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Category 1: Buildings
Project History
In 2006, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)
announced its intention to fund the creation of the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC),
a project that includes the construction and complete
outfitting of new premises for the National Library of
Greece (NLG) and the Greek National Opera (GNO), as
well as the development of the 170,000 m² educational
and cultural Stavros Niarchos Park. The project has a
budget of €566 million.
General Design Team
• Design Architect: RENZO PIANO BUILDING
WORKSHOP
• Executive Architect: BETAPLAN
• Landscape Design: DEBORAH NEVINS and
Associates, Inc. in collaboration with Helli Pangalou
• Structural Engineer: EXPEDITION in collaboration
with OMETE
• MEP Engineer: ARUP in collaboration with LDK
• Theatre Design Consultant: THEATRE PROJECTS
CONSULTANTS
• Acoustic Design: ARUP Acoustics
• Library Consultant: AMA Alexi Marmot Associates
• Façade Consultant: FRONT
• Signage Design: C&G PARTNERS
• Food Service Consultant: SefronHornWinch
• Traffic Consultant: DENCO
• Irrigation Design: SOTIRIOS MAVRAGANIS
• Environmental Studies: HPC - PASECO
• Project manager / Cost Consultant:
FAITHFUL+GOULD
Contractor
The Joint Venture of Impregilo-Terna has been
appointed as the general contractor for the project
Design Verification
Penelis Consulting Engineers is the sole structural and
seismic consultant on behalf of the contractor, the Joint
Venture of Impregilo-Terna.
Part of the scope was the verification of the main two
seismically isolated buildings: the Opera House and the
National Library buildings.
The original analysis has been performed using Etabs,
while for the verification Scia Engineer and ECtools
were chosen.
Opera House
It is an R/C structure with seismic isolation in the
basement. The building is 100 x 100 m in plan and
has the height of 32 m for the R/C part. On top of the
building rests a ferrocement canopy which is supported
by steel columns, spring dampers and post-tensioned X
bracing on the R/C structure below.
Library
It is an R/C structure with seismic isolation in the
basement. The building is 95 x 95 m in plan and has the
height of 30 m for the R/C part
The design verification for both buildings consisted of at
least the following tasks:
• Selection of inverted pendulum isolators
• Checking the capacity of R/C walls and cores
• Checking the capacity of large beams
(200 cm x 200 cm) and waffle slabs with wide spans
• Checking deflections
• Checking temperature effects
• Checking creep effects
All those tasks were executed using Scia Engineer and
ECtools.
Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre - Athens, Greece
Software: Scia Engineer
