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High-Tech Parliament Building

For five years, Foster worked on the redesign of the Reichstag, site of the German parliament in Berlin. He opened the interior space in order to fill the once gloomy structure with light. Foster's goal for the building was "to make democracy visible." This was achieved using huge expanses of glass. The roof is dome-like, with skylights inserted in it. The dome has an inverted conical core that sucks in light at the top and beams it out at the bottom, in order to light up the debating chamber. It contains a sunscreen that also helps regulate the building's temperature. The sunscreen moves to follow the path of the sun in the summer, preventing the chamber below from overheating. In the winter the screen is moved aside to allow the sun's warmth to penetrate. Fresh air enters the building through airshafts and is fed into the main chamber through the floor. As the air heats up and rises, it is drawn into a cone in the middle of the dome. An extractor finally expels it from the building.

Spiral walkways curve around the outside of the building from which visitors have an excellent view of the skyline and can see the Parliament at work. The debating chamber is enclosed in glass, allowing people to look in from the main lobby. Describing the building before its redesign Foster noted, "At the moment visitors are forced to sneak in guiltily through a side-entrance." The Reichstag gained back much of its nineteenth century grandeur in the redesign, but Foster added many high tech improvements. The dome structure saves electricity. Other energy savers include the use of underground water supplies, natural ventilation, and excess heat. In summer, cool water from a top reservoir underground circulates around the building through pipes in the floors and ceilings. This cools the building and warms the water. The water is then pumped into a lower reservoir that is very well insulated, thus retaining the heat. In winter the process is reversed. Hot water is pumped up to heat the building. The cooled water going into the top reservoir is ready to be used again the next summer. The Reichstag maintains its own power plant to drive the pumps. The plant is fueled by rapeseed oil, a totally renewable energy source with low carbon dioxide emissions.

Greatest Achievement

Considered Foster's greatest achievement and the world's most ambitious engineering project, Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok, the largest airport in the world, opened in July 1998. The airport cost $20 billion to construct. The eight-story terminal is one of the largest enclosed areas on earth. The 45 acres of lightweight steel roof cover six million square feet of glass-enclosed space. The terminal is so big, it can be seen from space.

The airport building was designed as a celebration of the modern age of air travel, providing a sense of adventure to passengers. Jonathan Glancey, architecture critic for the Guardian described what most people feel about flying and what Foster was trying to achieve. "They just see boring office-like interiors, boring people being bored, buying useless bits of duty free. What Foster says is: 'Hey look, flight really is a magical thing.' His building allows you to see the aircraft as soon as you walk in. It enables you to feel you're up in the air with the aircraft too, it's about excitement, it's about passion."

Foster has designed many other noteworthy public buildings including a 92-story tower in London; the American Air Museum in the United Kingdom; a rapid transit viaduct in Rennes, France; art galleries at London's Royal Academy; the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt, Germany; the Joslyn Memorial and Pavilion in Omaha, Nebraska; a Scottish housing project; and a cultural center in Nimes, France.

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