Design Philosophies of Richard Rogers

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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that this project is a bonafied work done by Kevalkumar Sojitra (12AR10023) and P. Apoorva (12AR10031) have successfully completed the project under the supervision and guidance of professor Dr. Jaydip Barman in the Introduction to Architecture class for academic session 2012-13

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to acknowledge and extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following persons who have made the completion of this project possible: Our Professor Dr. Jaydip Barman for his encouragement and support, all department faculty members and staff members.

Also heartfelt thanks to our friends

And to God who is always there for us‌


Richard George Rogers is an Italian-born British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs. Rogers is perhaps best known for his work on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyd's building and Millennium Dome both in London, and the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg. He is a winner of the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal and Pritzker Prize. He has since collaborated with so many skilled developers, engineers, designers and skilled architects.


Early life and career Rogers was born in Florence in 1933 and attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, before graduating with a master's degree from the Yale School of Architecture in 1962. While studying at Yale, Rogers met fellow architecture student Norman Foster and planning student Su Brumwell. On returning to England he, Foster and Brumwell set up architectural practice as Team 4 with Wendy Cheeseman . Rogers and Foster earned a reputation for what was later termed by the media high-tech architecture. By 1967, Team 4 had split up, but Rogers continued to collaborate with Su Rogers, along with John Young and Laurie Abbott. In early 1968 he was commissioned to design a house and studio for Humphrey Spender near Maldon, Essex, a glass cube framed with I-beams. He continued to develop his ideas of prefabrication and structural simplicity to design a Wimbledon house for his parents. This was based on ideas from his conceptual 'Zip Up' house, such as the use of standardised components based on refrigerator panels to make energy-efficient buildings. Rogers subsequently joined forces with Italian architect Renzo Piano, a partnership that was to prove fruitful. His career leapt forward when he, Piano and Gianfranco Franchini won the design competition for the Pompidou Centre in July 1971, alongside a team from Ove Arup that included Irish engineer Peter Rice. This building established Rogers's trademark of exposing most of the building's services (water, heating and ventilation ducts, and stairs) on the exterior, leaving the internal spaces uncluttered and open for visitors to the centre's art exhibitions. This style, dubbed "Bowellism" by some critics, was not universally popular at the time the centre opened in 1977, but today the Pompidou Centre is a widely admired Parisian landmark. Rogers revisited this inside-out style with his design for London's Lloyd's building, completed in 1986 - another controversial design which has since become a famous and distinctive landmark in its own right.


Design phylosopies At the heart of our urban strategy lies the concept that cities are for the meeting of friends and strangers in civilized public surrounded by beautiful buildings. This addition to the London skyline is a light, transparent structure with a strong sense of identity and character – its spire-like profile would form the apex of an emerging cluster of towers in the city of London. The design uses the discipline of an economic modular grid to accommodate a variety of experiences for both children and adults. The fun experienced in the building arises from our playing with this grid in many different and surprising ways. The concept drivers for INMOS were, as for the Pompidou Centre , large, columnfree spaces. The heart of the scheme was a strong, central circulation spine and central meeting space for all employees. Integrating low energy design within a dense urban environment, the buildings are designed to optimize passive solar energy, natural ventilation and daylight . All office spaces are naturally ventilated, making use of night –time tree cooling and solar radiation in the atria. Rogers’s focus was entirely on the efficient delivery of a high quality environment within the constraints of a rapid construction programme. Public space between buildings influences both the built form and the civic quality of the city, be they streets, squares or parks. A balance between the public and private realm is central to the practice's design approach. Buildings and their surrounding spaces should interrelate and define one another, with external spaces functioning as rooms without roofs. It is the celebration of public space, and the encouragement of public activities that drives the form of the practice's buildings. It is the building's scale and relationship with the street or square that helps to encourage public activity and create a peoplefriendly environment. For example, the steps that lead to the Channel 4 Headquarters, the narrow passage that runs around the Lloyd's of London building, the small churchyard in front of Lloyd's Register, the close around the National Assembly for Wales or the square in front of the Bordeaux Law Courts are all examples where the relationship between buildings and public spaces demonstrate


how the architect's responsibility can successfully extend beyond the brief to include the public realm. Sustainable urban development is dependent on three (1) Quality of architecture, (2) Social well-being and (3) Environmental responsibility. The compact sustainable city is multi-cultural with a hierarchy of density, has a mix of uses and tenures, is well connected with a coherent public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure, is well designed both in terms of public spaces and building, and is environmentally responsive. The Richard Rogers Partnership has an extensive track record in sustainable urban regeneration - examples include masterplans for the East River Waterfront in Manhattan, a large mixed use development in Seoul, Korea, Convoys Wharf on the banks of the River Thames, the urban context for the new stadium at Wembley in West London, the regeneration of former docklands at Almada, Lisbon, ongoing schemes in Granada, Mallorca and Rome, as well as competition designs for Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Piana di Castello near Florence and the Pudong Peninsula in Shanghai.


Lloyd’s building It was designed between 1978 and 1986. The twelve glass lifts were the first of their kind in the UK. T he Lloyd's building is 88 metres to the roof, with 14 floors. service core stand the cleaning cranes pushing the height to 95.10 metres . Modular in plan, each floor can be altered with the addition or removal of partitions and walls. In 2008, The Twentieth Century Society called for the building to be Grade I listed and in 2011 it was granted this status. The building is owned by Dublin-based real estate firm Shelbourne Development Group, who purchased the building in 2004 from a German investment bank.

Las Arenas This former bullring in Barcelona has been converted into a leisure complex by architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, retaining the original facade. The reopened building, now named Las Arenas, has been given a 76m wide domed roof that is braced to the original structure, providing roof terraces overlooking the city. The plinth that the historic building sat upon has also been demolished, creating new entrances directly from the street rather than via ramps and staircases. his has enabled two new access routes to be created through the building, as well as plazas around the perimeter, improving connectivity with the nearby park and metro station.


Millennium Dome The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. Exhibition was open to the public from 1 January to 31 December 2000. The project and exhibition was the subject of considerable political controversy as it failed to attract the number of visitors anticipated, with recurring financial problems. The dome still exists. It appears as a large white marquee with twelve 100 m-high yellow support towers.

St. Lawrence Market North The new St Lawrence Market North will bring together courtrooms, offices and a large market hall as part of the St Lawrence complex. Home to a successful farmers market and Sunday antiques market; the design aims to create a unified piece of the urban fabric. A glass spine runs the length of the five-storey market building forming a bright, glass-ceilinged atrium. This covered street runs through the centre of the site and opens up views and pedestrian routes from the South Market, through the new building and into St Lawrence Hall to reunify the complex.

Hisperia tower The Hesperia Tower is a hotel situated in the district of Bellvitge in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat , Spain. It has a tower of 28 storeys and 105 metres. It was the tallest building in L'Hospitalet until the Plaza de Europa Towers were constructed. It is topped by a glass dome that contains a revolving restaurant . It has 280 rooms and a 5,000 sq m congress centre, and a sports centre.


Lloyd’s building It was designed by architect Richard Rogers and built between 1978 and 1986. Bovis was the management contractor for the scheme. Like the Pompidou Centre (designed by Renzo Piano and Rogers), the building was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside. The twelve glass lifts were the first of their kind in the UK. Like the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the building was highly influenced by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and 1960s. The building consists of three main towers and three service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its focal point is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the famous Lutine Bell. The Underwriting Room (often simply known as the Room) is overlooked by galleries, forming a 60 metres (197 ft) high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof. The first four galleries open onto the atrium space, and are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. The higher floors are glassed-in, and can only be reached via the outside lifts. The 11th floor houses the Committee Room, an 18th century dining-room designed for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne by Robert Adam in 1763; it was transferred piece-bypiece from the previous (1958) Lloyd's building across the road. The first Lloyd's building was built on this site in 1928. In 1958, due to expansion, a new building was constructed across the road at 51 Lime Street. In 1978, again due to the prospect of overcrowding, Lloyd's commissioned Richard Rogers to redevelop the site and the original 1928 building was demolished to make way for the present one which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986. However, its entrance at 12 Leadenhall Street was preserved, and forms a rather incongruous attachment to the 1986 structure. Demolition of the 1958 building commenced in 2004 to make way for the Willis Building, a new 26-storey tower and ten-storey building. The Lloyd's building is 88 metres (289 ft) to the roof, with 14 floors. On top of each service core stand the cleaning cranes pushing the height to 95.10 metres (312 ft). Modular in plan, each floor can be altered with the addition or removal of partitions and walls. In 2008, The Twentieth Century Society called for the building to be Grade I listed and in 2011 it was granted this status. The building is owned by Dublin-based real estate firm Shelbourne Development Group, who purchased the building in 2004 from a German investment bank.



spatial configuration:

Structural Elements Material : exposed concrete Floor : waffle beam grid – enables longer span. -The floors are composed of a network beams of 550mm x 300mm beams at 1.8m centres supported by inserted in situ U-beams which are post-tensioned to allow the 18m span length. -The corners of the building are also prestressed and post-tensioned in two directions to limit the deflections of the floors. -To create a service void, stub columns are placed on top of these beams which a permanent, speciallydesigned steel shutter incorporating an acoustic sandwich is positioned, and a non-structural concrete topping is then added to complete the floor


load tracing


soil and foundation • Constructed by Constain Group PLC • Pile foundation with pile caps supporting main columns • Over 300 piles, each 750 mm dia/ 26 meters deep • Diaphragm Walling and Cast-in-place Retaining walls along edges of site • Soil is mostly clay with a large deposit of sand on the north end of the site

Service Towers

The service towers consist of pre-cast concrete members, each designed as a “kit.” Each tower is tied to the main structure by a concrete connection at each floor.


Las Arenas Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (as Richard Rogers Partnership) was appointed by Barcelona-based developer Sacresa to redevelop an existing bullring in the city of Barcelona into a major new mixed-use leisure and entertainment complex. This was formally opened to the public on 25 March 2011. The nineteenth century structure is strategically located at the foothill of Montjuic at the intersection of two major city highways, and the development will act as a gateway into the city from the west and a major landmark for the Plaça Espanya transport interchange. The historic bullring, constructed at the very end of the 19th century, fell largely into disuse during the 1970s due to the declining popularity of bull fighting in Catalonia. However, the strong civic and cultural role which the building played in the life of the Barcelona over nearly a century – not only as a bullring but also as a venue for opera and theatre productions, rock concerts, political gatherings and even as a barracks during the Civil war – led to a decision by the city council that the façade should not be demolished. As a result, the redevelopment has retained and refurbished the striking mudejar façade, while creating an open and accessible entrance to the new building at street level. Within the façade of the former bullring, approximately 47,000 m² of mixed activities has been created plus a entertainment, health and leisure spaces focused around a central event space, including multiplex cinemas on the third floor and a gym and the 'Museum of Rock' on the fourth floor. In addition, a separate building – the 'Eforum' – in Carrer Llança, adjacent to the bull ring, will provide retail and restaurants at ground and first-floor levels, with four levels of offices above. The roof and the giant dish are supported on huge pylons, with services and circulation, such as escalators and stairways, accommodated in the cruciformshaped zone, defined by the four raked pylon structures.



The design is based on a series of separate and complementary structural systems which allows a variety of activities and user requirements to take place on different levels inside the building. The dish supports the cupola/dome, creating an open and flexible space. Its columns travel down to ground level within the four atria; bridges, lifts, escalators and walkways either pass through these columns or on either side of them. This also allows for an open, column-free space at level 4 and removes the need for any structural members to pass through the cinema spaces below at levels 2 and 3. These cinema spaces are formed by large steel cantilevered boxes that effectively constitute a separate, self-contained structural system within the building and rest on a concrete base at level 2. From level 2 downwards, a more conventional concrete column and floor slab construction has been used for the retail areas. The design of the column layout has provided the spaces required by the client for different retail zones; these columns continue into the four levels of car park below, creating a logical layout for vehicle access and parking.


Additional, separate structural systems support the existing façade of the historic bullring (providing maintenance, fire escape, services and access gantries) and the adjacent Eforum, which connects with the retail at ground level and also with the car park and basement ramps. Between the bullring façade and the Eforum is a services spine and large goods lifts, with other services for the bullring complex placed on the roof of the Eforum. The 96-metre diameter roof dome is finished with a beige plastic coating. This complements the adjacent roofscape and also helps to reduce glare from reflected sunlight. The relatively shallow dome rises only ten metres from its perimeter to the centre. While this geometry is structurally challenging, with its susceptibility to buckling and large deflections, the dimensions were non-negotiable, having to keep within an envelope agreed during the initial planning consent. The maximum crown height was fixed to reduce the visual impact of the roof from a nearby historical fountain. Several structural options were researched for the roof with the preferred solution being a lamella structure in which the timber members form a pattern of lozenges creating a grid-shell of timber. This works by having simple, repetitive short lengths of timber glu-lam beams, made of fir and joined together to form the dome. The pattern changes at the crown where the structure terminates in a circular ring beam, defining a 30 metre-diameter oculus constructed from a simplified pattern of glu-lam members. The primary members of the dome are connected invisibly, so that even though they are bolted together, all of the metal is hidden within the wood so that observers beneath the dome will perceive only a continuous timber structure. The laminated beams are topped with two layers of plywood – 'Kerto' panels which aid structural stiffness – and a layer of insulation, topped with a seamless liquid application roofing system for a weather-proof finish. The entire roof sits on a three metre high 'skirt' to overcome the possibility of unusable low space at the perimeter of the dome. The skirt is comprised of 20 boomerang-shaped columns supporting the domes perimeter beam. Inclined struts spring from these columns to directly support the ring beam where it meets the timber grid-shell, while providing stability to the entire structure. This approach not only provides a visual contrast with the steel used to construct the dish, but has the environmental advantage of being a sustainable and renewable natural


resource. The choice of timber also meant that the structure could be exposed, to dramatic visual effect, as fire performance is achieved by sacrificing charring layers. All the constituent parts – the facade, the roof-level spaces, the four internal segments and the adjacent Eforum are structurally independent, allowing for future flexibility and change to encourage a wide variety and changing rotation of activities to take place, including sports events, fashion shows and exhibitions. Las Arenas formally re-opened to the public on 25 March 2011 as a major new mixed-use leisure, entertainment and office complex. The historic bullring, built at the end of the 19th century, fell largely into disuse during the 1970s due to the declining popularity of bull fighting in Catalonia. However, the strong civic and cultural role which the building played in the life of Barcelona over nearly a century led to a decision by the city council that the façade should not be demolished. The design has created an open and accessible entrance to the new building at street level. In addition, a separate building – the 'Eforum' – in Carrer Llança, adjacent to the bullring, will provide retail and restaurants at ground and first-floor levels, with four levels of offices above. The approach has involved the most advanced architectural and engineering technologies to re-establish the original building as a visually striking landmark for the city. The most spectacular aspect of the intervention is the inclusion of a 100metre-diameter habitable 'dish' with a 76-metre-diameter domed roof, floating over the façade of the bullring and structurally independent from it to cover the various activities taking place below. This 'plaza in the sky' incorporates large terraces around the perimeter with space for cafés and restaurants with stunning views over the city. New plazas are also created at street level to provide connections with the existing metro station and neighbouring Parc Joan Miró. The development links strongly to the nearby Fira de Barcelona – a key European business exhibition venue attracting 3.5 million visitors – and the neighbouring districts of Eixample and Sants-Montjuic, one of Barcelona's fastest-growing and dynamic areas.


Richard Rogers of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners – lead architect for Las Arenas – said: "We set out to re-establish Las Arenas – a late 19th century bullring – as a 21st century landmark for the city. This involved retaining the entire existing façade as well as re-integrating what had become an isolated traffic island into the city fabric. Our design includes a new leisure and retail development within this façade, as well as a completely new, adjacent office building which responds to the city's historic street pattern. The project has also created significant areas of public realm both in the new dome structure – with its 360-degree roof terrace rising above the existing wall – and at the surrounding street level, which will help to revitalise this part of Barcelona."


BIBLIOGRAPHY Books:

Lloyd’s List. Serving the World: The New Lloyd’s Building. London: Lloyd’s List, 1986. Powell, Kenneth. Lloyd’s Building: Richard Rogers Partnership. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994.

Websites: http://architecture.about.com/od/greatbuildings/ig/Richard-Rogers-Partnership/Lloyd-s-of-London.htm http://www.lloyds.com/About_Us/Thttp://www.dezeen.com/2011/05/27/lasarenas-by-rogers-stirk-harbourpartners/he_Lloyds_building/Visiting_the_Lloyds_building.htm www.richardrogers.co.uk


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