THE SHARD DESIGN BY RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP
The London Bridge Tower,
also known as the Shard, is a 72-storey, mixed-use tower located beside London
Bridge Station on the south bank of the river Thames. This project was a
response to the urban vision of London Mayor Ken Livingstone and to his policy
of encouraging high-density development at key transport nodes in London. This
sort of sustainable urban extension relies on the proximity of public
transportation, discourages car use and helps to reduce traffic congestion in
the city.
A mix of uses –
residential, offices and retail – creates a building that is in use 24 hours a
day. The slender, pyramidal form of the tower was determined by its suitability
to this mix: large floor plates at the bottom for offices; restaurants, public
spaces and a hotel located in the middle; private apartments at the top of the
building. The final floors accommodate a public viewing gallery, 240 m above
street level. This arrangement of functions also allows the tower to taper off
and disappear into the sky, a particularly important detail for RPBW given the
building’s prominence on the London skyline.
Eight sloping glass
facades, the “shards”, define the shape and visual quality of the tower,
fragmenting the scale of the building and reflecting the light in unpredictable
ways. Opening vents in the gaps or “fractures” between the shards, provide
natural ventilation to winter gardens.
The extra-white glass
used on the Shard gives the tower a lightness and a sensitivity to the changing
sky around it, the Shard’s colour and mood are constantly changing. It required
a particular technical solution to ensure the facade’s performance in terms of
controlling light and heat. A double-skin, naturally ventilated facade with
internal blinds that respond automatically to changes in light levels was
developed. The logic is very simple: external blinds are very effective in
keeping solar gain out of a building, but unprotected external blinds are not
appropriate for a tall building, hence the extra layer of glass facade on the
outside.
As part of the project, a
section of London Bridge Station’s concourse was also redeveloped and the
London Bridge Tower has been the stimulus for much of the regeneration of the
surrounding area, now known as the London Bridge quarter.
Consultants: Arup (
Structure & Service ) and more...
http://www.rpbw.com/project/58/london-bridge-tower/
INTERVIEW BETWEEN RENZO PIANO
& MARCUS FAIRS
Marcus Fairs: How did the Shard
project come about?
Renzo Piano: It was [Arup structural
engineer] Tony Fitzpatrick who called and said do you want to meet somebody?
And that somebody was [developer] Irvine Sellar [of Sellar Property
Group]. We met in Berlin. I was quite attracted by the idea of… not
really of making a tall building, but the idea of making a mixed-use tower – a
vertical city.
It was also clear that
this tower was sitting in the centre of a crossing system of different
transportation – trains, buses and all that. So it was typical of work we have
done in the past about brownfields – how to intensity life in the city. The
philosophy topping the expansion of the city by explosion and starting
implosion. Growth of the city from inside: filling the holes, filling the
industrial sites, railway sites. And then we started to work.
So that was the
beginning. Why we came up with this [the form of The Shard] is a bit more
difficult. The most important thing that attracted us was this idea of mixing
use, and the fact that it was sitting in a vital place of interchange. It
provided an excellent occasion to show that you could provide life in a city
without increasing the traffic – by using public transportation.
The first time I met
[then London mayor] Ken Livingstone in London it was clear Ken was happy about
this. It fell perfectly within his philosophy. So finally our philosophy, the
client’s philosophy, Ken’s philosophy and the city’s philosophy were coming
together. It was quite fortunate.
Then the next thing is if
you have to put mixed use – if you have to put together office space, hotel
space and residential space, you understand very quickly that for the office
you need that big platform [gesturing with hands], for the hotel you need that
big and for the houses you need that big. So if you need that that and that,
what is the shape you end up with?
In some ways it is
difficult to clarify between the conscious and the subconscious – between
rationality and instinct – but in some way this idea of something starting fat
and becoming small was a rational and instinctive process. Rational because it
made sense from the beginning. Instinctive because it became clear that the
only way to make something elegant was to not fill the sky – to make something
slim.
Was the shape a formal decision
or did it come through sketching?
No it also came by
sketching, and also by making models. I made a joke the first time Irvine came
to the office; I picked up in the workshop a shard – not of glass but of wood.
A splinter. I made a joke about it. actually it was quite immediate. If I’m not
wrong, even that day in Berlin – this may be part of Irvine Sellar mythology –
he reminded me last time that during the lunch I picked up a pencil and I
started sketching. We talked from the beginning that was quite wide here and
then less and less and less this idea of doing something that was probably
breaking the scale and coming up in this position, having an observation deck
here, certainly public space here, housing from here to here, hotel from here
to here, office here… this thing came very quickly.
As quickly as you just drew it?
Yeah, something like
that. But I don’t want to create a mythology. Then of course it became quite
evident from the first sketches that from that height up [indicates upper
levels of the building] you have quite a lot of wind and you are not going to
be able to use the space when you come down below 50sq m [per floor], so we
started to come up with the idea of the radiator [the finned heat-transfer
device that topped the building in early iterations but which has since been
replaced by a series of public viewing galleries].
It’s a glass building – and
glass buildings are not renowned for their energy efficiency.
As you know we are aiming
to save a lot of energy. Actually that is what we have done in Sydney;
the Aurora Place tower
that was finished five or six years ago actually saves one third of the energy
by the previous building there. There we used the breeze in the winter garden,
and chemicals in the glass. Glass technology has changed immensely.
We are working on
different things. One is that because it’s a mixed use, we have extra
production of heat from the offices that we can reuse in the residential part.
This is un-poetic but it is very intelligent.
The other thing is the
composition of the glass. We are working with double glass – actually triple
glass – with a space in between where we have lamellas – venetian blinds –
that cut heat gain from the sun. And when you don’t have sun – which happens in
London – you can lift up the lamella. They are inside the glass. Of course the
air between the two panes of glass heats up, but then we evacuate it and reuse
it.
So the composition of the
façade is part of the mystery, part of the story. And we are working on a chemical
glass with a composition… the blinds are better than tinted glass. You can see
them. At night they will disappear. There will be some facets that will
probably not even have lamella. It’s like the trunk of a tree, acting
differently all the way round, depending on how much sun it gets. The south
side will not be the same as the north.
We don’t use mirror glass
or tinted glass. We use new technology which is more subtle. The language of
the building will depend on this. We will use clear glass – low iron glass.
It’s also called extra white glass in England. This is very different from
regular glass, which is very green. If you use low iron glass you end up with
something that really is like a crystal. So depending on the day, the light and
the position of the sun, the building will look different. It will not look
like a massive glass meteorite - choom! - as many towers do. It’s going to be
more vibrant and changing.
How do you ensure that such a
tall building compliments, rather than damages, the city it sits in?
That’s a good question.
Towers usually have a very bad reputation - and normally a deserved reputation,
because they are normally a symbol of arrogance and power. In other words the
story towers normally tell are not very nice; not very subtle. They are just
about power and money. But the idea of a tower is not just a bad one. In
this case the desire to go up is not really to break any record – it is to
breathe fresh air. It is to go up to enjoy the atmosphere. So I think the first
point about serenity is more that the building is not struggling to be
powerful. It’s actually quite gentle. Especially as from the street the
building is not like that but is like that, and as a consequence it will
reflect the sky.
All this is about doing a building that is not arrogant. I don’t think arrogance will be a character of this building. I think its presence will be quite subtle. Sharp but subtle. This doesn’t mean you have to lose presence and intensity. I think the building will be intense – it’s not timid.
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/18/interview-renzo-piano-on-the-shard/
‘’ I always thought this
tower will be a sensor of the city, reflecting the mood. What the Shard does
for London is a list of things. I was aware of risks with the project when I
took it on, but the best things in life are always a little dangerous. ‘’
Renzo Piano
INTERVIEW BETWEEN RENZO PIANO
& MARCUS FAIRS
Marcus Fairs: In an interview a few
years ago you said “We have to have the confidence
to believe that we can create a tower that Londoners will come to respect as
they respect St Paul's. The power of Mammon created a beautiful city like
Sienna; this power can be put to good civic use, not just to make developers
rich.” Do you believe that?
Renzo Piano: I went
through this exercise a number of times including at a conference at the RIBA
when everybody was talking about adding towers to London. And I said I don’t
think London is a city of towers. I think Manhattan is a city of towers, it
makes sense there. I don’t think London is a city of towers and I don’t think
the only way of intensifying life in the city is by making towers. I don’t
think growth by implosion – rather than explosion at the periphery –
necessarily means building towers. The city of London, where the buildings
normally making the city are two or three floors, you can easily increase the
density of the city without making towers.
In London I don’t see
many many places where you can make towers. Also if you build a tower, you cast
a shadow. The funny thing is that here our shadow is cast on the river. We
don’t cast a shadow …
You are sitting above a
great hub of transportation. There are many things that make this building possible
there and not somewhere else. I think this is one of the few positions where
you can have towers.
But the tallest tower in
Europe?
First, Marcus, it will
only be the tallest for a few weeks! I’m joking. It’s not the highest because
we have been struggling to make it the highest. It’s not the highest when you
stop here. We didn’t try to beat any record.
But I think you are
touching something very important, which is the discussion about style,
the griffe, the recognisable gesture. I believe this is part of
the star system of architects but its not a good story for architecture because
it doesn’t celebrate architecture but celebrates the architects. I think in the
end is not good for architecture because in the end it limits the freedom. You
as an architect – let's assume you have a certain success; you are always
pushed to repeat yourself. It’s not just true for architects; it’s also true
for painters, writers, film makers. If you do something, people will ask you to
do it again. But this is not a good story; this is a lack of freedom.
Everybody talks about a
lack of freedom but probably the most difficult freedom to keep is not from
other people but from yourself. Freedom from other people is quite easy; if you
have a tough group of people working together as we are – honestly, we defend
our freedom quite well – but the most dangerous freedom to defend is the one
with yourself. Because you get used, you become self-referential, because
things go well. So you fall in the big trap, which is the one of recognisable
signature. The idea that you do things this way. So immediately people say that
is Pierre Cardin, Hermes or whatever. I’m not saying this to be a moralist; I
hate this idea of a repetitive gesture or a self-referential attitude; I hate
this idea of being trapped by the need to promote your griffe – your label – but at the same time I love the
idea of coherence. I love the idea that an architect has their own language. We
have to constantly fight against the temptation to repeat yourself.
You come from a family of
builders. How did this affect your architecture?
Architecture is not
construction. Architecture is art, but art vastly contaminated by many other
things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many
things. But I came to this attitude that architecture is art starting as a
builder.
And this was good because
it kept me away from academia when I was young. When you are young as an
architect you are always in danger of falling in to the trap of academia.
Academia is the attitude to make shape without knowing enough about the bottom
part of the iceberg. But if you become more humble – in 62 and 63, I was
sleeping more in the university of Milan than in my bed. It is true, I came
from a family of builders but I also came from a very strong social experience
of community life. Living with other people, changing the world, sleeping on
the bloody bench in the university. So this funny mix, this funny bouillabaisse
of emotion is very rich.
So it’s stupid to say
that coming from a family of builders was a good thing in itself because you
can learn later on, but it was good because it kept me away from formality.
From academia, from the easy pleasure of creating form.
Academia not just in
architecture but writing, painting, music – everything that is done without
rebellion. And when you are young it is very dangerous. When I was young
student, the Italian system was highly academic. Like in France. France now is
different; but don’t forget the École des Beaux-Arts has been spoiling
architects for ages. Creating pseudo-artistic architects. So in some way my
origins of a builder family kept me away from this. And it kept me away from
being too easily trapped in the pleasure of gesture.
The Centre Georges
Pompidou [the building Piano won at competition
with Richard Rogers in 1971, launching both of their careers, and which famously
features service pipes and ducts on the outside] could have been such a style
trap for you.
At first, people think
you will spend your entire life making pipes! And they ask you to make pipes.
This is also true for artists. If you take a great artist like Giacometti, for
example. Giacometti spent the last ten years repeating the same thing – because
he was asked to repeat the same thing. The poor guy – he was so nice and gentle
that he did. It was not nasty – he was not doing it to make money or whatever,
it was just a trap he fell in.
Architecture is by
definition a discipline – of course it is artistic, it is scientific, social
discipline – but it is a discipline where the adventurous side is very strong,
because every job is a new adventure. This is a completely different adventure
from making the Paul Klee museum in
Bern. It is completely different. How can you tell such a different story with
the same language? How can you worry about that? But you don’t have to worry if
you have an internal coherence. This will come anyway. But if you start
worrying then you fall in the trap. Instead of being free, you worry that is
not essential, which is “how will people recognise that it is mine”.
What is your internal
coherence?
Marcus, I don’t care but
people keep telling me that they recognise it. There was a guy who went to see
one of our buildings but he didn’t know it was one of ours. If there is
something there that is coherent… if you ask me what are the traces of this, I
think more than always using the same material, always the same rhythm, it is
more about a desire for lightness for example, for transparency, for vibration.
It’s not so different
from what we are trying to do with the New York Times[building
in New York, which features a curtain wall of ceramic tubes]. The poetic desire
behind this is similar – it’s about vibration, about becoming part of the
atmosphere, metamorphosis. Lightness, transparency, maybe tension between the
place and the built object.
There are certain characteristics.
I don’t think I should worry about it, but some critics tell us and they
normally talk about this – the emotion of a space being built up also by
immateriality. This is not my idea –[architecture critic] Rayner Banham
discussed the well-tempered environment. The idea that architecture is
sometimes built up by immateriality: light, transparency, long perspective,
vibration, colour, tension. I prefer to dig in this quarry rather in the
repetition of certain gestures.
Look, I was lucky enough to
be educated when I was a young architect in Milan to explore the cities, to put
my hand into science, utopia, to change the world. That’s the kind of thing you
do when you are young – rebellion. Don’t forget, rebellion, when you are young,
is the cheapest way to find yourself. However, how can you accept when you are
60 years old the humiliation of having a style. Of being grabbed by commercial
obligation. It’s a humiliation; it’s insulting. As an architect this is what
you have to aim [for]. This kind of freedom – maybe you will never change the
world but you have to believe you can otherwise you are lost.
So every time you get a
new job, the way you approach it is by saying ah… but how can you humiliate
yourself by saying no, no, no, forget it; first, how can we make ourselves
recognisable.
So if someone came to you and
said “I want a building with pipes on the outside”, what would you say?
I would laugh. You know
there is a moment in your life when people don’t come any more to say silly
things like that. We are in a very privileged position to be able to decide
what to do.
But a challenge like this
has a very deep root in the history of a city, in the history of science, so
there is a kind of utopia here. It’s not just a formal gesture. Even the little
idea of a vertical city, mixed use, intensify life without adding new cars. You
realise we have forty-seven cars in this building [The Shard]. The car park is
for forty-seven cars! Not 4,000. This is also because Ken Livingstone also said
don’t even add … just for handicapped people and that kind of use.
So there are many many
things here that are the invisible parts of architecture. It’s a bit like an
iceberg. The invisible part is what I call the social vision for a city, the
context and things like that. It’s very strongly there. Unless you do this,
architecture becomes very quickly an academic exercise; a formal exercise.
Many people claim the Centre
Georges Pompidou was the first building in the “high-tech” style. Was that
building a formal exercise?
In reality it is quite an
ironic building. It is not a real spaceship – it is a Jules Verne spaceship.
It’s really more a parody of technology than technology. It was just a direct
and quite innocent way to express the difference between the intimidating
cultural institutions like they normally were in the 60s and 70s - especially
in this city [Paris, where his studio is based] – and the modern building, very
open and a curious relationship with people. The idea was that it doesn’t
intimidate. We were young bad boys and we liked that.
But the Beaubourg is not
really the triumph of technology. It’s more about the joy of life. It’s a
rebellion.
Are you still rebellious?
Mmmmmm. in some ways yes. But you should not ask me, you should ask my wife.
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/05/18/interview-renzo-piano-on-the-shard/
‘’ The Shard is an icon,
a destination in itself. It represents a new generation of office building that
is more interested in effectiveness than efficiency. Its offices aren’t places
in which to sit and just crunch numbers. Instead, they’re places where
21st-century ‘knowledge’ workers can collaborate with each other, make
connections, think, socialise and use their creativity effectively. These
representatives of the information age – typically employed by media companies,
publishing houses, law firms etc – need a new type of working environment.
Fifty or 60 years ago, most offices were clerical factories, where people were
doing ‘process’ work – organising things, doing paperwork. Nowadays, we don’t
need to come to an office to find data or access phone lines; we can get our
emails on our mobiles, download data onto our tablets and laptops. Information
is up in the cloud. Organisations have to develop a new type of office
landscape and think about their workspace in radically different ways. ‘’
Professor Jeremy Myerson
RENZO PIANO BUILDING
WORKSHOP
Renzo Piano Building
Workshop company profile The Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is an
international architectural practice with offices in Paris and Genoa.
The Workshop is led by 13
partners, including founder and Pritzker Prize laureate, architect Renzo Piano.
The company permanently employs nearly 130 people. Our 90-plus architects are
from all around the world, each selected for their experience, enthusiasm and
calibre.
The company’s staff has
the expertise to provide full architectural design services, from concept
design stage to construction supervision. Our design skills also include
interior design, town planning and urban design, landscape design and
exhibition design services.
Since its formation in
1981, RPBW has successfully undertaken and completed over 120 projects across
Europe, North America, Australasia and East Asia. Among its best known works
are: the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas; the Kansai International Airport Terminal
Building in Osaka; the Kanak Cultural Center in New Caledonia; the Beyeler
Foundation in Basel; the Rome Auditorium; the Maison Hermès in Tokyo; the
Morgan Library and the New York Times Building in New York City; and the
California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Recently completed works
include the Shard in London, and the new Whitney Museum in New York.
The quality of RPBW’s
work has been recognised by over 70 design awards, including major awards from
the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Royal Institute of British
Architects (RIBA).
In all our work we aim to
address the specific features and potential of a particular situation,
embracing them into the project while responding to the requirements of the
program. We continue to push the limits of building technology – innovating,
refining and experimenting – to come up with the very best solution for each
situation.
Our method of working is
highly participatory, with clients, engineers and specialist consultants all
contributing from the beginning of a project and throughout the design process.
Our approach to design is
not strictly conventional and involves the use of physical models and
one-to-one scale mockups to help test and develop our proposed design concepts.
We also believe that the design process is not linear and that it requires
architects to think and draw on different scales at the same time, considering
each finished detail in the development of the overall design.
http://www.rpbw.com/en/architecture/3/the-firm/4/company-profile/
RENZO
PIANO
Chairman.
Founding Partner. Architect DPLG based at Paris Office.
Renzo
Piano was born in Genoa in 1937 into a family of builders.
While
studying at Politecnico of Milan University, he worked in the office of Franco
Albini.
In 1971,
he set up the “Piano & Rogers” office in London together with Richard
Rogers, with whom he won the competition for the Centre Pompidou. He
subsequently moved to Paris.
From the
early 1970s to the 1990s, he worked with the engineer Peter Rice, sharing the
Atelier Piano & Rice from 1977 to 1981.
In 1981,
the “Renzo Piano Building Workshop” was established, with 150 staff and offices
in Paris, Genoa, and New York.
He has
received numerous awards and recognitions among which: the Royal Gold Medal at
the RIBA in London (1989), the Kyoto Prize in Kyoto, Japan (1990), the Goodwill
Ambassador of UNESCO (1994), the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, Japan (1995), the
Pritzker Architecture Prize at the White House in Washington (1998), the Leone
d’oro alla Carriera in Venice (2000), the Gold Medal AIA in Washington (2008)
and the Sonning Prize in Copenhagen (2009).
Since
2004 he has also been working for the Renzo Piano Foundation, a non-profit
organization dedicated to the promotion of the architectural profession through
educational programs and educational activeities. The new headquarters was
established in Punta Nave (Genoa), in June 2008.
In
September 2013 Renzo Piano was appointed senator for life by the Italian
President Giorgio Napolitano and in May 2014 he received the Columbia University
Honorary Degree.
http://www.rpbw.com/en/architecture/3/the-firm/5/team/