opera hall; digital fabrication, subcontractors' coordination for JVIT
SNFCC, THE GREEK NATIONAL OPERA
It’s the well-known project built in Athens by the Stavros Niarchos foundation for the Hellenic Public. The architect is Renzo Piano (Building Workshop).
Undoubtedly, the most interesting project I’ve ever participated in. Our involvement began in winter 2014-15 and it lasted for 18 months.
My participation in the project was in making a 3d model for constructing some of the most complex structures in the main auditorium of the opera. I was in direct communication with most subcontractors, as well with the civil, acoustic, mechanical engineers and the topographers of the contractor that participated in the construction of the hall.
The contractor of the project, JVIT (joint venture Impregilo – Terna) invited Yiannis Ditsas to join the team of architects & engineers that were working on the project. A small team was assembled to fit to the demands of the invitation: to assist the existing team of engineers to finish the enormous task of checking and supplementing the detail drawings of the building in order for them to be used for the construction. Even more our team would have to focus into details of construction in the main hall – auditorium of the opera and the surrounding areas.
After studying the drawings and 3d model made by RPBW and their collaborators we ended up with the conclusion that one of the main problems that the subcontractors of the main hall would face was the one of the execution of the most complex objectives. Complex in terms of geometry, engineering and in terms of communication. There were parts of auditorium that needed six subcontractors communicating over objectives with complex three dimensional geometry.
I was lucky to have been recently introduced to a very interesting 3d software (Dassault Systemes, Solidworks), mechanical engineering oriented, with unparalleled capabilities in terms of precision. I began, in continuous collaboration with Yiannis Ditsas and the rest of the engineers, to draw in 3d, with absolute accuracy, complex details in the auditorium. The result was a second 3d model, concerning all but the dome, 3d complex constructions in the main auditorium, drawn by a software oriented to construction. This model defined geometrically all the elements it described for the subcontractors to construct, gave coordinates to topographers to position and in the case of the upper proscenium it provided the solid ground for six subcontractors (including two of them in mechanical engineering and one in acoustics) to communicate. The in situ slabs of the balconies were 3d scanned and i coordinated the 3d model with the actual, in situ, reinforced concrete. This model was then inserted into the model of the whole building (in Autodesk Revit Software) that all engineers had access to.
The most important elements in the main auditorium i defined for construction were: the balcony front, the proscenium, the entrance staircase, the reflectors, the stall heavy wooden coating and the acoustic windows. The dome, was drawn in REVIT (autodesk) by Zoi Fratzi in collaboration with Yiannis Ditsas that described the construction’s main principles.
