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News: London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has unveiled designs for a major new football stadium in Caracas, Venezuela.

The Estadio Nacional de Fútbol de Venezuela will be the first football stadium designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

Developed in collaboration with engineers Arup and Schlaich Bergermann und Partner, it will feature a brightly coloured circular roof that the architects refer to as a “bicycle wheel canopy”.

The building will be located at the top of a hill, overlooking the city centre to the north east.

“The hillside site created an unusual challenge and the design reflects this with terraces cut into the landscape giving way to a series of floating esplanades that provide access to the various levels of stadium,” said Simon Smithson, the lead architect on the project.

The stadium forms part of a wider masterplan by Richard Rogers’ firm for the area known as La Rinconada, located approximately eight kilometres south west of the capital.

The architects had originally been commissioned to design a bus station replacing an existing facility, but the project later evolved to encompass a new transport interchange between the bus station and the existing metro and train station, as well as the establishment of a metropolitan park to protect the surrounding hillsides from further development.

The football stadium will be located within the park alongside a new baseball stadium, while an existing racecourse designed by Californian architect Arthur Froehlich in the 1950s will be retained.

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+ Partners planned for Venezuela appeared first on Dezeen.

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has completed a 34-storey office tower in Sydney with criss-crossing red braces on its sides and an elevated terrace cutting through its middle.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners collaborated with Sydney firm Lippmann Partnership to design the tower for Australian real estate company Mirvac.

Located on Hunter Street in Sydney’s Central Business District, 8 Chifley comprises a pair of glass volumes that are separated by a triple-height private terrace on the eighteenth floor.

The structural framework extends to the exterior of the building. Red steel beams brace the walls on the sides of the tower, plus larger members offer support where there are gaps in the floor plates.

A five-storey-high void at the base of the tower creates a lofty public plaza leading to the entrance, while a landscaped roof offers another accessible outdoor space.

Spaces inside the building are divided into seven zones, each comprising a stack of three floors. There are openings between levels in these clusters, intended to encourage interaction amongst employees.

“[8 Chifley’s] emphasis on community, both indoors and out, from ground to roof, celebrates Australia’s passion for a balanced quality of life and the great outdoors,” said architect Ivan Harbour.

“The building finally forms a focus to Chifley Square, drawing the public plaza up to its front door and forming a great loggia for all Sydney-siders to enjoy,” he added.

Photography is by Brett Boardman.

Here’s more information from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners:

8 Chifley

8 Chifley is the Sydney Central Business District’s newest and most progressive commercial tower from Mirvac.

Dramatically different to anything seen before on the Sydney skyline, this 34-storey office building, is the product of a global collaboration between the internationally renowned UK architectural practice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Australia’s Lippmann Partnership.

It is the first completed building in Australia featuring the distinctive design philosophy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners but remains a project very much of its place. The distinctive red bracing on the exterior of the building reveals the structural skeleton of 8 Chifley, combining structural efficiency, elegance, and most importantly highly functional space planning.

The building is made up of two stacked modules of 12 and nine floors, with seven ‘villages’ of three-storey communal workspaces, providing connectivity and vertical integration between the floors which create the feeling of extensive space. Central to the building’s sense of community is the elevated ‘village square’ on the 18th floor, set within a three-storey void. This area will provide a focal point for occupants of the building, allowing meeting and interaction within a light and airy space.

The building has been designed to make the most of its prominent, north-facing site, bounded by Elizabeth, Hunter and Phillip Streets. Its highly transparent façade, high ceilings and legible structure ensure the building enjoys open and unobstructed views out over the city and a sense of space and light within.

Perhaps the defining feature of the project is the six-storey open space at street level that not only forms a grand entrance to the building, but creates a new, significant area of public space which addresses and completes Chifley Square. The open space is repeated midway up the building and again at the top, integrating Australia’s outdoor lifestyle into the city’s work environment.

8 Chifley is also one of the greenest buildings in Sydney, it has achieved a 6 Star Green Star Office Design v2 certified rating representing “world leadership” in environmentally sustainable design and is committed to achieving a 5 Star NABERS Energy Rating. The design, is very specific to the climate and culture of Sydney. The result is a beautiful piece of architecture that enhances the public realm while providing occupants with wonderful internal spaces within which to develop working communities.

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Harbour + Partners appeared first on Dezeen.

In our next movie focussing on key projects by Richard Rogers, the British architect talks exclusively to Dezeen about his radical Lloyd’s building in London and explains why he is not completely comfortable with the “high-tech” label that is often applied to his work.

Completed in 1986 for insurance company Lloyd’s of London, Lloyd’s building comprises three main towers, each with an accompanying service tower, which surround a central rectangular atrium housing the main trading floor.

Often cited as a pioneering example of high-tech architecture, Lloyd’s building was considered radical because, like Rogers‘ preceding Centre Pompidou in Paris, all of its services, including staircases, lifts and water pipes, are on display on the outside of the building.

“We were able to convince Lloyd’s that we would put the mechanical services on the outside because mechanical services have a short life,” Rogers explains.

As with the Centre Pompidou, the idea was to make the central spaces as open and flexible as possible. “[We] kept the floors clear because Lloyd’s said they wanted two things,” Rogers says.

“They wanted a building that would last into the next century – we met that one – and they wanted a building that could meet their changing needs.”

However, Rogers says that he does not completely agree with the use of the term “high-tech” to describe the building.

“I have no great love for high-tech,” he says. “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.”

He continues: “We thought Lloyd’s was the absolute ultimate in the art of technology. When I look at it now, it’s practically hand made. People say, ‘well, it’s technology and therefore it’s a high-tech building.’ It’s a bit too easy.”

A 200 year-old City of London institution at the time, Lloyd’s seemed an unlikely client for such a bold building.

“It was very traditional,” Rogers says. “The only bit of technology when we went to see the [previous] Lloyd’s building inside was a Xerox machine and some people were still writing with feathers and ink.”

However, Rogers says that the company was actually very forward-looking. “It was backwards only in the process,” he says. “Of course, it was the most famous insurance firm in the world and obviously contained a very cutting-edge element within that.”

He continues: “We were again extremely fortunate, in the same way as we were with the Pompidou. The real critical thing in architecture is having a good client. A good client is not somebody who just says ‘yes’, it’s a client that is engaged in the evolution of the building, who responds.”

While Rogers worked closely with Lloyd’s on the functional aspects of the building, he says he had more freedom over the aesthetics. “We were dealing with people who knew about change, knew about risk, but hadn’t a clue about art,” he explains. “The ducts, the pieces on the outside, allowed us to play a game with light and shadow.”

Despite enjoying a productive relationship with Lloyd’s initially, there were still challenges to overcome to get the building built.

“A year before the end of building, there was an investigation by the Bank of England into Lloyd’s and the chairman and everyone had to resign,” Rogers says. “The next chairman hated us, so we had a very tough last year.”

Rogers says that the general reaction to the building once it was completed was also hostile, although opinion changed over time. Lloyd’s building was Grade I listed in 2011, just 25 years after it was built, and Rogers sees parallels between it and Christopher Wren’s iconic St Paul’s Cathedral.

“Wren was in his seventies when he at last got St Paul’s built,” he says, recounting a story that the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral told him at the opening of Lloyd’s building. “He’d started thirty years beforehand and was so tired of having his building attacked and turned down, by the time he got to building it he put a twenty foot fence all around the site so that nobody could see it.”

“So even St Paul’s was a shock of the new. We think its been there forever – certainly Prince Charles thinks it has been there forever – but it hasn’t. It was a risky building to build in those times, which is why it is great.”

Rogers was speaking to Dezeen to mark the opening of an exhibition called Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Watch our previous interview with Rogers about the exhibition »
See our earlier story about the exhibition »

The London home designed by Rogers for his parents, and which influenced his later design for the Pompidou Centre, was recently put on the market for the first time since it was built in 1968.

Read the full story about Rogers House »
See all our stories about Richard Rogers »

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in technology, but it’s practically hand made” appeared first on Dezeen.

News: London architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have been appointed to design a new terminal at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport at Lyon in France.

The terminal will double the size of the airport, which is one of two that serve France’s second-biggest city, and increase capacity from 10 to 15 million passengers per year by 2020.

RSHP were asked to design a terminal that “didn’t detract from” Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s TGV station, which is next to the airport. Their circular design features shops and gardens at its centre.

RSHP founding partner Richard Rogers, whose company also designed Heathrow Terminal 5 in London and Barajas airport in Madrid, is the subject of a major exhibition that opened at the Royal Academy in London this week. See all our stories about Richard Rogers.

Here’s some info from RSHP:

Lyon airport commissions Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, architects of Heathrow Terminal 5 and Barajas Airport, for their new European gateway

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) are pleased to announce their appointment to design the Future Terminal 1 project at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport. The new terminal will cover roughly the same area (70,000m2) as all of the existing buildings combined and will enable the airport to welcome an extra 5 million passengers by 2020 (taking the total from 10 to 15 million).

The brief for the project was challenging: to create a new identity for the site that remained in keeping with the high-calibre existing campus and didn’t detract from the distinctive TGV train station, designed by Santiago Calatrava. RSHP’s solution is a circular building made up of bold, simple and elegant structural elements.  The terminal will offer a spacious and clearly defined entrance, a hanging garden and large shopping area at the centre, which will enrich the travelling experience for passengers.

Graham Stirk, senior partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, designer of the project said:

“We are very pleased to be involved in the new terminal for Lyon Airport. The existing airport campus has a very distinctive structural and architectural language in both form and colour. This ‘DNA’ determines the character of the new proposal. We look forward to working with GFC Construction and Aéroports de Lyon to create a new European gateway to the city and its region.”

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terminal at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are the latest images of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ extension to the British Museum in London, set to complete early next year.

Currently under construction in the north-west corner of the British Museum‘s Bloomsbury quadrangle, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will provide new galleries, storage facilites and conservation studios within a nine-storey structure conceived as a cluster of pavilions.

Referencing both the nineteenth and twentieth century architecture of the museum, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners designed a steel-framed building clad with a mixture of stone and glass. The height of the roof will align with the eaves of the existing building, while three of the storeys are to be buried underground.

The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery will occupy the ground floor of the new building and will be accessed via the north side of the Norman Foster-designed Great Court. The column-free rectangular gallery will feature a large door to allow access for larger exhibits, as well as a series of floor-to-ceiling windows that can be easily screened to protect light-sensitive objects. The space could also be subdivided to house smaller exhibitions.

Other floors of the building will be dedicated to conservation of the museum’s collection. The uppermost floor will contain top-lit studios for working with smaller artefacts, such as metal, glass or ceramic objects, while additional laboratories and offices will surround a two-storey atrium in the lower levels of the building and will be used for examining larger objects.

The three basement floors will function as a storage and lending hub for over 200,000 items. Each floor will contain a study room, plus a 16-metre truck lift will allow items to be transported in and out of the building.

“The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre represents a vitally important combination of a purpose-built exhibition gallery and a celebration of the amazing behind-the-scenes activities,” said architect Graham Stirk. “These facilities will be contained in a bespoke twenty-first century building that provides the next stage of the museum’s evolution.”

The World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre will complete in March 2014 and the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery is scheduled to open with an exhibition dedicated to the Vikings.

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) is led by Richard Rogers in partnership with Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. Other recent projects by the firm in London include the NEO Bankside apartment blocks beside the Tate Modern art gallery and a fabric walkway over the roof of the O2 Arena. See more architecture by RSHP on Dezeen.

Here’s an update from the British Museum:

British Museum celebrates progress on the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre development

With less than a year to go until the first exhibition opens in the new exhibitions gallery, the British Museum today reveals the extent of progress on the construction of its new capital project, the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre (WCEC). Designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and constructed by Mace, the new Centre will cement the British Museum’s reputation as a world leader in the exhibition, conservation, examination and analysis of cultural objects from across the globe. The WCEC will enable the Museum to build on current successes, to store, conserve, study and display the collection for the future.

Located in the north-west corner of the Museum’s Bloomsbury estate, the WCEC is one of the largest redevelopment projects in the Museum’s 260 year history. The Centre will provide a new public exhibitions gallery, state-of-the-art laboratories and studios, world class stores for the collection, as well as facilities to support an extensive UK and international loan programme. This will rationalise and greatly improve the Museum’s operations on-site, and modernise facilities ‘behind the scenes’. These will allow the Museum to extend support to our UK and International partners in terms of increasing capacity for staff training and joint projects.

The building consists of five pavilions (one of which is sunk into the ground) and the design is sensitive to the British Museum’s existing architecture, connecting to the historic building whilst maintaining its own identity. The exhibitions gallery is due to open in early March 2014 with a new exhibition devoted to the Vikings (supported by BP). It is anticipated the conservation studios, science laboratories, loans hub and stores will be fitted out and occupied by summer 2014.

The total cost of the project is £135 million. The Linbury Trust, established by John Sainsbury (Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover KG), and the Monument Trust, established by Simon Sainsbury have together committed £25 million towards the project, one of the largest gifts to the arts in the UK in recent decades, which will be used to fund the exhibition gallery. The Heritage Lottery Fund has committed £10 million towards the project. Other significant benefactors include the Wolfson Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the family of Constantine Leventis, the Clothworkers’ Foundation, the Fidelity U.K. Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, the Band Trust and others as well as continued support from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (worth £22.5 million over 4 years). A fundraising campaign from the British Museum Members is underway.

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by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners appeared first on Dezeen.