Chosen Architect : Renzo Piano

For this week’s task we were asked to choose an architect that we admire/adore/favour (based on their design methods as well as construction methods),and I’ve chosen Renzo Piano as my favourite architect.

Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is an architect of intellectuality. He was born into a family of construction builders, which explains why he was particularly good in construction designs. He was born in Genoa, Italy and he was a Milan Polytechnic Architecture graduate. After he received his degree he worked for a little while in his father’s construction company .He was known for establishing collaboration projects with Richard Rogers whom is a well known architect from England.

His Style

His philosophy in design is very much close to his own roots, as he favoured the classical Italian philosophy and tradition.

He is inspired by Brunelleschi and Jean Prow of France. Most of his styles were a combination of art, architecture and engineering.

Piano believes in “full command over the building from design to the complete build work”

His Projects

Parco de la Musica, Rome

He built a couple of highly recognized buildings like Parco della Musica, Kansai Airport Terminal,Osaka, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Of all the buildings that he has created , I was really amazed by this particular building of which was named Georges Centre Pompidou in Paris and i've chosen this building as a reference for my major assignment project.

Centre Georges Pompidou

Northwest wall

Interior

This building is strategically located in the Beauborg area and was named after the French President Georges Pompidou. It was opened in 1971 and was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. It is the centre of public information and it houses a library and a research music centre.

Building Description

• massive structural expressionist cast exoskeleton.
• exterior escalators are enclosed in a transparent tube.
• The colourful airducts and elevators are positioned on the building's exoskeleton.The intention of the architects was to place service elements outside of the building to turn the building inside out!

Building Construction

• High tech steel and glass
• Concrete frame and precast
• Ribbed roof
• Metal Girders
• Diagonal bracing were covered over smooth finish materials
• The exterior zone of the structural frame is there to provide tension forces outside the main volume's external column, pulling the cantilevered horizontal members downward.