27-10-2016

RPBW Cultural Centre Stavros Niarchos Kallithea Foundation

Renzo Piano, RPBW,

Athens, Greece,

Workshop, Award,

The Cultural Centre operated by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Kallithea (Athens) and inaugurated in the summer of 2016, was presented with the ENR 2016 (Engineering News Record) Global Best Projects Award in an awards ceremony held on October 12 in New York.



RPBW Cultural Centre Stavros Niarchos Kallithea Foundation

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre project permitted redevelopment of a vast semi-abandoned area measuring 170,000 square metres, originally a big city park with a hippodrome, used in 2004 as part of the grounds for the 28th Olympic Games (Athens 2004) and then as a parking lot, located in Kallithea, a historic port in Faliro Bay 4 km south of the centre of Athens. Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s project was primarily concerned with landscape, with restoring the city’s relationship with the sea. The architects designed an artificial hill, a park on a slope which concludes at the Cultural Centre and places the building in a panoramic position over the water.
The centre includes the Library and the Greek National Opera, with an Agora between them: a public space connecting the two and providing access to both buildings. Recently awarded the ENR 2016 (Engineering News Record) Global Best Projects Award, the Cultural Centre has obtained LEED Platinum classification, the highest level, for its environmental sustainability and energy-saving solutions. The Energy Canopy, a high-tech canopy over the reading room, is one example, with a ferroconcrete structure which not only offers shelter from the hot Greek sun but supports the photovoltaic panels required to make the complex energy self-sufficient.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Design: RPBW - Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Location: Athens, Greece

Images courtesy of RPBW, De Padova

http://www.rpbw.com/
http://www.depadova.com/
http://www.snf.org/


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