About this talk

Running time: 27 minutes

The British architect Mike Davies studied architecture at the AA School of Architecture and at UCLA. While in Los Angeles, he was a partner in Chrysalis, a multi-disciplinary design practice. In 1972 he joined Piano & Rogers to work on the Centre Pompidou and Pierre Boulez's IRCAM. He has remained with Rogers (see Genesis Of The New Lloyd's Underwriting Room and People Places) and is a director of the Richard Rogers Partnership in London. He has taught at many schools of architecture in Europe, Asia and America. His passion is astronomy and making telescopes and visiting the world's largest ones.

His speciality in the partnership being the impact of technology on buildings, he describes its development through time, leading to the sophisticated building energy management systems of today (as in the Lloyds of London building).

The climax is a new development for façades of building, an electrochromic panel which changes its transparency and transmission properties under the control of a very small electric current. He envisages that its use, combined with the present energy management systems will lead to the production of the intelligent building.

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