engineering

RFR Engineers

RFR Engineers is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand RFR Engineers rather than just read about it. In short: RFR was founded in Paris in 1981 as Rice Francis Ritchie sarl, by Peter Rice (structural engineer), Martin Francis (industrial and yacht designer) and Ian Ritchie (architect). It had offices in Stuttgart, Germany; Shanghai, China; and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Key takeaways

RFR Engineers belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect RFR Engineers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of RFR Engineers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

RFR was founded in Paris in 1981 as Rice Francis Ritchie sarl, by Peter Rice (structural engineer), Martin Francis (industrial and yacht designer) and Ian Ritchie (architect). It had offices in Stuttgart, Germany; Shanghai, China; and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. RFR is a design engineering firm with its head office based in Paris and specialises in the design of complex structures and sophisticated building envelopes that reconcile engineering and architecture. RFR has designed structures intended for unique locations like the Musée du Louvre or the Louis Vuitton store on the avenue des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Capitol in Washington, the Irish Parliament and CHQ Building in Dublin, and the library of the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Ian Ritchie retired from RFR at the end of the 1980s to focus his work on architecture from his studio in London. Martin Francis also resumed working for RFR quite soon. Peter Rice ran the office until his death in 1992. After that date, the company had to reorganize, but continued working on all scale projects in France and abroad. These projects include: the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, several TGV stations, the Fondation Louis Vuitton or the renovation of the Eiffel tower 1st floor. RFR was placed in judicial liquidation in late 2015 due to financial problems largely stemming from its subsidiary RFR Gros Oeuvre + (RFR GO+). The French court awarded the company to Artelia, a large French engineering conglomerate that had made an offer among others to purchase RFR. Since 2015, RFR has started a new part of its history as "RFR Structure et Enveloppe" an independent branch of Artelia Group. Several RFR employees joined back the office, and the team reaches now about 25 engineers and architects . The office is still based on the same location in the center of Paris, an pursues working on high quality structures and façade projects, as for example: La Samaritaine Department Store renovation with SANNA Architects, the Tribunal de Paris with Renzo Piano or the Saint-Denis–Pleyel station with Kengo Kuma.

Recognition RFR has won international laurels and awards including French/European steel awards, RIBA Awards, INGENIEURBAUPREIS 2006 for the AWD stadium in Hanover, Académie de l'Architecture Silver Medal for Research and Technique.

Publications • Le verre structurel, Peter Rice, Hugh Dutton, Editions du Moniteur, Paris, 1990 • Exploring materials, the work of Peter Rice, RIBA Gallery, London1992 • Peter Rice, An Engineer imagines, Artemis, London, 1994 • L'art de l'ingénieur, B.Vaudeville, JF.Blassel, H.Bardsley, M.Kutterer, Petit journal de l'exposition, 1997 • L'art de l'ingénieur : constructeur, entrepreneur, inventeur, Antoine Picon, 1997

Lectures Members of RFR regularly lecture internationally on glass structures and new geometric applications, including the Pisa university, Technical University Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), and Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture, Paris, France.

Notable works Louvre Pyramid Cité des Sciences, La Villette Charles de Gaulle International Airport (Roissy) Airport Terminal 2F Roissy Airport TGV Station Avignon TGV Station World Trade Center (Amsterdam) Irish Parliament Building Simone de Beauvoir Bridge [1] Eiffel's Tower First Floor Renovation Paris La Défense Arena TGI de Paris (Paris Law Courts) La Samaritaine renovation

References

External links RFR Ian Ritchie Architects Peter Rice

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with RFR Engineers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what RFR Engineers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to RFR Engineers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about RFR Engineers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of RFR Engineers

In research: RFR Engineers appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses RFR Engineers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: RFR Engineers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Structural engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for RFR Engineers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study RFR Engineers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what RFR Engineers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain RFR Engineers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is RFR Engineers in simple terms?

Why does RFR Engineers matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study RFR Engineers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on RFR Engineers.