NORMAN FOSTER

BY – YIDNEKACHEW TESMAMMA
 INTRODUCTION
• Foster, Sir Norman
• He is prominent British architect known
for his modern buildings made of steel
and glass.
• He has 30 years of experience as a
professional working on many projects
world wide.
 BIOGRAPHY
Norman Foster
• Norman Foster Was born in Manchester ,
England in 1935.
• He received his architectural training at
Manchester University School of Architecture,
which he entered at age 21.
• Foster won numerous scholar ship including one
to attend Yale University where he gained a
masters degree in architecture.
• He met Richard
Rogers at Yale and
they become very
close friends.

• In 1963 he worked
with Richard and sue
Rogers,Gorgie
Wolton and his wife,
Wendy Foster, as a
member of ‘team 4’.
• Since its inception the practice has received more
than 190 awards and certifications for excellence
and has won over 50 national and international
competitions.
• His remarkable buildings and urban projects
have transformed cityscapes, renewed
transportation systems and restored city centers
all over the world.
• Many of these aesthetically and technologically
ground breaking projects are based on ecology –
conscious concepts, setting new standards for
the interaction of buildings with their
environment.
 PHILOSOPHY
• The key to Foster's
approach is that
• he seems always to
be aspiring to an
elsewhere, another
world.
• Foster said “ … no
Norman foster at work
detail should be
considered too
small.”
• The ends are always social-generated by people
rather than the hardware of buildings…”
• In designing a building he consider
• the structure that holds it up,
• the services that allow it work,
• the quality of natural light,
• the materials used-
• their mass or their lightness,
• the character of the spaces,
• the symbolism of form,
• the relation ship of the building to the sky line
or the street escape, and
• the way in which the building signals its presence
in the city or the countryside.
• Flexibility and multi-use structures
• I think successful architecture addresses all these
things, and many more.
 CHARACTER OF HIS STYLE
• Foster buildings
exemplify what has
come to be known as
the Hi-tech style.
• They are well thought
out, mechanical
looking structures
which often wear
their interiors on the
outside.
Hong Kong and Shangri bank
• He often utilizes
manufactured,pre-
fabricated modular
units in their design.
• Foster’s work stresses
the importance of
light and the interior
environment.
• He has worked to
include green spaces
into his buildings and
to minimize energy
use.
• How his building meet
with the ground is
important in his design
• Some of his sky
scrapers feature large
open spaces beneath
them.
• Foster has utilized
passive warming
systems in his
buildings.
• He uses the shape of a
building to not only
use the sun for warmth
and light, but to shield
against it and provide
shade, reducing the
cost of energy.
• His buildings are not
merely “ecological-
looking”,they are
ecologically and
responsibly designed.
 OFFICE
• It is one of the largest
in Europe- with
project offices
worldwide.
• LED BY lord Foster
and four partners-
Spencer de Grey,
David Nelson, Ken
Shuttleworth, and
Graham Phillips.
• Its main design studio
is located on the
Thames river side in
London.
• This is where each
new project is begun.
As a work place, it is
open 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
• The studio is huge,
with more than 600
architects working on
100 projects.
• Professionally, it is a
self–sufficient world
with its own model
workshop,graphics
department and
photographic studio.
• No employee has a
private office,
including foster and
his partners.
• The average age of
the 600 staff is about
30 and many
languages are spoken
in the studio.
 RECENT FAMOUS WORKS
30 St. Mary Axe (Swiss Re )
• It is crafted a
distinctive cone like
shape to reduce the
wind turbulence.
• The building uses
energy saving
method.
• It uses half the power
a similar tower
consume.
• Gaps in each floor
serve as a natural
ventilation system .
• The shafts in the gap
create a double
glazing effect. Air is
sandwiched between
two layers of glazing
and insulates the
office inside.
• Its triangulated
perimeter makes it
stiff.
 City Hall (London)
• It is the head quarters
of the greater London
Authority and mayor
of London.
• Mayor Ken Livingstone
referred to it as a “Glass
testicle”.
• The building has no
front or back on
conventional terms.
• A 500 m helical waik
way provides views of
the interior of the
building,and intended
to symbolize
transparency.
• A similar device was
used by foster in his
design for the rebuilt of
Reichstag in Germany.
• Museum ascends the full
height of the building.
• At top of the ten
story building is an
exhibition and
meeting space called
“London Living
Room”.
• Councilors meet for
debate in the
chamber only
monthly,when the
public is not allowed
on the ramp anyway.
• The Mayor’s office-
is, conventionally, on
the top floor.
• Despite these small
gripes, the building is
an exciting place to
be in, from the 10th
floor reception area
and balcony, via the
spiral ramp down to
the debating
chamber,to the lower
ramp down to the
lobby and exhibition
hall
 Brainy Quote
• “In Britain the idea one could go from blue-
collar beginnings to the university was so far
out, it was quite unthinkable.”
• “Control is the wrong word. The practice is very
much about sharing, and,in any creative
practice,some individuals, whether partners or
directors, are much closer to certain projects
than I could ever be.”Norman foster
 Conclusion
• Norman Foster may be 70,but he shows no sign of
flagging.
• He is the world’s most famous and most productive
architect.
• He has risen to the highest ranks of professional and
social esteem.
• He has won many of the world’s top architectural and
cultural prizes. If he were a military man,his decorations
would trip him up as he walk.
• He has always wanted to create buildings
informed by the structure, logic and beauty of
bridges and machinery.
THANK YOU