06/11/2026
As we enter our 20th year in the United States, we're celebrating with a look back at 20 projects that have shaped who we are.
Project 3 of 20: Rice University Cambridge Office Building Garage
The brief from KieranTimberlake was essentially: Make a seven-story parking garage disappear into an oak grove.
To achieve that, the PES tensile mesh screening was custom printed at 4x scale using a special UV ink and printing process that protects against fading. Flexfacades translated the campus tree canopy directly onto the facade. Trapezoidal panels mount flat against the building until they reach the treeline, where they begin to rotate away from the structure and become a sculpture.
The result does something rare in parking structure design. It earns its place on a campus that doesn't forgive buildings that don't belong. The structure ventilates naturally, reduces solar heat gain, and cuts light pollution. But the thing that makes it work is simpler than any of that: it looks like it grew there.
FlexFacades handled design, engineering, fabrication, and installation. Start to finish.
