Inside Out by Yinyu Chen

Out Inside

Inside Out

Lloydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Building

Contents Introduction

Structure

08 Grid Line Circle

10 14 18

Texture

Perspective

Conclusion

26 5

Lloyd’s Building “The building is still modern, innovative and unique. It has really stood the test of time just like the market that it sits within.” Richard Ward, Chief Executive of Lloyds The Lloyd’s building is located in London’s main financial district. It is one of the great architectural achievements of the 1980s and has a very positive addition to the London skyline. Designed by architect Richard Rogers and built between 1978 and 1986, Lloyd’s building is a leading example of radical Bowellism architecture in which all the service functions for the building, such as stairs, water pipes and lifts, are removed from the interior and placed at the exterior to maximise the inside space. Therefore, it is also known as the ‘Inside Out Building.’

Highly influenced by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and 1960s, Lloyd’s Building brought a hightech architectural aesthetic to the medieval financial district of London. Said by English Heritage’s designation director Roger Bowdler, ‘The Lloyd’s building designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership stands the test of time with its awe-inspiring futuristic design which exemplifies the High Tech style in Britain. It clearly merits the extra protection against unsuitable alteration or development that listing provides.’ In 2011, twenty-five years after Lloyd’s building completed, the building received Grade I listing. It was the youngest structure ever to obtain this status. English Heritage described it as “universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch.”

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Nothing is hidden. Everything is expressed. The legibility of the parts gives the building scale and shadow. Deyan Sudjic

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Structure Lloyd’s of London is the world’s greatest insurance market and has grown from an insurance company dealing from within the United Kingdom to working on a global scale. Because of the staff and clients increasing at an unprecedented rate, Lloyd’s wanted a building that would provide for its needs well into the 21st century. Richard Rogers won the competition to design a new building to replace the original Lloyd’s building.

According to the needs of Lloyd’s, Richard Rogers designed a building where the dealing room could expand or contract by means of a series of galleries around a central space. It comprises three main towers. The core of the building is a 14-storey arched atrium, around which are grouped galleries that can be used as private offices. To enable the flexibility of interior space, all of the services for the building, such as ducts and lifts, are located at the perimeter of the building. Because of the mechanical and circulatory systems being placed on the exterior, the aesthetic appears to have an almost unfinished quality to its construction; the cranes even left from the construction on the top of the building as a decorative feature to the building. Owing to the complexity of the building design, it tends to result in the forms of grid, line and circle system on the exterior.

Grid

Line

Circle

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The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice. Josef Muller-Brockmann

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GRID The grid is defined by the rows of columns around the structure’s edge, which supported the triangular pediments at either end, and pitched roof that ran between them. Until twentieth century, the grid was a hidden element of architectural structure. Then it began to become more overtly visible because the building components are easier if the same elements is not unique. Consequently, repetition, modularity and symmetry make the process of designing and erecting a building more achievable and they also tend to result in some form of grid. The beauty of these building lies partly in their proportions, calculated as multiples of the diameter of a single column (Lucienne and Thrift, 2005). Rogers designed the floor on a grid by using beams with parallel sides and sharp arrises. The floors are supported on reinforced concrete columns on a 10.8x18 metre grid. The load is transferred between the columns and the floor beams by means of a precast bracket. Rogers emphasises that the floor is a grid and not a solid, coffered slab (Powell, 1994). The Wgreat columns, both on the exterior of the building and within the atrium, stand proud of the cladding, increasing the high-articulated ‘Gothic’ effect of Lloyd’s.

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It is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true. Piet Mondrian

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LINE In architecture, lines are often suggested by the structural materials designers choose for their buildings such as the random lines of natural stone or the sleek lines created by beams of steel or walls of glass. Modern buildings often use bold lines created by structural steel cross bracing. Lines can also be suggested by the shape and massing of a building. For instance, a building can look horizontal or vertical (www.architeacher.org/ aesthetics/archi-main.html, 2016). On the surface of the building, there are numbers of vertical and horizontal pipes. The great vertical pipes, pillars and ducts which go up alongside have a strongly vertical quality to the top where the re-circulating duct angles into the air handling plant of the towers, giving a much lighter feel than the main building. On the other hand, the horizontal pipes express a more stable feel. These linear components are like the stokes on the canvas, creating the perfect composition of a painting.

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A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end, and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral. Maynard James Keenan

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CIRCLE Not all geometric figures are formed by straight lines. One of the most useful geometric shapes is the circle. It plays a vital part in our lives, in wheels, in all sorts of containers, in machine parts, in design, and in architecture. The circle provides the most economical form of shelter. Round houses are used in the Arctic and at the equator (www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/ units/1983/1/83.01.07.x.html, 2016). Outside the Lloydâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Building, the circular staircases form a repetitive circlular shape. Moreover, there are the very slim drawn spiral stairs which twist their way up alongside the blank stainless steel panels of the walls of the four plant-rooms. These skinny, writhing, extremely linear corkscrew spirals are contrasted wonderfully with the blankness of those cubes in theÂ sky (Powell, 1994).

Texture ‘Have no great love for high-tech,’ said by Richard Rogers. ‘One would like to think one uses the appropriate materials, but of course appropriate materials are shaped by the time you live in. So we use the technology of today and the technology of yesterday where appropriate to build the buildings of today.’

The entire Lloyd’s Building was breathtakingly formed in stainless steel, concrete and glass. The six perimeter towers with stainless steel services (toilet pods, staircases, external lifts, pipes and ducts) dramatically expressed a feeling as a heavy sculpture. And this reflective steel takes on numerous colours, according to the London weather, giving the building a high-tech and post modernism style. Atfirst, Rogers proposed to design the building mainly in steel and glass. However, because of the fire officers’ doubts about the safety of aluminium, the concrete was used for cladding the services towers. Therefore, the concrete pillars and pipes give the building a matt grey surface compared with the glossy steel surface. The final element is glass. It was extensively used to reflect Roger’s admiration for Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre. Much of the glass is translucent or sparkle so the public cannot see into the trading floor, which is a strictly private operation. Due to the perfect combination of different materials, Lloyd’s Building was considered as a high-tech building and became a symbol of the modern architecture.

Perspective Perspective distortion is a warping or transformation of an object and its surrounding area that differs significantly from what the object would look like with a normal focal length, due to the relative scale of nearby and distant features. Perspective distortion is determined by the relative distances at which the image is viewed, and is due to the angle of view of the image being either wider or narrower than the angle of view at which the image is viewed, hence the apparent relative distances differing from what is expected. Related to this concept is axial magnification, the perceived depth of objects at a given magnification (www. wikiwand.com/en/Perspective, 2016).

Translated into a 300 foot stainless steel building that regularity overlaid, by the distortion: they soar away upwards, getting smaller and bluer. Any solid objects outside, walked round, swells and contracts and changes its silhouette, as well as all its internal relationship (Powell, 1994). Therefore, only the helicopter pilot hovering at a point 90 degrees out from the centre of each facade can see the building from very acute angles and straight in front.

Conclusion

“Nothing at Lloyd’s is there only for its aesthetic; nothing is there only for its use.” Kenneth Powell Lloyd’s Building is as beautiful as a detail, as any capital of a pilaster on a stone facade might be. But the aesthetic excitement is multiplied by the knowledge of its precise physical function; the feeling resulting from knowing of its double necessity (Powell, 1994).

Being one of Britain’s most significant modern architects, Lloyd’s Building innovatively exemplifies the High-Tech style in Britain, with it boldly expressed services and flexibility of plan throughout the impressive exterior and interior. The aesthetic is futuristic, even thirty years after design began, still resoundingly modern.

Colophon 28 pages Size: A3 Typeface: Futura Medium Futura Book Futura Light Paper: GF. Smith Peregrina Majestic Real Silver 120gsm GF. Smith Mohawk Everyday Digital White Smooth 148gsm Printing and Finishing: Digitally printed in London College of Communication Elephant and Castle, London Design and Photography: Yin-Yu Chen

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