Exhibition: V-Soleil by Architecture Research Office (ARO)

For immediate release

V-Soleil

MIT Architecture Keller Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-408, Cambridge, MA

The exhibit will be on view starting April 11, 2025, with the opening reception at 5pm on the same day.

Cambridge, MA, April 8, 2025 – V-Soleil, an exhibition by Architecture Research Office (ARO), will be on view at MIT’s Keller Gallery through September 2025. Architecture Research Office (ARO) was founded with the belief that research is its own form of practice. This approach speaks to our process, strategic thinking, as well as our love of making and craft of building. Through project-based, funded, and self-generated research, we explore innovations in sustainable design at all scales. With attention to size, pattern, and texture, we explore how to enhance existing material properties and frequently engage collaborators outside the office – including fabricators, engineers, landscape architects, and specialists. Our project, V-Soleil, exemplifies ARO’s commitment to elevating the ordinary though material innovation and engaged, ongoing collaboration. 

In 2020, as part of Boston Valley Terra Cotta’s 6th Annual Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop (ACAW), ARO led an interdisciplinary team to reimagine traditional terra cotta through the design and prototyping of a modular screen to increase the efficiency of a building envelope. Together, the team developed V-Soleil – a striking, curtain-like brise soleil that draws on ARO’s material exploration, Heintges’ façade engineering expertise, and TriPyramid’s fabrication insight. V-Soleil was inspired by diamond-patterned espaliered trees and applied the form to develop a ceramic structure that can be deployed at various scales. The dark brown terra cotta body was glazed in a variegated green, with selected areas strategically left unglazed to avoid fusing in the kiln during the firing process. Designed to be viewed from multiple angles, the modules can be repositioned for optimal shading, no matter the orientation of the façade.  

This exhibition features a full-scale six-foot square mock-up of the system. Complementing the model are a series of analytical drawings that describe the terra cotta’s formal, solar shading, aesthetic, and structural properties.
 

About Architecture Research Office (ARO)

Architecture Research Office (ARO) is the New York City firm led by Stephen Cassell, Kim Yao, and Adam Yarinsky. ARO is a diverse collective united by a collaborative process, commitment to accountable action, and social and environmental responsibility. Research gives the firm’s work purpose and intention. Their architecture unites beauty and form with strategy and intelligence. The office designs spaces that inspire people, further institutional missions, and advance equity and resilience. This philosophy has earned the firm the 2020 AIA Architecture Firm Award, the AIA New York State Firm of the Year Award, and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture. Published in October 2024, Architecture. Research. Office. presents ARO’s diverse body of work, its ethos, and the people behind its projects.
 

Special Thanks

Project Team: Stephen Cassell, Adam Yarinsky, Kim Yao, Neil Patel, Jenny Hong, Lian Ren, and Brennan Heyward from ARO; Robert Heintges, David Bott, and Jean Gu from Heintges; and Michael Mulhern and Joe Kelly from TriPyramid.

Additional thanks to the Architectural Ceramics Assemblies Workshop; Andrew Pries and Andy Brayman from Boston Valley Terra Cotta; Nicholas de Monchaux, Joél Carela, Calvin Zhong, Cian Hrabi, Sloan Aulgur, and Jim Harrington from MIT School of Architecture + Planning; and Alex Cabana, Elizabeth Levy, Nida Ekenel, Thom Chiu, Allison Arlotta, and Angela Estevez from ARO.

About the MIT Department of Architecture

The MIT Department of Architecture opened its doors in 1868 as the first Architecture department in the United States. MIT Architecture is currently home to around 250 graduate and undergraduate students. Numbered among the Department’s over 5,000 alumni are Sophia Hayden ’1890, Robert R. Taylor ‘1892, I.M. Pei ‘40, and Charles Correa ‘55. 

About the Keller Gallery at MIT

The Keller Gallery was established in the fall of 2011 with a generous donation of materials and labor in kind from Shawn Keller, principal at C.W. Keller & Associates. The 200 square foot gallery presents faculty, student, and experimental work, including work from alumni and friends.

Visitor Information

The Keller Gallery at MIT

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 7, Room 408, Cambridge, MA 02139

Free and open to the public

Monday through Saturday, 9AM to 6PM

Media contacts:
Joél Carela
Communications Strategist, MIT Department of Architecture
jcarela@mit.edu / 617-253-0692