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Photoes of the ventilation system at The Barbican Centre. The ventialtion system is built in to the structure

An attempt to draw the obsrvation of the air movement in front of the main entrance at The Barbican Centre. The plan in the right corner shows where the observation is made.

02 LIGHT

There is a lot of artificial light at The Barbican Centre. It is part of the design, it helps light up important areas, guide the way, and helps give other bits of in-formation. There is lightning strips along the floor and the ceilings. This makes it easier and more comfortable for everyone as you don’t need to concentrate on where as you don’t need to concentrate on where to walk. Light can also indicate stairs or minor falls, and prevent people from trip-ping/falling.

The two pictures above are pictures from the exit to the lakeside at the barbican. The top photo shows the reflection of the light from the inside. The reflection creates an illusion that the same lights are outside. The lower picture shows how the outside really looks like.

The power cables for the lights are built in to the wall/ceiling as everything else at The Barbican.

The Barbican Centre does have sources of natural light as well. There is a lot of big windows facing the Lakeside, which is facing south. Since Lakeside is facing south it will have sun from morning till late sun from morning till late afternoon all year. Large constructions of windows in the ceiling are also a natu-ral light source at the Bar-bican.

The light wall does something to the room, it makes you feel welcome, and warm, and happy. Light usually does that. It opens the room and creates more positive space. It also makes the room more alive. If that hallway would be all concrete it would feel longer and not that approaching.

A massive refurbishment took place at The Barbican Centre for their 25 anniversary in 2005/2006. It cost them 35 million pound.This refurbishment included a whole new entrance towards silk street. To make this a welcoming entrance they hired artist Alex Hartley to make a light wall installation. The installation is 22 meters, and holds moving images. The original work that was first shown on this light box was the Alex Hartley’s own pictures of the city landscape.

http://www.barbican.org.uk/25birthday/new-look/3.html

Now its a big colourful Welcome to The Barbican that meets you when you walk in the main entrance in silk street.

03 GROUNDThe Brutalist building.It took Chamberlain, Powell and Bon a It took Chamberlain, Powell and Bon a long time to decide what type of con-crete to use at The Barbican Centre. They where clearly inspired by Courbosi-er and the new trend Brutalisme. At first they wanted to use a white aggre-gate in the concrete mix. They later found that the white aggregate wouldn’t work in the UK beacuse of the weather condisions. They then decided to add the Welsh granite to the mix. As in most Brutalist buildings there is a lot of concrete in the struc-ture of The Barbican Centre. The struc-ture above ground is made of in situ re-inforced concrete. Almost everything is made in situ, there are some exeptions where they have had to use verical presstressed concrete. This for severeal reasons might have been easier to make elsewhere to so bring it on to site. There are some special shapes that have been made in the building. These shapes have needed specials templates that have had to be made for the occasion. Under-neath there is a picture of how parts of the ceiling at the Barbican centre looks like.

The Concrete used at The Barbican Centre is mixed with Welsh Pen Lee granite. The concrete is treated with a pneumatic drill to give it a bush-hammered texture. This is only applied where appropiate.

An attempt to draw an example of how the template they would have used for the ceiling could have looked like.

Even though there is a lot of Concrete at The Barbican Centre they have also used other materi-als. The most used materials is glass, steel, tiles, bricks and hardwood.

The structure underneath The Barbican Centre is made of 3 meters of ballast fol-lowed by 18 meters of clay. To make the structure solid enough to carry the building they have placed under-reamed bored piles in the clay and ballast. The under-reamed piles vary in diameter from 915 to 1220 mm and reach the dept of 18 m.

A sketch of the structure under ground in scale 1:100

04WATERIn the middle of the complex of the Barbican centre there is a lake. There is a beutiful outing area on the back of the cafete-ria that belongs to ria that belongs to the arts centre. The lake consists of several foun-tains and flows through the complex and all the way to the City of London School. The lake was originally put there to serve as a way of air condi-tioning the area. The diagram underneath shows where the lake is located on site.

As everything else The Barbican Centre the water-system and the pipes are built in to the design. Here is however a picture of one of the drains outside the drains outside at lakeside.

The long blue lines on the sketch is an attempt to show how water rises and sinks again with help of gravity. The blue shapes on the rooftops indicates tanks on top of the terrace blocks.The original sketch is taken from the book Barbican Cement and Concrete assoc.

In the tower blocks at The Barbican the water supplies are kept in the basement. Mechanical pumping equipment raises the water to other smaller water tanks on higher floors, gravity then helps allocate the water in to the pipes. In terrace blocks the water tanks are kept on the roof. The pipe system they use at the barbican is called a vertical riser. This is however just the water used in the bathrooms, stored water which is not to drink. The drinking water coming in to the kitchen is also transferred in the pipes the same way but is taken directly from the mains. There is supthe pipes the same way but is taken directly from the mains. There is sup-posed to be stored 50 gallons for each apartment everyday in the basement of the tower blocks.

This diagram shows the fountains in the lake at the back of The Barbi-can Centre. There is two different fountains, one spreading the water outwards and one pushing the water up. The arrows indicates the move-ment of water.

An attempt to look at the way the water moves in the fountains at The Bar-bican Centre. The blue arrows indicates the movement of water.

The diagram in the top left corner shows where the fountains are located.

These sketches of the fountains show how the water moves. These fountains are spread-ing outwards and the movement of water would be different from the fountains from the fountains that pump the water straight upwards. The diagram in the top right corner show where the fountains are located.

06 ENERGY

The Barbican Centre was built at a time when enregy was cheap, they therefor didn’t think too much about making The Barbi-can Centre energy effeicient. They for example used to have the under floor heat on at all times in the barbican flats, this was before the residents gathered up to show that most of them used to open their windows to regulate the heat. It has now gotten better, but it is still one regulator that controls the heat of all the flats. Which means that if controls the heat of all the flats. Which means that if someone wants to turn on or off the heat in their apartment, they have to call in to the central heating office and make a request.During the big refurbishment ,which costed 35 million pounds, they took measurements to making the centre more energy efficient. At the Barbican Centre they believe in a day-to-day energy efficiency. These day to day things could for example be recycling, regulating heat, natural ventila-tion, 0 waste to landfill etc.. Being Europes biggest art centre these day to day measurements are essential.

This sketch show how heat would work in the flats at The Barbican Centre. The plan is taken from the book ‘Bar-bican penthouse over the City’over the City’

This picture on the right show where the conservatory is located at The Bar-bican Centre.The picture is taken from the book ‘ Barbican Arts Centre, 1968.Q.L.55.4’

This picture shows how the con-servatory works well at The Bar-bican Centre. Picture taken from the book, ‘Barbican Redevelope-ment, 1959. R.QL.55.4’

the conservatory at The Barbican Centre is the second biggest conservatory in London. It houses more then 2000 different spe-cies of plants and trees. The conservatory works as a buffer towards the outside weather. It is a kind of isolation. To keep the Barbican more energy efficient this is a good element to hold. The greenhouse works as a spsce between the outside and the inside which contains air. It takes the air longer to get inside of the building and it has got time to heat up before inside of the building and it has got time to heat up before entering the building.

An attaempt to show how heat comes through the glass, and have some time to heat up before being let into the building. Or can building. Or can be conserved there for a longer period of time.

The Barbican Centre is graded a letter C in energy efficiency, number 73. When 100 is normal 73 is ok. It could still be better but, it has over the years changed to the better. This diagram above shows how the building has changed over the years.

http://www.barbican.org.uk/images/green_barbican/Display_Ener-gy_Certificate_2011_-_Barbican_Centre.pdf

07 RECYCLEAs mentioned in the chapter about energy, The Barbi-can Centre is se-rious about recy-cling and making a day-to-day effort of making the building more energy efficient. The Barbican Arts Centre is the big-gest arts centre in Europe and they have simple steps to be better at sustainability. They have a zero waste to landfill policy, composting 100% of all food waste and they waste and they only serve food from a 250 miles radius. There is a lot of recycling bins around the centre which makes it easy for guests it easy for guests to recycle as well. The centre has won several awards for their environmental friendly work. They won the They won the chairman’s cup at the clean city awards in 2010, They won the best project for the Change London awards in 2010 for awards in 2010 for their work in ma-terial waste man-agement.

The garbage van comes to pick up general waste at around 16.00 on Thursdays.

Recycle and reuse is very important, as the world keeps being filled up with trash. We will soon not have space for anymore. This is some of the things The Barbican recycles: Card Paper Cans Plastic Glass Toner Cartridges Mobile Phones Batteries CDs & DVDs Cooking Oil Fluorescent bulbs WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Food waste

The Barbican are doing certain steps to The Barbican are doing certain steps to reuse aswell. They give away lost property to Red Cross, reuse the all stationary equipment, and donate old bins to the Hackney Scrap Project.

These photoes are from an art installa-tion i did in 2011. It shows the con-sumary in Trondheim the spring in 2011. It also shows all the things people throw away in the streets.

SYNTHESIS &CONCLUSION

The Barbican Centre is a very complex buidling with a lot of different asspects to appre-ciate. First of all there is three very aknowledgeble architects to appreciate. Chamber-lin, Powell and Bon where fairly new architects when they started their partnership and got the job to design the brutalist complex. It took them a long time to decide how to design all of the details, but that what absolutly worth it. When looking at the building you can tell how much thought was put into it. The way everything is built in to the structure is beutiful. It also means that it is going to take more time and effort to change anything later in the buildings life. But it also shelters a good part of the structure so it will need less caretaking. The pipes, ventilation and electricity is shel-tered for wind and rain by the concrete walls and will have a longer lifetime then any structures that doesn’t hold this quality. It also looks better thinking about design.

The brutalist building is inspired by courbousier, which is recognisable when looking at the building. They tried using white aggregate in the concrete mix, but this didn’t work because of UK’s weather condisions. They then decided to go for the Welsh granite, which does definitively not work in the same way. The building gets a rougher look with the Pen Lee granite, which looks good enough. The thing is London is quite a grey city, and i am thinking it might do good with a bit more contrast to the rest. Even though, the building looks great. Another aspect about the Barbican which is great is Even though, the building looks great. Another aspect about the Barbican which is great is the way it kind of becomes a small city. When you talk about the part of London “Barbican” you kind of refer to the centre. Part of the complez is apartments, schools of different kinds, bars, cafeterias, theatre, concert hall, art gallery and a library.

The way the arts centre has taken a step forward to becoming more enerfy efficient is also The way the arts centre has taken a step forward to becoming more enerfy efficient is also great. I think the building is a good energy efficient building when keeping in mind the age of the building and the fact that energy was cheap when the building was designed. The building also holds the seccond biggest conservatory in London, i find this very interest-ing and keep thinking that i would love it to be even better. It helps make the building more energy efficient. And we would all love to see the world even greener.

Some things they could change in the complex would be the way the apartments are heated. They could open more of the pathways around the complex. This could mean more pedestriants through the building and more visitors to the arts centre. I would also like to look at how they could extend the greenhouse to help the world become even greener.

I think it would be good if the Barbican Centre did an extension to the conservatory. It would save energy in a way that the could hold heat and energy better. They would also contribute in making more oxygen for the world. I can also see some good design ideas coming out of it. Both of the pictures are taken from the book ‘Barbican Cement and Con-crete assoc.’