RENZO PIANO: a GREEN architect

RENZO PIANO

Renzo Piano was born in September 14, 1937 in Genoa Italy. He studied architeceture at the Universty of Florence then moved to study at Poltecnico di Milano. He grew up with a family of builders and he spent most of his time with his dad. He grew up knowing he wanted to do architecture. Piano has built many museums and most of his buildings are ecofriendly.

One of his buildings is The Reconstruction of the Potsdamer Plats IMax Theatre.

Assignment One Part Two

Good Morning, Tipsters!

Your blog is taking shape. Before you begin reading about everyone else's architects, please do the following:

1. Finish writing about your architect's two or more selected works. Be very specific with the words that you choose to use. Do not simply say that a building is "cool" or "unique" but rather tell us WHY it is so.

2. Edit your photos with Photoshop and add them to your post.

3. Add labels to your posts. Labels would include any important topics mentioned in your post or associated to your architect. These topics could be places, things, green (sustainable) strategies, etc. Examples include: sustainability, skyscrapers, solar panels, humanitarian, and Japan. You add them by editing your post and writing them in the box at the bottom of the post box. Please separate labels with a comma.

When you are completely done with your post, begin to read everyone else's. Comment on each of your sixteen classmate's projects, noting something that you found interesting. If their post left you wanting to know more about their intriguing architect, not only comment but also ask a question.

When this is all complete, we will create our animations and post them on the blog.

Good luck!

Architect Research Project

Hello All! You have been doing great gathering research for the presentations tomorrow! I hope everyone is excited to share their collected information with the class, because I am really looking forward to learning from you!!!

Frank O Gehry: California Aerospace Museum

The California Aerospace Museum is located in McClellan, California. Frank O Gehry built this building in February, 2007. Since then, 250,000 people world wide have visited. Is it because of the planes or rockets, or simply to see the magnificent structure only done by Frank O Gehry? It consists of two floors, all big enough to store many F-15s and rockets. This museum has a cool collection of military planes and civilian aircrafts. Their biggest collection is from World War II. For the little ones, there is a ride simulator in a rocket ship. This is the only museum you will ever see that has a unique shape. This shape includes crazy structures and geometrical shapes. It also includes glass cylindrical bridges. This building will blow your mind!

I.M. Pei : The Father of Modern Architecture

I.M. Pei was born on April 27th, 1917, in Guangzhou, China. He is now a world-renown architect, known for his unique and spectacular designs. Some of his most famous projects include the Bank of China Tower, The Louvre Pyramid, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Mesa Laboratory (NCAR).
The Bank of China Tower is located in Hong Kong, China. It is currently the 17th tallest man-made building in the world. The Tower was constructed between 1985 and 1990 and currently stands at 1,205.4 feet including the masts atop the building. The tower became the first skyscraper outside of the United States to break the 1,000 foot margin. It held the title of the tallest building in Asia between 1989 and 1992. Also, it became the first composite space frame high rise building in the world. This would seem logical though due to Pei's combination of geometric patterns, and simple polygons. Today, it is the 4th tallest structure in Hong Kong, behind the International Commerce Center, the Two International Finance Center, and the Central Plaza. The structural expressionism that was initially approved for the building bears a similarity to growing bamboo shoots. Several critics of the design disliked it's numerous x-shaped figures on the structure. The Bank Of China Tower is located on 1 Garden Road, Hong Kong Island, China. An observation deck is located on the 43th floor for the public.

The Louvre Pyramid is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. It serves as the entrance to the Louvre Museum located in Paris, France. The project was commissioned by Francois Mitterrand, the President of France at the time. It was announced that Pei would be the architect in-charge of the project in 1984, shortly after receiving his Pritzker Prize the year before. Construction of the Louvre Pyramid lasted between 1984 and 1989. The pyramid reaches a maximum height of approximately 70 feet, and has a base of 115 feet. The pyramid also consists of 603 rhombus shaped and 70 triangular glass segments. The pyramid was built along with an underground tunnel due to a series of problems that was caused by the massive flow of people who visit the Louvre daily. There was much controversy over the pyramid because many argued that the pyramid symbolized a futuristic structure that did not correlate to the classical architecture. Others applauded this combination of classical and " Ultra-Modern" architecture. The Louvre Pyramid is actually the largest of the seven pyramids located around the museum. During the design sage of the Louvre project, there was a proposal to add a spire to the top of the pyramid to ease the difficulty of window washing.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research's Mesa Laboratory is located in Boulder, Colorado, which serves as the flagship building of the NCAR. The building was designed by Pei in the 1960's, several years after he established his own architecture firm: I.M. Pei & Associates in 1955. The laboratory sits atop the 600 foot high Walter Orr Roberts mesas, and is against the flatirons formations of the Rocky Mountains Range.
Pei's modern architectural elements that he incorporates into his designs can be controversial and splendid at the same time. We can all agree though that I.M. Pei has rightfully earned the title of the Father of Modern Architecture.

Caltrava: Valaciena Opera House

The core of the opera house is for technical faciltities like the cenery module and lifting mechanisms for the stage and orchestra pit. The fully air conditioned auditorium, which can seat up to 800 people, is seated within a acousted shaped shell. a smaller auditorium for music concerts holds 400 people. Another open-air auditorium, partialy covered by the shell and roof structures, can seat 2000 people. Calatrava is a 59 year old man from Spain with an amazing mind. He has a wierd thing were he always includes nature in his buildings and sculptures. I picked Calatrava because his buildings catch the eye and draw you in with awe.

Adrian Smith

Adrain Smith is an architect born in Chicago, Illinois that moved to California and soon after attended Texas A&M. Adrian worked with the architecture company Skidmore, Owings, and Merril. Adrian designed many great buildings. Smith has designed 3 of the world's tallest towers. Two of which are the Burj Dubai (Infinity Tower) in Dubai, and The Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, China.

The Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai Tower is currently the fifth tallest tower in world. The building construction bagan in 1994 and was completed in 1998. The building contains 88 stories and is 1380 feet tall. The top 38 floors of the building works as a hotel (The Grand Hyatt Hotel) and the lower 50 stories is office area. The hotel rooms are the second highest hotel rooms in the world. Like the Petronas Twin Towers the buildings proportions revolve around the number eight. a number associated with prosperity in Chinese culture.

The Burj Dubai also known as the Infinity Tower is currently the tallest building in the world. The construction of the tower was put on hold because of Dubai's worsening economy and instead of being completed in 2008 it was completed in 2010. The building is located in Dubai and is 2717 feet tall. The Burj dubai passing the second highest building the Taipei 101 by over 1670 feet, and is almost twice the size of the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois. Adrian Smith got his inspiration for this building from Frank Lloyd Wright's "The Illinois" a mile high office building that was never built, and the flower called the Hymenocallis. The building is gigantic compared to any other building in the world, and is also eco-friendly. Dubai's climate is very humid and hot so when it comes in contact with the cool building it condenses into water. That water is collected and supplies 15 million gallons of supplemental water per year. Because of the buildings monstrous size a new kind of structural system is required. The engineer Bill Baker created the Buttress Core Structural System, which is a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form a "Y" shape. This system allows the building to support itself laterally and keeps it from twisting. On the opening ceremony 10,000 fireworks were used along with pyrotechnics, water, light, and sound performances.

Bjarke Ingels: Going to Extraordinary Measures

Scala Tower in Copenhagen, Denmark

This tower was made for the cause of a competition a few years back. Inside of it, there is a cinema, stores, library, hotel, conference lobby, restaurants, offices, apartments, and a spa. From the outside, the building looks like the tower and the base are morphed together in a spiral-shaped cascade of stairs. As you're calmly reading a book in the library and you look up, you can see people climbing up the stairs to get to the rooftop. Haven't you ever felt like Spiderman and wanted to climb up a building from the outside?

Mountain Dwellings


This building consists of 80 apartments that are arranged on a sloping hillside above the car park that has space for 480 cars. The parking area needs to be connected to the street, and the homes require sunlight, fresh air and views, thus all apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views and parking on the 10th floor. The roof gardens consist of a terrace and a garden with plants changing character according to the changing seasons. The building has a huge watering system which maintains the roof gardens. The only thing that separates the apartment and the garden is a glass façade with sliding doors to provide light and fresh air.

Tom Kundig; american architect

Tom Kundig appears to specialize in curved or slanted roofs. His main materials are wood and metal. Many of his houses also have large windows that take up half or more of a wall (of course, they all have good veiws). All of his one family houses he has a garden in front or is in the country side, surrounded by meadow grasses.

negative years
before he was born, both of Kundigs parents emmagrated from Switserland to Spokane, Washington where his dad worked as an architect.

early years
He climed the alpine mountains. that experience helped him later in his life as an architect with the sence of surfaces, materials, landscapng and tactility.



later life
He started to work in the 1990's. Kundig worked for many firms as well as his own before he joined the Olsen, Sundberg, Kundig, Allen firm. he has been working as an architect for about 20 yrs










this computer animated condo designed by Tom Kundig is in the process of being built.

this is a rolling hut. it inspired me to do my reasech paper on Tom Kundig

this is the main cluster

interior

Frank O Gehry: Walt Disney Concert Hall

Frank O Gehry was born on February, 1929.


The Walt Disney Concert Hall was made in Los Angeles. This building is 3.6 acres and it is made of stainless steel curves. Lillian Disney visioned and inspired this structure. This hall is part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Center. This building had cost around $100 million. Frank Gehry was chosen to build this structure in 1988. He unveiled the design in 1991. He finally finished it in 1996. He used a quite unique shape. He makes crazy curves with metal. This is where music can be shared throughout the world. Classical, jazz, and opera is expressed. It consists of a garden, orchestra room, and gallery room. It is today known as one of the most acoustically sophisticated concert halls in the world. Frank Gehry has outdone himself yet again.

Diller Scofidio Renfro:Project

Diller Scofidio is an architect that makes sketches and drawings before she makes a building. Diller Scofidio was born in New York and was the daughter of two architects and that is where she got her inspiration of being an architect. One of her famous buildings is the Blur building. The Blur building is a building that is completley covered in fog and was built in Yverdon. another building that Diller Scofidio made was the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The building was made in 1936. She built the museum because she wanted to inspire other people with the work of many artists.

Assignment One

Create a post about the two or more buildings that you have just researched.
Title the post MY ARCHITECT'S NAME: SOME TITLE RELATING TO THEIR WORK. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright: Designing the Plains.
Complete your post by writing about your buildings, posting what you feel we should know about them (where they are located, when they were designed/built, what their main concept is, what materials were used, anything unusual, etc.)
Post your photos as well, thinking about how we will see them. You can write your text and follow it with the photos, or integrate your photos into your text.

Zumthor: Simple and Elegant

Peter Zumthor

Zumthor is a Swiss architect that builds buildings that are very simple and very elegant. His buildings pay very close attention to detail while they still blow your mind. Zumthor studied carpentry as a child which gave him the ability to craft wood like a master. In his early career he worked for the Department of Preservation of Monuments. This helped him learn strategies of sustainability. His familiarity with wood shows in his work as he constantly turns to it and uses it as the prime material for buildings. Two of his most famous projects are the thermal baths at Val and St. Benedict Chapel. Zumthor uses various techniques to create things like never before. He uses a special wooded concrete to make the concrete look nice and real but it also stays very strong for a long period of time increasing the buildings sustainability

The Baths at Val

The baths were reconstructed in 1996. These were to be like no other set deep in the side of the mountain near a hotel. The baths consist of various water jets, nozzles, and chutes. They are often reffered to as a geometric cave system. Slits in the ceiling give a dramatic light effect on the water below. The waters have different temperatures from fire water, flower water, and cold water. The walls in the baths are made of wood inlaid concrete which gives it a wooden feel but it still remains hard and strong.



Saint Benedict Chapel

A small little wooden chapel on the side of a mountain often to reffered to as the boat, the leaf, or the eye for its very distinct shape. Inspired by the mother church. When you walk in you should feel the security, dignity, composure, concentration. It is a place of reflection a place to breathe. the entire inside of the church is made of wood. There is no drywall so you can see the wooden pillars and the support beams. Zumthor decided to use his skills with wood and create something absolutely amzing.

Tadao Ando: Concrete Expert

Ando is a Japanese architect who is the master of concrete; literally. He works with it like it is clay and the results are amazing! Building whole museums and apartment buildings out of concrete and glass shows how amazing his work is. He even uses water! He built an entire complex of buildings on water (!), how cool is that!
After growing up in Osaka, Japan, he went on to building little wooden models with a local carpenter. The model inspired him to start doing something bigger; architecture. So he bought an architecture book and traced the pictures "so many times that all the pages turned black." After turning 18, he pursued his dream and built his first building, Tomishima House in 1973.
Now he has over 40 architectural builds and has won 13 awards. One of them is Raika Headquarters building in Osaka Japan. Built in 1989 this building is mostly made of concrete and lots of glass. Another one of his builds is the Suntory Art Museum in Osaka Japan. This one was built in 1994 and is a large and geometrical museum made of mostly concrete and steel.
Overall Tadao Ando is a pretty cool dude. He makes amazing buildings that use nature and the surroundings to enhance the building. Here is a video of some of his buildings and building plans. Here is a link to a video interview about Tadao Ando.

Shigeru Ban: Paper

Shigeru Ban is a Japanese architect who was born in 1957.He really cares for the world around him and does a ton of innovative humanitarian work. He goes out of the architecture norm by using paper, usually recycled cardboard tubes, as the main building material in many of his buildings. In all of his projects his buildings have a very open quality and most of them can be totally opened up to the outdoors. He is recognized as one of the most innovative architects of the 21st century.

One of Ban's most interesting projects is his first furniture house. This house's walls are totally made of prefabricated bookshelves and wardrobes. This decreases needed labor and time needed for construction dramatically. It also decreases the cost of the bulding and makes the building a lot more functional because all the storage is built right into the house.

Another one of Ban's most famous projects are his paper-log cabins. When earthquakes ripped apart communities in Kobe, Japan, Kaynasli, Turkey, and Bhuj, India Ban answered the call for help. He built small villages of log cabins made out of recycled paper tubes for communities who wanted to stay at their homes and rebuild. He set out to create inexpensive adequately insulated, and good looking buildings that could also be quickly and easily built. He suceeded in designing these simple cabins for the families.

Calatrava: Cathedral of St. John

The Cathedral of St. John was first started to be built in 1892 as the largest cathedral in the world. The construction of the building was stopped and was restarted in 1978. It was then restastarted in 1991 and Calatrava turned the cathedral into the largest cathedral in the world.

MAD architecture

The Chinese MAD architects are very interested in making huge and unique buildings that will push and embrace the future of the world. These architects combine nature and the people's needs to build buildings that will not only serve their wanted purpose, but rise above that to also look nice and create a land mark for the place to be notorious and. The builders in MAD question and defy established rules because they create buildings that don't just look futuristic, but that also embrace and use future methods of conserving energy, land, and nature. Their designs always involve buildings that twist and turn or that have huge curves. They also think that light is very important to conserve energy. They make huge skyscrapers that twist to get the most light. These architects make all kinds of buildings all over the world to serve the people and create local land marks.

Morphosis: France

The 2 buildings I did by Morphosis are the Phare Tower and the Continuities of the Incomplete.

First of all the Phare Tower is located in La Defense, France. It would be in Paris but Paris doesn't allow sky scrapers to be built in the city anymore. It started in 2006 and will be finished in 2012. Its unique shape is designed to be ecofriendly to the environment. The south side (the curved side) of the building has a double skin layer made out of glass, it reduces heat and glare by changing to the light becoming opaque, translucent, or transparent. The north side (the flat side) has a clear glazed skin that maximizes the natural daylight. The wind powers a wind farm (the giant fan looking things you see in fields) to create energy used for ventilation. The Phase Tower has several things inside it like: gardens, cafes, shops, sky restaurants, observation deck, offices, grand hall, and an auditorium.

The second building I researched is called Continuities of the Incomplete, it's located in Paris, France. It was started in 2005 and it was finished in 2006. It's basically a project made by Morphosis that shows 10 years worth of work which includes models, drawings, photos, and videos all in a well lit room. The floor is transparent because under it contains the models, drawing, photos and videos which you can observe while you walk, stand, sit, or even lie down. There are 24 projects, each one is isolated and under a bright light so you can see the small important details.

Renzo Piano: an Ecofriendly Architect

Piano was born in Genoa, Italy. He studied architecture at the University of Florence then went to Poltecnico di Milano and graduated. He was born into a builders famiy

MVRDV

MVRDV has some very new and diferent ideas. One of their buildings that i think is cool is called Frosilo. They took two silo buildings and used them as a frame for an apartment building. They were hollow so the building has two hollow lobbies inside. Another building that i thought was a very new idea is called Pig City. It is only a study but they wanted to take a huge pig farm and stack it on top of it self in one huge tower. It would take up only a little bit of space on the ground but it would still have the same amout of pigs a giant pig farm. It also had a slaughterhouse on the bottom which means they dont have to transport the pigs

Steven Holl: Museum of Art addition

Steven Holl is an architect who is very interested in how light and space work together and make wonderful architecture. He has made many buildings like the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art addition and the MIT Simmons Hall. He was invited to come and make a new addition to the Museum in the 1980's. His design is His most mature design up to date.

Zaha Hadid: Flowing Concrete

Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq. She originally went to a Catholic school when she was little. Her life was very blessed. After Hussein came into power and the war with Iran started her family left Iraq. She took a math course at the American University of Beirut. In 1979 she opened a independent practice in London. Zaha is known for being very single minded. Being very forceful with clients is positive and negative; she loses some clients but then she has only serious clients. One of her projects, called The Peak, won a competition for a club in 1982. In 1995 she considered giving up architecture. To design her buildings and other projects she uses paintings, sketches, drawing, urban plans, competitions, models, relief models, animation,furniture, and design objects. Flow and light are incorporated into all of her projects. Zaha tries to make all of her projects practical and useful. She says her buildings flow just like the Calligraphy of Arabs. Her buildings are rooted in Islamic building traditions. Zaha has taught at Harvard, Yale, and many other universities. She never uses computers to do the original designs of her projects. She is "Particularly attached to concrete."

BMW Plant Central Building
The BMW Plant is the center of the factory. When building this building Zaha tried to add natural light by glazing the roof. The structure consists of scissor sections that connect to the ground. Cars move along the tracks in the ceiling to other parts of the plant. They had to do special research to make sure that the pollutants in the air wouldn't damage the only half built cars as they travel though different parts of the factory.

Taichung Metropolitan Opera House
This project was never actually built. The opera house was submitted to a competition and Zaha came in third. It was designed to have a two thousand seat grand auditorium, a eight hundred seat drama theatre, a two hundred seat black box theatre. All of the the theatres were designed to have grand staircases. There was an internal bridge to connect one side of the opera house to the other. In the original plan the building was supposed to have black granite covering the outside.

Norman Foster: green designer of the future

Norman foster was born in Manchester, England in 1935. Growing up his hero was Frank Loyd Wright. He quit school at sixteen to join the british military. Later he was discharged and went to architecture school and recieved his masters degree. He then started a firm thus named Fosters and partners. In the present he is 75 years old and resides with his family in switzerland.

Fosters and partners now influence a lot of things like furniture to doorknobs. Norman himself does not design those things he only designs large scale buildings. Like the Hearst Headquarters in New York City, New York. The building is forty two story tall and uses a eighty percent recycled steel in its frame. It also uses twenty five percent recycled glass. Another great example of green tech in his designs is the Swiss Re Headquarters. In this forty one story tall design he used natural ventalation to cool the building. Thus reducing the energy used by half.

Tadao Ando: Concrete Expert

Ando is a Japanese architect who is the master of concrete; literally. He works with it like it is clay and the results are amazing! Building whole museums and apartment buildings out of concrete and glass shows how amazing his work is. He even uses water! He built an entire complex of buildings on water (!), how cool is that!
After growing up in Osaka, Japan, he went on to building little wooden models with a local carpenter. The model inspired him to start doing something bigger; architecture. So he bought an architecture book and traced the pictures "so many times that all the pages turned black." After turning 18, he pursued his dream and built his first building, Tomishima House in 1973.
Now he has over 40 architectural builds and has won 13 awards. One of them is Raika Headquarters building in Osaka Japan. Built in 1989 this building is mostly made of concrete and lots of glass. Another one of his builds is the Suntory Art Museum in Osaka Japan. This one was built in 1994 and is a large and geometrical museum made of mostly concrete and steel.
Overall Tadao Ando is a pretty cool dude. He makes amazing buildings that use nature and the surroundings to enhance the building.