Renzo Piano designed Aurora Place in Sydney, comprising a 44-level office tower and 18-level residential building with retail space. Completed in 2000, it uses lightweight and curved designs to answer wind loads, with influences from surrounding landmarks. Piano's philosophy emphasizes light, transparency, and revealing structural truths through assembled layers and dematerializing elements. The complex maximizes the permissible height and features a glass-roofed courtyard and steel canopy. Its core-frame structure supports up to 40,000kN using anchors, with floors and columns forming a moment frame. Secondary fins, masts, and sails further articulate the evolving form.

1. Aurora Place, Sydney
Presented By :
Agresh Shrivastava 02
Kumar Snehansu 29

2. 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.

3. • 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

4. R
E
N
Z
O
P
I
A
N
O
• 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.

5. 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.

6. -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…”

7. 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 storey
building, a 12 storey building
and a 9 storey building
• 98% of the base building
material was recycled.

8. Architectural aspects
• Exterior
• Surroundings
• Interior

9. Surroundings
• View from macquarie apartments

10. Site Plan

11. Architectural influences of surrounding buildings
• Chifley Tower
• Sydney Opera House
• Governor Philip Tower

12. 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

13. North
• Directly faces Opera house
• Tapered inwards-sunlight
FacadeSouth
• Tapered-wind loads.
• Fins-on canopy.

14. Interiors

15. Plan of office

16. Salient features
• Two buildings with a common square, & a glass roof.
• Lightweight cable and glass canopy.
• Shelter to passing pedestrians.

17. • construction activities exploited the permissible
area/height ratio in the best possible manner.
• “light angle( 43 °) ”

18. • “skin” is made up of a special screen-printed glass.
• cream-coloured ceramic particles.
• slightly curved, triangular “sail” glass extending up to 30m.

19. 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.

20. Macquarie apartments
• Sails
• Rust-orange tiles on street level.

21. Architectural Analysis
• Light
• Transparency-glass
• Form

22. 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.

23. Form Evolution…

24. FORM…

25. Structural analysis
o Commercial tower.
o Macquarie
apartments.
o Canopy.

26. Commercial
tower
1. Primary frame.
2. Secondary elements.

27. 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.

28.  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.

29. Secondary elements
 Fins
 Tusks
 Sails
 Mast
 Aluminium
dog-bone mullions

30. Canopy
• 650m2
• Steel and glass.

31. A Challenge
• The old building was
a loved icon.
• plan forms an oval-
shaped.
• a highly irregular
shaped office.
• Intelligent and
economic planning.

32. 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

33. Our Analysis
 Tech-savvy structure.
 Unique
conceptualization.
 Low response on street
levels.
 “Form follows function” ?

34. Thank you