RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP, TEN PROJECTS DATING FROM 2012 AND ONGOING, THAT ELEGANTLY AND EFFICIENTLY PLACE CLEAN ENERGY AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE DESIGN PROCESS .

“Designing for energy savings is not an ‘add on’, but, rather, the proper way to build.”

Renzo Piano, Kimbell Art Museum

‘Everything we do at the agency is for people; no matter what the project is, it is for people. It is so that people can get the most out of a building, be it a museum, a theater, or a residential space. Behind everything is a wish to communicate that this space is for people. In Italian we say ‘Uno Spazio per la Gente’.

Giorgio Bianchi, partner in charge of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center

LE ALBERE AREA, TRENTO, ITALY, 2002-2016

Le Albere Area is a mixed use re-development, designed as a self contained community with a range of functions and services included. Built on a brown-field site, previously occupied by a 1937 Michelin factory, construction of the passive/active low energy community commenced in 2008. The building-integrated 5000m2, 231 kWp PV arrays are a primary, high visibility design consideration.

BIBLIOTECA UNIVERSITARIA DI TRENTO, TRENTO, ITALY, 2002-2016

The new University Library of Trento is also located in the Albere district. Quality of natural ambient light within the two main volumes guides the design and converges seamlessly with the PV performance. The overhanging glass layers support the PV panels with dimensions fitting with the structure. The entrance hall and the two large rooms are covered with thin layers of glass controlling the solar radiation.

The Library was inaugurated on the 19th of November 2016.

KIMBELL ART MUSEUM EXPANSION, FORT WORTH, USA. 2007-2013

Roof

A defining feature of the pavilion is one of Piano’s most elaborately engineered roof systems, which appears to float above the massive, coupled wood beams. The roof includes a layer of high-efficiency fritted glass supporting mechanical aluminum louvers with built-in photovoltaic cells. The ceiling glows as sunlight filters through the glass roof down through soft, silk-like scrims. Energy-efficient lighting with incorporated LED technology enhances the natural light provided by the roof.

Kimbell Art Museum

STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION CULTRAL CENTRE, ATHENS, GREECE, 2008-2016

The dominant 100m x 100m PV canopy, both reducing heat load on the building and providing a large proportion of the power required, is a major component of the design. This is just one part of a raft of energy efficiency devices incorporated throughout the Centre, housing the Greek National Opera House and the Greek National Library.

The client’s ambition to build a sustainable project in the broadest sense was realised, thanks to: the design team’s approach of considering sustainability from conception; taking a collaborative approach with the support from all parties; collectively agreeing objectives; defining a strategy and sticking to it through the design; and considering sustainability in all aspects, large and small.

David McAllister, ICBSE Journal, March 2017

LA VALLETTA CITY GATE, LA VALLETTA, MALTA, 2009-2015

The ‘City Gate’ project is a redesign of the entrance to the Maltese capital of Valletta and the project comprises four parts: the Valletta City Gate and its site immediately outside the city walls, the design for an open-air theatre within the ruins of the former Royal opera house, the construction of a new Parliament building and landscaping .The architecture of the new city gate is very restrained and timeless. quality incorporating both traditional passive and contemporary active energy and environmental considerations. On the one hand, stone is used for the building’s facade to diminish solar heat gain and to allow natural ventilation. Stone is also effective as part of the building’s geothermal heat exchanger, with 40 geothermal boreholes sunk into rock to depths of 140m, 100m below sea-level.In addition, the roof is covered with 600m2 of photovoltaic panels – an ambitious energy strategy that allows the building to generate 80% of the energy required to heat it in the winter and 60% of its requirements to cool it in the summer months.

CHILDREN’S SURGICAL HOSPITAL, ENTEBBE, UGANDA, 2013-2020

“Healthcare in Africa should be at the same level as it is in the Global North. This project comes with all the skills, equipment and technologies needed to start high-level surgery in an extraordinary facility. We are all part of the human family. We are ‘equal in dignity and rights’, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says. We have a responsibility to provide exactly the same level of treatment for African children that is expected in richer countries,” Gino Strada, surgeon and founder of EMERGENCY.

“Gino asked me to design a ‘scandalously beautiful’ hospital. He uses that phrase because to some people, the idea of offering beauty and excellence to everyone, especially poor and marginalised people, is scandalous. In Swahili, the concept of beauty is linked to goodness. There is no beauty without goodness,” Renzo Piano.

CHILDREN’S HOSPICE, BOLOGNA, ITALY, 2014-IN PROGRESS

Here again, RPBW makes clean energy a prime design consideration covering the network of elevated hospice pavilions with a PV panel shade structure. This extensive distributed power generator is supported by an array innovative energy saving systems, including geothermal energy.

The project idea is that of a building raised off the ground to ideally inhabit a light, glowing space with the eyes of the young residents level with the foliage. The idea of “alleviating” comes from the same root as “levitating”: lifting the burden of pain. Ultimately, this is the reason and power of human pietas within the idea of a hospice: to relieve the pain of those who live here. Living amid the trees is closely related to children's games and dreams, tree houses and the powerful idea of creative freedom in the natural world.

GENERAL HOSPITAL, KOMOTINI, GREECE, 2018- ON GOING

The General Hospital, Komotini, the Children’s University Hospital, Thessaloniki and the General Hospital, Sparta are part of a Greek health initiative undertaken jointly by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and the Greek Government.

All three projects have in common both an approach which is centred on people and a steady attention towards the natural environment within which they become integrated, thanks to a careful utilization of renewable energy resources and of the principles of energetic and social sustainability. The employment of light and of natural ventilation find their application as mainstream principles both in public spaces and in the patients' rooms. The basic idea in the three projects is, to give shape to facilities, which are totally immersed in nature, in order to foster a quiet, relaxing environment for patients and their relatives, but also for doctors, nurses and all staff. Nature has in fact a "therapeutic" role in every patient's rehabilitation process, as in the ancient Asklepeion.

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, THESSALONIKI, GREECE, 2018-IN PROGRESS

GENERAL HOSPITAL, SPARTA, GREECE, 2019-ON GOING