Brett Terpeluk: Renzo Piano Building Workshop

The Garden In The Machine: The Building of Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Sciences.  Welcome to the first program of our new season, which will focus on an exciting subject for Leonardo Society members: the new home of our beloved California Academy of Sciences, designed by the brilliant Italian architect Renzo Piano.

Our speaker, Brett Terpeluk, is a cum laude graduate of Princeton University. He received his MARCH cum laude from Rice University  in 1998, where he was granted the M.E. Fossi Traveling Fellowship for most outstanding student project.  He then moved to Genoa, Italy, where he began his association with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.  During his nine year tenure with RPBW, he has been actively involved with important projects throughout the world.  Since 2004, he has been RPBW’s local project architect for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  Brett has produced many publications, and has a concurrent private design practice which has recently seen the completion of Farina Restaurant in San Francisco.  He and his wife maintain dual residency in Genoa and San Francisco

Brett says that ” ….the new building for the California Academy of Sciences represents a synthesis of ideas which have been germinating throughout the career of Renzo Piano. This lecture will explain the working process and recurring concepts of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and how they have informed the design for the California Academy of Sciences.”