66 Portland Place RIBA Headquarter Building Analysis BUIL 1166 CHAK SHING LAU
Content Genral Introduction Designer Light Air Water Content Energy
2
DESIGNER Biography of George Gre Wornum George Grey Wornum was born in London on 17 April 1888, presumably a relative of Ralph Selden Wornum, to whom he was articled from 1906 to 1909. In the latter year he moved to the office of Simpson & Ayrton as assistant. He commenced independent practice in London the following year. He served during the war, 1914-1918, being wounded in the leg and losing his right eye (Builder). He worked in partnership with Philip Dalton Hepworth from 1919 and with Louis de Soissons from c.1921 to 1930. Thereafter he practised alone, although collaborating with, among others, P G Freeman, E Maxwell Fry, A C Tripe, Lionel S Smith and possibly Arthur William Kenyon. At the end of the Second World War he entered into partnership with Edward Playne. This partnership lasted until Wornum’s death in New York on 11 June 1957. At some point Wornum had practised in San Francisco (since 1945, per Builder). Wornum was the president of the AA in 1930-31, and was a member of the RIBA council in 1935. He married Miriam Alice Gerstle of San Francisco in 1923 and had a son and two daughters. His publications included ‘Housing, a European Survey’ for the Building Centre, and ‘House out of Factory, ’ with John Gloag. (last paragraph info. from Builder)
4
GENERAL INTRODUCTION 66 Portland Place, the Headquarter of Royal Institution of British Architects, Opened on 8th November 1934, George Grey Wornum’s design won the competition of the projects with 284 entrants and 3,600 designs and was adopted to build. There are distinct sculptures by famous artists and craftsmen like Jan Juta, James Woodford, Raymond McGrath and Edward Bainbridge Copnall that are really outstanding in early 1930s for decoration. The giant central window above the entrance doors, the Henry Jarvis Hall and Foyer, four giant marble columns, main staircase and symmetrical rectangle shape Portland stone facade are all designs that is valuable to be discussed. Florence Hall which was designed as the Institutes principal reception room and highlights the deeply splayed piers of Perrycot limestone which are the main feature of the room. 66 Portland Place was a perfect compromise between classicism and the prevailing modernism in early 1930s.
5
LIGHT
LIGHT WHY LIGHT IS IMPORTANT IN ARCHITECTURE DESIGN? Human always have a particular sense of beauty to the light environment. Psychologist say different wavelength of light can stimulate the conherence between peoples psysiological, psychologically and socially. Also, the demand of light in the building of human sourced from the desperate of light of a life. The design of the light environment comes always with the tremendous imagination. Normally, these imagination can be devided to two categories, percetioin and creation. Perception imagination is the light atmosphere that can be felt in the bulding. Creation imagination is the form of light through the windows or doors designed by architects.
7
LIGHT
These three types of light on first floor of RIBA were designed in a strict and serious dicipline. One of them is just a normal exhibition light in the exhibition room. The other one are the pentagle pattern light. The last one is the banquet expending light.
8
LIGHT
Both natural light and artificial light are well controlled to be used for the headquarter of RIBA. The lighting control of whole building is designed attentively for the activities in it. Basically, in day time, all public area can adopt natural light as the plan shown so the artificial light would only server for the room which would hold banquet or conference at night. For the artificial light, I found that all of them were arranged rigorously to be symmetrical and consistent. There are only 2 types of light but many different patterns to form all installed light in the building. I believe who designed the light had carefully done the calculation of the position of the light. Most of the window are over 3m high, they works well with the sunlight coming from east, south-east and south in the morning as most of them are oriented on these 3 direction of the building. Remarks: Non-public room is not recorded in the following Graphs.
9
LIGHT
All of the artificial light are designed symetically. The center of the octagonal arranged light is the laser light.
10
LIGHT
Light penetrating design throgh the RIBA.
11
AIR
AIR Ventilation is movement of air, typically between an indoor space and the outside. In an enclosed space ventilation is required to exchange indoor air with out door air to replenish oxygen and to remove moisture, odours, smoke, heat, and airborne bacteria. Ventilation is one of the most important factors for maintaining healthy indoor air quality in a building. Methods for ventilating a building may be devided into natural and mechanical types. Natural ventilation is the ventilation of a building with natural unconditioned outside air without the use of a fan or other mechanical system and is usually achieved with openable windows and doors. Where natural ventilation is not provided a room within a building is required to be ventilated with outside air by use of a fan or other mechanical system. It is important to understand that the provision of mechanical ventilation and air conditioning are not necessarily the same. Air conditioning by use of a split system AC unit does not provide outside air, but conditions the inside air to achieve the required comfort levels.
14
AIR
The air movement design of RIBA is simple but efficient. Every Floor including basement have a lot of opening can let the wind come through the building. Basically, before the common use of air conditioning system, this building’s ventilation has worked well for decades already with its efficiently designed, large amount of windows.
15
AIR The windows and doors were designed together with the vertical big windows in the building. This keep the continuous appearence of the window and work efficiently for the penetration of the natural light and wind. However, because of this design, it is not able to install double layer in the window for trapping air to keep the room temperature during cold time. No doubt that it will be a non eco-friendly design and enhancing the energy consumption.
16
AIR
This is a rough air movement I predicted between the Florence Hall and the entrance hall. As there are lots of large window openings through the whole buildings. Though not all windows opened in the same time, once it does, the ventilation of the building will be excellent.
17
AIR
This is another drawing of view from the entrance. The ventilation works with the different combination of the windows and doors opened. With different combination, almost every single part of the building can be ventialted. However, as the weather of London is relatively cold, windows and doors are closed usually for operating heating system.
18
AIR
A technical drawing of a predicted structure of windown in office. It is double glass and have good insulating properties. It is new installed since 1970s. 19
WATER
WATER Why do we need water? Nowadays, all buildings involving human activities use water with a huge demand for fire safety, toilet and cooking. Water is one of the vital element. In building design, there are lots of method to supply water and to adjust the temperature of the water for human uses. Also, some particular activities like swimming pool would consume more water and need extra water supply.
22
WATER
RIBA has all sewage and water supply system hided which serving the banquet hall and toilet. It is well designed in appearance so we never find pipes outside the wall. There are three water tanks on the top of roof of RIBA.
23
WATER
Pipes are all constructed in the wall. This give a extreme good appearence of the building as you never see the pipes on the external wall of RIBA. This keeps the elegance of the facade. 24
WATER
We cannot find any sprinkler system at any part of the RIBA. 25
GROUND
GROUND
Facade The main facade of the RIBA Building forms an austere and symmetrical rectangle of Portland stone, dominated by giant window above the bronze entrance doors. 28
GROUND
Main Entrance Door The cast bronze doors, each one measuring 12 feet high by 6 feet wide and weighing 1.5 tons, were modelled by James Woodford. 29
GROUND
Entrance Hall Inner doors of entrance have silver bronze frames. The walls of the hall are lined with polished Perrycot limestone. The floor is made of pale yellow precast terrazzo slabs separated by light bronze strips, with surrounds of Hopton Wood stone and grey Derbyshire marble. 30
GROUND
Main Staircase Main staircase The treads are of ark blue drama(African) marble above risers of black Derbyshire marble, and the stairwell linings are of Perrycot limestone. The balustrading is of “Armour plate� glass set in silver bronze frames with handrails of golden bronze and ebonised mahogany. 31
GROUND
First Floor Sliding Door First floor sliding door facing the stair are mad of English walnus with panels of figured lindian laurel wood “curls�. 32
GROUND
Henry Florence Hall Henry Florence Hall The main feature of the room is the deeply splayed piers of Perrycot limestone, which are incised with a series of carvings. The main floor area is made of Indian silver greywood teak, flanked by patterns of grey and black birdseye marble and white and grey Hopton wood stone. 33
ENERGY
Energy
Energy is one of the most important element in future building design. Basically, energy supports all human activities so we cannot live without it anymore. In RIBA, the most consuming is the heating system, air conditioning is always the most consuming in a building over the world. 36
Energy
Every building has its own transformer to supply the required electricity of the building. Usually they are located at the ground floor or first floor to facilate the installation and uninstallation for its large size. 37
LIGHT
There are different kind of ways affecting energy going into the building such as light, heat, sound, wind and electricity. They are all design condition we have to think about when we are designing the architecture. 38
LIGHT
Air conditioning system in RIBA. AC power socket. They all rely on electricity.
39
RECYCLE
Recycle
RIBA says; ‘The RIBA operates a procurement and use policy of Reduce Re-use Recycle. The waste per employee at our offices at 77 Portland Place was deemed by the Environmental Audit to be above good practice, and the waste production at our Headquarters at 66 Portland Place was well within the good practice benchmark. The RIBA has recycling bins within each office area and substantial quantities of recyclable materials are collected each year. However we believe we can do much better and we are exploring strategies to achieve this. To this end we have recently purchased a ‘cardboard bailer’ for our headquarters, and now recycle 100% of the considerable amount of cardboard produced by our business. This has enabled us to reduce our waste to landfill by 5 full paladins a week and relinquish a rented and inefficient compactor, saving us in the region of £4000 a year.’ 42
END
43