Aurora Place, Sydney

Presented By :Agresh Shrivastava 02Kumar Snehansu 29

Project Details

Designed by Renzo Piano.

Completed in December 2000

Comprises of a 44 level office tower

Comprises of 18 level residential building and supporting retail facilities.

Site Area : 4,262 sq.m.

Bounded by Philip Street, Bent Street and Macquarie Street.

Mixed- use development.

• Net lettable area of office tower : 49,500 sq.m

• Overall building height : 200m

• The residential building is known as Macquarie Apartments

• It comprises of 62 luxury residences, all of which enjoy unobstructed views across the Royal Botanic Gardens to Sydney Harbor and the Opera House.

Project Details

R

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P

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• Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, on 14th September 1937.

• Piano differentiates between himself and his architect contemporaries by characterizing his

activity as a kind of scientific building.

His Philosophy

• Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) -

light is an important theme

• aesthetic sense of lightness• are deployed to make visible or “bring

forth” social, cultural and tectonic truths;

• to articulate a particular spatiality;

• to assemble transparencies and

layering;

• and to de-materialise substantive elements.

-Piano

• “Anyone can build using a lot of material…

Taking weight away from things, however, teaches you to make the shape of structures

do the work, to understand the limits of

strength of components and to replace rigidity with flexibility…”

History

• In 1996, in celebration of the upcoming 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia

• Involved de-building of NSW State Office Block

• Consisted of a 31 storeybuilding, a 12 storey building and a 9 storey building

• 98% of the base building

material was recycled.

Architectural aspects

• Exterior

• Surroundings

• Interior

Surroundings

• View from macquarie apartments

Site Plan

Architectural influences of surrounding buildings

• Chifley Tower

• Sydney Opera House

• Governor Philip Tower

East

• east façade is having curved and twisted shape • Twisted to answer the wind loads.• corresponds spatially with Opera House.• bulges out slightly from its base. • reaching its maximum width at the top floors.

FacadeWest

• The exterior glass curtain-wall extends beyond the main frame

• Counters wind load

North

• Directly faces Opera house

• Tapered inwards-sunlight

FacadeSouth

• Tapered-wind loads.

• Fins-on canopy.

Interiors

Plan of office

Salient features

• Two buildings with a common square, & a glass roof.

• Lightweight cable and glass canopy.

• Shelter to passing pedestrians.

• construction activities exploited the permissible area/height ratio in the best possible manner.

• “light angle( 43 °) ”

• “skin” is made up of a special screen-printed glass.

• cream-coloured ceramic particles.

• slightly curved, triangular “sail” glass extending up to 30m.

Macquarie apartments

• Residents in the 15-storey Macquarie Apartments have 5

electronic horizontal glass louvers .

• to trap the warmth of the sun

• Each apartment runs the full storey width.

• Sensors to automatic closing during a storm.

Macquarie apartments

• Sails

• Rust-orange tiles on street level.

Architectural Analysis

• Light

• Transparency-glass

• Form

Light & Glass-Transparency

• glass undergoes a “… transition to nothing” • intensity of the dot screen frit coating reducing towards the

edges.---visual fading• gradual dematerializing of the glazing • ever decreasing means of support.

Form Evolution…

FORM…

Structural analysiso Commercial tower.

o Macquarie

apartments.

o Canopy.

Commercial tower

1. Primary frame.

2. Secondary elements.

Primary frame

Three levels of basement were previously constructed over the entire site, which was extended to 10m( two additional levels).

Sandstone in foundation.

Columns have reinforced pad footings.

Max loads on columns=40,000kN (200 elephants).

10 permanent rock anchors are used.

Core frame model.

Central core is supported on a 1.5m thick continuous core raft.

Core projects 1.5m.

Reinforced and post-tensioned concrete.

Floor plates and columns- combined moment resisting frame.

Each floor acts as support from toppling.

Fire proofing-

Active sprinkler system.

Simulation modelling.

Secondary elements

Fins

Tusks

Sails

Mast

Aluminium

dog-bone mullions

Canopy

• 650m2

• Steel and glass.

A Challenge

• The old building was a loved icon.

• plan forms an oval-shaped.

• a highly irregular shaped office.

• Intelligent and economic planning.

Critiques

"He brings to each project a great seriousness of purpose, combined with a lyrical understanding of materials - so that what emerges is an architecture of extraordinary clarity and finesse."

“It is more common to conceal technology in a building than to reveal it, and scant few who do reveal it do so poetically. The technology that constitutes the figurative aspect of the architecture at Aurora Place is derived from construction, factory production and engineering, three great form-giving agencies of 20thcentury Modernism.”

- Ar. Charles Correa, Pritzker Juror

Our Analysis

Tech-savvy structure.Unique

conceptualization. Low response on street

levels. “Form follows function” ?

Thank you