ARC423 Advanced Building Systems

CENTRE CULTUREL D'ART GEORGES POMPIDOU,
Place Beaubourg, Paris, France.
Piano & Rogers, architects with Ove Arup, 1971-77

1. The proliferation of systems, due to:
    a. New technologies, such as electronic systems, telecommunications systems, computer network systems, and who knows what is next??
    b. Refinement of existing technologies, the narrowing of the objectives of existing systems, producing more specific and thus more efficient systems.

2. The need for rapid construction.
    Financing systems in the United States put enormous pressure on the architect to design and build quickly. Design/build techniques, exploitation of rapid fabrication and assembly techniques add layers of complexity.

3. Concern for fire
    a. Detection, systems for the rapid detection of smoke/fire
    b. Protection, systems for protection of the other systems in the building
    c. Suppression, systems for suppression of a fire should one occur.

1. A museum of modern art
2. A reference library
3. A center for industrial design
4. A center for music and acoustic research.

Also included were areas for administration, hbook shops, restaurants, cinemas, children's activities and a parking.

For our purposes it serves to illustrate:

• The degree to which various systems in the building may possess varying levels of openness.
• The varying degrees of the hierarchy of openness, with the building passing on to the user varying degress of openness.
• The advantages and liabilities of the application of a universal solution with universal space.
• The degree to which the modern steel articulated assembled building results in a proliferation of systems.
• The complications that fire concerns can have on a building with such an extensive degree of reduction of the structural sytem and with an exposed mechanical and structural system.

Link to Centre Pompidou's web site