed structure" was "Philadelphia's best new building in years." Pablo Debenedetti, vice dean of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science , is pleased that the selection committee chose Williams and Tsien. "Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have a superb track record of working closely with their clients to create spaces that combine beauty, harmonious integration with the surroundings, natural light, warmth and functionality," he said.