Airport Designer-Designed Birdhouses

INDEX

Renzo Piano

Norman Foster

Curtis W. Fentress
(USA)

s a birdhouse, a tree fulfills many basic requirements. As the tree's core is a network of limbs and boughs - the ideal forms to cradle and protect the fragile, interwoven twigs that make up a nest. Elevated from the ground it protects its denizens from predators below, and its sheltering canopy of leaves offers protection from the elements while allowing sunlight and warm breezes to pass through.
It is also an organically complex form that, on a very primitive and emotional level, comforts the soul and reconnects us with the natural environment. Its spreading branches are ideal perches from which a bird can keep watch, perform courtship rituals, learn to fly, or simply enjoy the company of other birds. From our point of view, there are the sensory pleasures of dappled light, rustling leaves, and the inexplicable beauty of form and color.
In the Fentrees Bradburn Birdhouse, we attempt to provide all of these functional and aesthetic qualities, fully using our technological expertise to achieve the most appropriate solution. At its core, the saddles are organized in a simple, structured form that starts out dense at the bottom, and thins out near the top. Places to nest are formed by the joining of saddles side by side, offering a variety of different-sized roosts. The density of the saddles gives the overall structure its strength and resilience. At the outermost layer, the saddles perform a totally different function. Joined only at two of the vertices per module, they become an exhilarationg, light-hearted evocation of a canopy of leaves.

RFR/Jean-Francis Blassel+Henry Bardsley+Kieran Rice+Bernard Vaudeville

Born in 1947 in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. After graduating from the N. Carolina State University, School of Design, went to work in New York under I.M. Pei. In 1977, designed the Amoco Building in Denver, and the originality of the structure's curves gathered interest. Established an architectural office in 1980 with James H. Bradburn. Since then, has taken on the design of more than 30 major buildings in major cities around the U.S. In 1992 won grand prize at an international competition for design of a new terminal at the New Inchon International Airport in Seoul.

Kazunori Sameshima

Nicholas T. Grimshaw

Curtis W. Fentress+J.H.Bradburn

Yoshihiko Sano+Kozo Abe+Koichi Ando

Kisho Kurokawa