25 November 2018

Renzo Piano has recently presented his new skyscraper project: 224 metres high, it will be built in London. The Italian architect’s project is one of the more-than-260 skyscrapers under construction or designed in the British city, reflecting a strong trend. Such high and impressive buildings are aimed to redevelop modern metropolitan areas.

The Sharp, an other skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2012, has enhanced London Bridge, one of the most fashionable areas. Now Paddington Tower, the new architecture, aims to redevelop the neighborhood from which it takes its name.

The Paddington Tower will be a glass skyscraper, with 65 floors and about 200 apartments as well as offices, shops, bars and restaurants. The goal is to finish the work by 2020, two years after the opening of the new Paddington railway station.

The architecture will be fully glazed to reflect the lights of the city, and it will have an important detail: a garden suspended over the city, so everyone will be able to enjoy it.

Vertical growth of London is in the spotlight now. The British city was known as the 'lower town', with few skyscrapers as a symbol of modernity and innovation. Now the city is different: this upward development, according to many, seems to be the only way to solve the problem of housing crisis and city density. Although the homes in these new skyscrapers will be expensive, the modern architectures are more and more recognizable. New urban landmarks are born, as modern aggregator centres for urban areas, less crowded ones too.

Edoardo Croci

19 November 2018

BedZED (Beddington Zero Energy Development) is the UK's first and largest carbon-neutral eco-community and is located in Sutton, a residential town 40 minutes South East from London. BedZED consists of 82 residential homes with a mixture of tenures – 34 for outright sale, 23 for shared ownership, 10 for key workers and 15 at affordable rent for social housing – and 1'600 square metres of work space, an onsite shop, café, sport facilities, health centre and childcare facilities with a further 14 galleried apartments for outright sale. Residents have been living at BedZED since March 2002 and currently BedZed is home to 220 residents. The BedZED design concept was driven by the desire to create a net 'zero fossil energy development', one that will produce at least as much energy from renewable sources as it consumes. Only energy from renewable sources is used to meet the energy needs of BedZED the development is therefore a carbon neutral development - resulting in no net addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. BedZED was developed by the Peabody Trust in partnership with Bill Dunster Architects (ZedFactory); ARUP and BioRegional Development Group, environmental consultants. Transport: A green transport plan promotes walking, cycling and use of public transport. BedZED has good public transport links, including two railway stations, two bus routes and a tramlink. BedZED was the first low car development in the UK to incorporate a car club. A 'pedestrian first' policy with good lighting, drop kerbs for prams and wheelchairs and a road layout that keeps vehicles to walking speed. The BedZED project introduced the first legally binding Green Transport Plan as a condition of planning permission. On-site charging points for electric cars are available in Sutton town centre. Energy: Buildings are constructed from thermally massive materials that store heat during warm conditions and release heat at cooler times. BedZED houses are arranged in south facing terraces to maximise heat gain from the sun, known as passive solar gain. 777 square meters are covered with solar panels. Each terrace is backed by north facing offices, where minimal solar gain reduces the tendency to overheat and the need for air conditioning. BedZED homes and offices are fitted with low energy lighting and energy efficient appliances to reduce electricity requirements. BedZED receives power from a small-scale combined heat and power plant (CHP). The heat from the CHP provides hot water, which is distributed around the site via a district heating system of super-insulated pipes. To enable residents and workers to keep track of their heat and electricity use, meters are mounted in each home and office kitchen. Water: Water use is reduced to 76 litres/day; out of which 18% represents rainwater or recycled water; use of aerated taps, low flush toilets, smaller bathtubs. One innovation at BedZED is the use of a reed-water biofiltration system that purifies blackwater into graywater for use in non-potable applications, such as toilet flush or water for gardening. Waste: separate waste collection system. Local materials: To reduce the embodied energy of BedZED, construction materials were selected for their low embodied energy and sourced within a 35-mile radius of the site where possible. Where possible, BedZED is built from natural, recycled or reclaimed materials. (Fabiana Cambiaso - Università La Sapienza) www.zedfactory.com/zed www.bioregional.com Photos: © 2010 Andrew Butterton; © 2010 ZEDfactory Ltd; ©2009One Planet Living; ©2008 The Independent.

Carlo Bardelli

25 March 2019

The San Francisco Federal Building offers a contemporary response to its context, but more importantly it establishes a benchmark for sustainable design in its use of natural energy sources. The building physically democratizes the workplace as it enhances health and comfort and empowers its users with a sense of control over their surroundings. The project has developed around three primary objectives: the establishment of a benchmark for sustainable building design through the efficient use of natural energy sources; the redefinition of the culture of the workplace through office environments that boost workers’ health, productivity, and creativity; and the creation of an urban landmark that engages with the community. A slender 18–story tower punctuates the skyline, and a public plaza and four–story annex connect to the scale and fabric of the city. The large, open plaza at the intersection of Mission and 7th is a valuable asset in the South-of-Market district, identified by the city as deficient in public space. The placement of the free standing cafeteria pavilion and the public nature of the facilities housed within the tower’s lower levels (including a conference center, fitness center, and daycare center for both local residents and employees) enliven the urban plaza with a steady stream of visitors. The re–definition of circulation and vertical movement paths provides opportunities for chance encounters, a critical mass in circulation, and places for employees to gather across the typical confines of cubicles, departments, or floor plates. The democratic layout locates open work areas at the building perimeter and private offices and conference spaces at the central cores. Many of the same design decisions that create high quality workspace also maximize energy efficiency. The Federal Building is the first office tower in the U.S. to forgo air-conditioning in favor of natural ventilation. As a result of the tower’s narrow profile and strategic integration of structural, mechanical and electrical systems, the building provides natural ventilation to 70% of the work area in lieu of air conditioning, and affords natural light and operable windows to 90% of the workstations. A folded, perforated metal sunscreen shades the full-height glass window wall system and a mutable skin of computer–controlled panels adjusts to daily and seasonal climate fluctuations. With an energy performance that surpasses the GSA’s criteria by more than 50%, the project sets new standards for applications of passive climate control, while physically democratizing the workplace and enhancing employees’ health, comfort, and sense of control over their environment. A dramatic example of sustainable design principles, the San Francisco Federal Building’s shape and orientation maximize natural airflow for cooling and ventilation, and take advantage of natural daylight for the majority of the office interior. The first five levels, with high concentrations of people and equipment, are fully air-conditioned. Above the fifth floor, the windows automatically adjust, allowing fresh air directly into the building for natural ventilation and free cooling. The window system creates a “living skin” that allows the building to breathe. Breezes pass through openings on the windward side and are vented out through the leeward wall, with control based on wind speed and direction. A computerized system, known as the building automation system (BAS), controls and monitors all of the building’s mechanical equipment including those devices that are used to maintain internal environmental conditions and lighting levels.  During the night, the BAS opens the windows to flush out heat build-up and allows the nighttime air to cool the building's concrete interior. Throughout the day the thermal mass of the exposed concrete columns, shear walls and wave-form ceilings help cool the occupants of the building. In the tower, the design of the high-performance façades is critical to the functioning of the natural ventilation. At the southeast elevation, a perforated metal sunscreen protects the glass façade from excess solar heat gain; at the northwest elevation, a series of fixed translucent sunshades are attached to an exterior catwalk, breaking the sun’s path to shade the glass. Through simple sensors, the building's automated systems manage the balance between powered and natural daylight. The building minimizes pollution by replacing high proportions of Portland cement in its concrete foundations and frame.  In the Federal Building’s concrete mixture, 50% of the pollution-intensive Portland cement is replaced with blast furnace slag, a recycled waste product from the steel industry, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from conventional concrete. This environmentally sound choice also results in higher-strength concrete and has a warm, light-colored tone that contributes to the favorable daylight penetration within the office space.  The project recycled 87 percent of its waste material. (Fabiana Cambiaso - Università La Sapienza) Credits: www.morphosis.com morphopedia.com/projects/san-francisco-federal-building   Federal Building – Morphosis Team Completed: 2007 Site: San Francisco, California (USA) Materials: Concrete, Metallic Grid, Translucent Glass Applications: Structure, Envelope Photos: © 2013 Morphosis Architects; © Frankie Flood.

Marco Mignatti

13 March 2019

In Jiye, Lebanon, a home created for wellness and care of the body, integrated like a single organism in a large, exclusive spa. Architecture designed as part of the host landscape, inserted as a residential element in a careful compositional organization of water and gardens, trees and views of the sea.

For Vladimir Djurovic, architectural design is, first of all, a process of listening, of integration with the landscape. In spite of the absence of practices of camouflage, and the orientation toward clear signs, simple and essential forms, precise materials, few in number, usually natural in character, the works of this rigorous, talented contemporary landscape designer are rooted in the tradition and history of the Mediterranean landscape, seen as a complex cultural context and a dialectical process in which forms meet in pursuit of harmony. The designs by Djurovic, his beautiful swimming pools, are clear cuts in the horizon, in this case framing the sea, becoming outstanding features of connection capable of blending the architecture into the host setting. From this viewpoint the design of this exclusive home immersed in greenery, facing the sea, is a good example of a modus operandi open to different solutions but connected to principles of reference that can be repeated case by case.

Observing the plan, one immediately notices that the house, rather that obeying the usual tenets of a ‘compositional’ approach, tends to favor the concept of the route, emphasizing the dense plantings of trees that separate it from the sea, and opening to the water thanks to the large swimming pool, a natural reflecting presence that hosts, on the two short sides, surrounded by greenery, ‘natural’ outcroppings in the form of zigzag crags of stone that magically fragment the perimeter to enter the pool. The house becomes like a backdrop for the designed, constructed landscape, offering well distributed views along its length, with the hill and a solid wall at the level shift, emphasizing the role of the construction as a successful architectural addition to the landscape. The nude facades of irregular blocks of stone, also seen in the interiors, are marked by large, regular openings, darkened by shutters with vertical wooden slats. At the position of the living area, the impermeable back opens toward a tree-lined patio; the result is the effect of a space of passage, enclosed on two sides by greenery and by the swimming pool (sixty meters in length) that previews and underscores the horizon of the sea. After the dining area, organized in a space that extends toward the outside, creating a small courtyard facing the living room, the large kitchen and other rooms for guests, the internal route bends diagonally to reach the large spa area, set back from the staggered linear design of the previous volume, for a more secluded zone devoted to the care of the body. Here an indoor pool with an adjacent hydromassage tub thrusts dynamically toward the garden and the spaces behind it for massages, a sauna and a Turkish bath, then extending further to join a final open area, where the gym encounters a luminous lounge with a complete bar through a continuous full-height glazing. A place for relaxing and encounters, underlining the indoor-outdoor connection, looking toward the fitness zone and anticipating the essential geometries of the more private spaces.

 Carlo Bardelli                    

10 January 2019

ANIMA is the first work of the Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi (among his most famous works there is the Parc de la Villette in Paris) in Italy. Commissioned by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ascoli Piceno and Comune di Grottammare, the work was born with the objective of facilitating the identification of the territory. The project, whose inauguration is scheduled for 2016, is a future landmark for the city of Grottammare, a generator of ideas for the territory, both in its physical size and in its creative potential. Including in an area at the edge of the urban fabric between the sea and the hills, the new work is characterized by a high degree of flexibility; its spaces are configurable on event function.

The name, ANIMA, comes from an acronym: A as Art, N as Nature, I like Ideas, M as Music, A like Action. They are the “five souls” of the project the architect has interpreted as an identity in the making. The work will be a catalyst for interest, interactions, synergies. The surface where architecture is placed coincides with that of the small medieval town of Grottammare, slightly more than 7,000 square meters. The project approaches the historical heart of the town not only in size: it recalls, both outside and inside, the “urbs” concept. Outside the ANIMA looks like a compact body, a perfect square that, if somewhat alludes to an idea of closure and protection, it breaks and immediately shows a high permeability.

A reflection on the theme of the façade is the basis of the research that led Bernard Tschumi in a workaround for large vertical walls that surround the building and that finds its strongest expression in the south wall, through which you access the complex. Once in the square body you find yourself immersed in a split, partly inside and partly outside.

The architect explains the project: The complexity of this space is determined by the rotation of a large cuboid volume that occupies the central area of the building and contains the main hall, with seating for 1,500, flexible and configurable based on capacity needs variables. The rotation of this volume determines a system of four large courtyards, to each of which the main hall has a chance to open up a fluid and dynamic system of visual and physical paths. In addition, an extensive system of ramps allows moving within this heterogeneous environment and mobile, observing from prospects and continuously variable heights. Adjacent to the main hall and linked spectacularly through a multiplicity of paths, there are willing share laboratories, offices, café-restaurant, ancillary spaces. Can you design a façade without recourse to a formal composition? Can you do so is neither figurative nor abstract but, so to speak, without form? At a time of economic crisis, indulge in formal geometry produced by complex volumetric curves didn’t seem to be a responsible choice. The era of the so-called 'iconismo' seems to be finished, as arbitrary sculptural figures of the recent past ".

"Rather than adding a new province and iconic sculptural shape, we decided to investigate interaction, simplicity and sobriety. The internal organization of space was socially and culturally important, but that the external image of the project was equally significant. For this reason we have designed a simple square plan with four façades and a fifth façade, as equivalent coverage. Each façade has its own vocabulary, allowing to address issues such as protection from the Sun, natural lighting and ventilation at the same time project a strong identity to the outside world.

Edoardo Croci