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Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice Department of Architecture |
Projects 2004
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Idea Vertical Campus, Japan, Tokyo Most buildings are generated through ‘Addition’. All the necessary parts are assembled, adjusted, accumulated in more or less pleasing compositions. Shinjyuku Vertical Campus is generated by 'Subtraction'; like Michelangelo’s 'Slaves'. We have liberated an eloquent, communicative, original 'form' from the prismatic volume that is the raw material of all contemporary architecture. Because some of the original volume is still present, our building effortlessly associates itself with its neighbors; because it is the only 'liberated form' it will effortlessly attract attention, cause amazement, and inspire awe…
Too many high-rise structures hide or privatize their strongest features in the interior. Because the tower is generated like a sculpture from a block of marble, it always shows an outside and an inside at the same time. We did not want the organization of the 3 schools [ISEN (medical), MODE (fashion) and HAL (computer)] to be too banal, too equal, too predictable. We thought, on the contrary, that the distribution model of each individual school across the floors of this tower (ISEN always takes a pure rectangular form, MODE always takes a free form, HAL always takes a whole floor) could establish and reinforce the individual character of each and provide a single, cohesive identity for the tower.
Media Facade S-Project, Seoul, Korea Masterplan for an area in the walled city
102.00 m2 of this built environment is located in the heart of Seoul—the epicenter, the walled city. The cartographic references of this area date back to the 18th Century, testifying to its authenticity as the origin of the city. 300 years later we are still able to trace its evolution embedded in the rich texture of the city fabric through sedimentation of layers of historical interventions such as waterways, city grid and urban infrastructure. A seemingly chaotic but highly organized organic network of roads and built forms that constitute what remains a strong identity of this location. This site is further strengthened in importance by being a cardinal node between the Royal shrine and the Namsan Mountain in the north-south axis and the river in the east-west axis.
The city’s profound and sapient ambition for this site is to improve, to renew and by so doing, to gentrify. Consequently, we are charged with a freedom to obliterate this history: to refresh by way of erasure and to create or find a new image. We are confronted with a dilemma with this liberty. This is indeed a crucial moment in the future history of Seoul: a moment that questions issues of preservation and historical significance. Our strategy recognizes the uniqueness of the existing urban fabric and with this realization we historicize this fabric by monumentalizing it with built forms towards prospective preservation (or perhaps reinterpretation) to strengthen the existing image and identity of the city of Seoul.
With this singular logic we address cogent issues: history, culture, monument, image and identity. The result is a universal coherence of the urban ground plan as a notational device of a city’s organization of space-volume, figure-ground, public-private, urban infrastructure and more importantly, its image. We initiate a strategy for the creation of an identity comparable with the Manhattan grid, Vienna Ringstrasse or Barcelona City. Our programs are strictly layered. As opposed to 73.5% our intervention occupies less than 40% of built area. We stealthily accommodate over 250,000m2 of program space on each of the 4 blocks by densifying its interior to create an urban mega-underground culture inundated with nearly 300,000 people per day, consequently declaring over 60 % of the ground plane as pure public space and landscape environment. This underground condition exploits the existing infrastructure of subways, shopping and parking thereby liberating the ground of needless traffic. Our master plan strategy is generic for all blocks but allows the evolution of a variety of built forms on the individual sites based on specificity. Prada Shanghai, Shanghai, China
The Bund, Shanghai's riverside avenue, will accommodate the new Prada Epicenter. As opposed to the other fashion brands that occupy former colonial buildings on the east side, the new Epicenter occupies 300m of an existing parking structure and a strip of small shops, all located under a 15m wide pedestrian boardwalk by the Huang Pu river. Hence the location is a "found" situation that Prada invades, instead of building a store on a compromised site. The condition forces Prada and OMA to reinvent / rearrange the store elements in a new way, and to adjust to the eccentricity of the current situation.
The plan works as a thin ribbon that connects a number of deeper sections. The deeper parts are used where absolutely necessary—VIP area, sales area, offices and cultural events area. The thin ribbon adopts the local prototype of small-scale, shallow shops, in this case dedicated to specific Prada products or ranges (shoes, cosmetics, lingerie, sports, bags, gadgets etc), almost like mini-boutiques. The shop front is not entirely taken, so that the mini-boutiques look embedded in the existing strip of small shops. All the sections are connected at the back by a corridor. The long front is thus turned into a strategic advantage, giving Prada the opportunity to display practically its entire repertoire to a public not yet familiar with it. A 1.5m-wide canopy extends over the sidewalk creating a “populist” Prada model where even those not inside the store participate in its activities; shopping, fashion show and cultural events.
The combination of the thin sidewalk and the ribbon-like shop creates a unique relationship between inside and outside, maintaining and also enhancing the intimate atmosphere of the existing site. Gent Oude Dokken, Belgium, Gent Masterplan Urban Redevelopment Flanders in Belgium is distinguished by several magnificent historical inner cities of medieval origin and characterized by a wide spread ribbon (urban) development, which fills the space between the historical centers. This development has lead to a continuous sprawl. Today nearly all growth in Flanders is in the empty outskirts, making the city with its characterized mixed program and densities seem a superseded model.
In Gent, there is a unique possibility to go against this pattern of development and concentrate growth in a zone that will become part of the inner city when the ring road is extended. In a unique way, it is possible to compliment the historical center with a new part that answers to the modern needs of mass infrastructure and liveability.
Ambition
Design
As the waterfront is the key amenity to the site, it was important to establish the first phase of the plan and the position towards the waterfront thus creating a strong connection inclusive of the entire area without creating a backside condition. However, the plan keeps enough flexibility so that future developments are not impeded. The banding varied between open space, built space and canals. By developing some bands as a park, the perspectives remain open and provide a more enjoyable climate for the people who don’t live at the waterfront. The variation of the width of the bands creates a very simple but strong means to give a rich spectrum of possibilities without causing problems of flexibility. Each band could have different atmospheric qualities through the use of materials and building typologies.
Tracks
Conclusion Seattle Central Library, USA, Seattle New public library
The Seattle Central Library is situated at the corner of a block in the centre of Seattle. On 412.000 sf, it accommodates an auditorium, a reading room, a mixing chamber, a living room, a staff floor, a childrens play area and meeting places. The program is organised in terms of platforms which are connected by escalators and elevators. The Library seems threatened, a fortification ready to be 'taken' by potential enemies. Its insistence on one kind of literacy has blinded it to other emerging forms that increasingly dominate our culture, especially the huge efficiencies (and pleasures) of visual intelligence. New libraries don't reinvent or even modernize the traditional institution; they merely package it in a new way.
Unless the Library transforms itself wholeheartedly to aggressively orchestrate the coexistence of all available technologies to collect, condense, distribute, read and manipulate information, its unquestioned loyalty to the book will undermine the Library`s plausibility at the moment of its potential apotheosis. New Seattle Public Library
The library is transformed from a space to read into a social center with multiple responsibilities. Compression Flexibility
Platforms The in-between spaces are trading floors where librarians inform and stimulate, where the interface between different platforms is organized - spaces for work, interaction, and play. By genetically modifying the superposition of floors in the typical American high-rise, a building emerges that is at the same time sensitive (the slopes will admit unusual quantities of daylight where desirable), contextual (each side can react differently to specific urban conditions) and iconic. Its angular facets form a plausible bracketing of Seattle's new modernity.
Virtual Platform Technology
China National Museum, China, Beijing The buildings around Beijing’s Tiananmen square have been meticulously composed at both an urban and architectural level. Each component has been planned and massed to contribute to the harmonious condition of the whole. How then, to graft 110,000m2 (almost double the museum’s existing floor area) of contemporary museum onto the East side of the Chinese National Museum?
Built in 1959 as part of Mao’s ten great projects across the city, the building occupies 330m of the Eastern edge of Tiananmen square. It’s typically austere communist style, hides a sparsely occupied interior, consisting ironically of two huge courtyards on the North and South sides of the main entrance building and enclosed by wings of fairly common depth. Currently the museum is divided into two parts, with the Revolution Museum on the Northern side and the History museum on the South. The proposal of the competition is to combine the two museums, to extend the museum to the Eastern side and to offer public entry halls (100 / 75 / 35 m) by covering the existing courtyard(s).
By 'filling in' the building’s current voids, our project attempts to reverse the museum’s dispersed, existing configuration, where immense journeys through seemingly indistinguishable wings end only in return. Its altruism identifies the existing building as an architectural ‘mould’ and the new intervention as a kind of display based 'infill'. Accessibility and convenience for visitors and the opportunity for openness / accessibility created by the un-built East side both for the museum and the city are the distinct advantages of the approach. Programmatically, the building offers a multi programmed arrival floor connecting the North and East entry levels. Offering an array of public and private program; arrival, exhibition (temporary 3,4,5), cultural, education, recreational, the floor both accommodates and distributes equally. The activities of the whole floor are exposed to the garden by a vast horizontal slot, the only visible 'sign' of the intervention, running almost the entire length of the East façade.
The upper level is where the project’s increased density is most evident. A field of curatorial boxes of various sizes, sometimes hoarded together and sometimes independent volumes, containing the museum’s permanent (special) relic collection (2) are combined in the central part of the level, encircled by the 5000 year chronological circuit of the general display (1), which distinguishes itself as an open, continuous route, taking advantage of the naturally daylit existing wings and visual connection of the collection to the context of Beijing. The act of infilling provides both continuity of the general route and a suited typology / format for the complex curatorial variety of the museum’s relic collection, whilst it’s compactness offers endless visiting combinations/possibilities for focused highlight tours, flaneuristic roaming and specific, category based browsing. A multimedia surface identifies the threshold between the existing architecture (mould) and the new dispay (infill), displaying information/imagery of Chinese history, demographics, museum information, culture, collection information, interactive spots, documentary viewing. At night, the imagery will be visible externally from all sides, giving the museum an appropriate urban presence through the emphasis of display / content above that of the floodlight. The existing building is simultaneously untouched and transformed, our intervention radically different and yet radically respectful. Penang Tropical City, Malaysia, Penang How to build in a tropical city?
The question of 'tropical modernity' has long haunted (south-east Asian) architects—until today it still is discussed on the level of natural climatization and window shades instead of urban activities and potential… How to mix the typical mix? How to realize large quantities of program (gross floor area to maximize profits) of the ever-same ingredients (housing, offices, hotels, retail…) while generating an arguable scheme—for the city, the inhabitants, and ultimately the environment? How to guarantee the qualities not only for each single piece but create an attractive, larger whole? How to not isolate a development, but intertwine it with its surroundings in a symbiotic relationship? Location Qualities are not immediately apparent, no imminent feature is dominant, no direction primary, no demand clearly obvious. Nonetheless, the site is intriguingly attractive, in its latent potential, in its substantial scale and programmatic ambition. It is a vast terrain, open and empty, and after the relocation of the turf club, available to accommodate a vision for Penang’s future.
Tropical It is full of contradictions, full of contrasts: buildings and nature, concrete and green, humid heat and sudden downpours. Small and large scale reside side by side, in unpredictable rhythms, towers and tents, parking garages and food stalls. It is full of energy, full of activities: if vegetal or human, plants sprout, children play, people sit and walk and linger. It is a place in which the ability to occupy space has far exceeded the western definition: the residual hardly exists, every interstitial moment is exploited, used, occupied. The obvious might be taken over, or unexpectedly left aside. Spaces are used and exploited to their maximum potential and density, immediately next to empty, abandoned terrain vague. Activities appear and disappear, in a perpetual process of readjustment, in a continuous reinvention of the modus operandi. Concept The project proposes to recognize and exploit the qualities of the tropical city and envisions a pragmatic implementation of concentrated built substance within a connective tissue of green and activities.
Soup and Circles Floating within this connective tissue, the building cores allow for extreme differences and pronounced simultaneities to compete in a dynamic but balanced act between urban densities and volumetric identities. Their containment allows quantity (in fact a larger then requested amount of gross floor area has been accommodated in the proposal), their bulk identity. They find their ideal position within the site by almost naturally gravitating towards desirable adjacencies: similarities to surrounding typologies, ideal traffic connections, neighboring activities, or the most representative location… Pluralistic urbanism: each core assumes its own identity; multiple typologies alter and accommodate different types of programs and users. Each circle represents a whole, an entity, its character distinct from the others, its elements the same within. Each circle represents a piece, easy to assign to a different 'hand', a different architectural vision. The greater the difference, the more vibrant the city…
Each core accommodates a mono-function—housing, working, hotels – and is thus not an independent, self-sufficient entity, but relies on its connections to other functions, in the other cores, or in the soup. The range of inhabitants spans from wealthy to more humble incomes, but all jointly inhabit the tropical soup that merges the common with the extraordinary, the profound with the banal, and becomes the connecting tissue, the fuel of urban activity. Major public and commercial functions (library, philharmonic, children’s museum, multiplex, etc) are placed at strategic locations in the soup, to give surrounding zones focal points and initiate activities and further developments. These magnets help to attract further particles of a partly improvised, partly exploitative nature: food stalls, markets, restaurants, events, temporary commercial activities… But they also become destinations, places to seek, provide contents for the public, attract tourists and inhabitants alike. On the mountain, right at the edge of the buildable area, a museum provides panoramic views across the site and Georgetown, down to the sea: Penang Experience.
Lines and Surfaces A network of pedestrian arteries and infrastructure lines establishes an irregular grid across the tropical soup, and provides (partly covered) access to and from the major functions within the site, as well as electricity, water, data and communication lines—supporting the life functions within the soup and enforcing its flexible and adaptive nature. The landscape is partly controlled, partly untamed: While park-like surfaces offer strolling and leisure zones, jungle and flamboyant vegetation sometimes invade the planned and channelled efforts, allowing for an ongoing redefinition of the usage of the terrain according to expedient forces and interests.
Identity The tropical soup is vague and unstable, and allows for the dynamic mutation of the city over time without impeding on the formal and regulated environments of the building cores. It provides a rich social fabric, a natural coexistence. It is an amalgam of landscape and public, a post-urban condition. Shanghai Expo 2010, China, Shanghai
With the theme of "Better City, Better Life" the Shanghai Expo 2010 will be China's first World Expo. In the last 15 years, development has transformed Shanghai's centre and exploded in its sister city Pudong. In contrast to dispersed developments in the Pearl River DElta, Shanghai has constructed qa new image for a compact urban centre, a postcard that reads "City of the Future" and "Gateway to China." Shanghai has long been the least Chinese city in China. In 1842 the Treaty of Nanjing split the city into separate concession zones for the colonial powers and opened the way for an influz of foreign imports, not the least of which were urbanism and architecture. Suppressed during Mao's time, this history has been resurrected as the foundational myth for a new global city. Despite its recent transformation, the city has remained remarkably compact even as its population has grown nearly 50% in the last 20 years.
Historically, an Expo's success and impact has been linked to both its message and its context. Successful Expos have always been held in cities with rising GDP growth undergoing radical urbanization. Embracing the potential of modernization and the promise of progress, these expos have been catalysts for the development of the city. Given its current trajectory, Shanghai's 2010 World Expo appears doomed to success, but unless Shanghai takes on the responsibility to rethink the current form of the Expo and its role in the city, 2010 will be remembered as yet another wasted opportunity. If the 2010 Expo is going to have any impact beyond a short-term inflation of property values, the event's planners will have to reevalutate what the Expo means both to the city and as an international event. Within the context of globalization, the national pavilion is no longer a valid form for an Expo. New forms of organization can either reflect the world's emerging realities or amplify and distort them. Europe Exhibition — Brussels, Belgium An exhibition examining the representation of Europe, coinciding with the Netherlands' 2004 Presidency of the European Union.
To mark the occasion of the Netherlands' 2004 Presidency of the European Union, an exhibition and symposium was held in Brussels under the joint sponsorship of the Dutch Presidency and the European Commission. The title plays upon the double meaning of the word "image"—implying both representation and perception. Where the exhibition examines the ways in which Europe is represented—through words and symbols, the symposium addresses the ways that Europe is being perceived—by those inside and outside. The ultimate case for the European Union is Europe’s history—a history of invention, exploration, and enlightenment, but also of imperialism, war, and ultimately the holocaust… At the close of the fifty most destructive years in the history of mankind, the architects of the European Union made the improbable commitment to forgive the past and start anew—to reverse history rather than allow it become an alibi for yet more turmoil and tragedy. The creation of the European Union will ultimately be recorded as one of history’s quietest revolutions. Imagined by a small group of visionary politicians—the nondescript woolen suit emerging as a cunning new form of camouflage—their heroic sequence of agreements and treaties were designed to minimize interest. Because the operation was so radical, it could only take place by stealth; for the initial part of the EU’s existence, its ulterior motives could never be openly stated. Because of the complexity of the operation, the treatises and blueprints that defined the new Europe were hard to communicate.
Europe’s reticence has clearly had its benefits; the European Union has already—without fan fair or retribution–become the largest economy on earth, its population nearing 500 million—almost twice that of the world’s lone "super power." But increasingly, as the EU grows in size and importance, the ineffectiveness of its communication is proving to be a serious political liability that weakens its external manifestations and has unnecessarily eroded its internal support. For the average European, the EU now is a parallel universe that coexists–inexplicably and unexplained—with the real world as we know it. Too often, this double life has been perceived as negative—as if the "blue" territory of Europe would take away our national identities; in fact the creation of a new Europe gives each of us new space to imagine ourselves. At 50, the EU has accomplished freedom of movement and communication, prosperity, and lasting peace. This exhibition celebrates an end to its inhibited iconography, its coming out… On two panoramic murals—concentric circles of 60 and 80 meters in length—the evolution of "Europe", as a concept, identity, and political reality, is sketched. The inner ring presents the history of Europe, from continental drift to the Madrid bombing, as an accelerating sequence that gradually gains detail as it approaches the present. Beginning as a sparsely populated archipelago, the pivotal moments of early development—the age of the dinosaur, the Neanderthal, Ancient Greece, Rome…—inhabit discreet islands. Arrows indicate the critical interactions with the outside world, particularly with Africa and Asia, that enriched Europe’s early civilizations. From there the history plots a cyclical alternation between "good" and "bad", idealism and zealotry, through the spread of Christianity, the emergence of modernity, the rise of colonialism and industrialization, nationalism, and eventually the catastrophic violence of the 20th century. Our current moment of uncertainty, affluence, and opportunity provides a provisional climax.
The complexities of Europe’s past provide a tumultuous foreground against which the outer ring narrates the history of European integration. Starting shortly after World War Two, the story of the European Union—its watersheds and breakdowns, heroes and villains—is, for once, boldly declared. The outer ring attempts to undo 50 years of calculated quiet by turning the EU’s non-events into celebrations, its nobodies into heroes, its drabness into grandeur.The story closes somewhere in the 2020s, in a speculative conclusion on Europe’s possible future(s). "The Image of Europe" is at once a celebration of the European Union’s accomplishments to this point and an exploration into the EU’s enormous, as yet untapped potential. It marks a new stage in the Europe’s evolution—a denial of understatement in favor of inspiration and engagement. From now on the EU will be bold, explicit, popular. Prada Skirt, Shanghai, China
'Waist Down: Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity'—A Travelling Exhibition of Prada Creations In May 2005, Prada presented the exhibition “Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity” in Shanghai. Using its vast collection of creations dating back to 1988, Prada highlighted the skirt as a vehicle of movements where the art and creativity of Miuccia Prada flourish. The skirt is a wondrous zone of invention that has inspired the designer as well as the people who wear it. Through a variety of amusing installations, "Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity" will show the skirt as a profound asset that is often overlooked due to its familiarity.
The Peace Hotel became the setting in which to convey the profound joy of the skirt as seen through the creative lens of Miuccia Prada. The Peace Hotel is a testament to the history of Shanghai and of the Bund, one of the city’s most popular landmarks, perfectly situated to observe the city’s current transformation. Presented within this unique environment, away from the conventional art venue, the exhibit explores new possibilities of communicating with the viewer. White City, UK, London Masterplan for a redevelopment area between London`s city centre and Heathrow airport
Located between the city centre and Heathrow Airport, just outside the congestion zone, the site forms the most Western of all development locations, the last and currently the missing link in a chain of developments that encircle central London. At present, the area is a vacant strip of land: a 43 acre breach in the urban fabric. It borders the divide between some of the wealthiest areas in London and some of London's most notorious and deprived housing estates. Hinging between the two extremes, the site has the potential to mediate the divide. Long left underdeveloped, White City is mostly known as the geographical home of the BBC TV centre and Wormwood Scrubs prison. However, the site holds much potential for better utilisation of its environs and successful urban regeneration as well as many unique opportunities to renew the uniqueness of White City, that in the past was formed by Olympic Games and large scale international exhibitions.
Currently the site is under utilised and isolated from its surrounding advantages—seemingly cut-off by the very infrastructure that should generate urban connections. The masterplan is aiming at overcoming these barriers by making better use of the A40 and the London Underground's Hammersmith and City and Central Lines that all intersect the site.
Apart from the infrastructure the adjacent BBC Media Village and BBC TV centre lend vibrant media culture, the White City Shopping and Leisure Scheme stimulates local economy. Numerous neighbourhood parks and sports centres as well as the Wormwood Scrubs provide ample recreational opportunities. It is an opportunity to reanimate a currently neglected and under utilised site but as an exciting forum for rethinking the notion of the masterplan. The plan frees the site from its barriers and creates links between the surrounding urban clusters. The design team intends to take a critical investigative approach to the local setting and interest groups through an intense consultative process to form a considered approach to contemporary London. The White City Landowners comprise the BBC with Land Securities plc, Marks & Spencer, Lattice Group Pension Scheme and Morley Fund Management with Helical Bar plc. They have joined together to masterplan a comprehensive redevelopment of their landholdings. Helical Bar has been appointed as project coordinator. Mercati Generali, Italy, Rome Redevelopment of a formal industrial area of Ostiense in Rome
The Mercati Generali site is located on the Via Ostiense, a former industrial area in close proximity to the historical sites of ancient Rome. Formerly occupied by market halls and utility buildings from the early 1900's, the new design envisages a combination of public space and large-scale commerical, leisure and cultural facilities. The strategy for the redevelopment of the Mercati Generali proposes a balance of uses that closely resemble an emergent method for the rehabilitation and reprogramming of disused structures. Whereas historically public space flourished around squares and streets linked to religious or civic buildings or landmarks, today’s cities relay increasingly on the private sector to propagate the city pulse, especially through retail and leisure.
The present convergence of urbanity and commercial mega-structures questions the status of public space today. Where the later outgrows its envelope and overflows into the city as an independent instrument of urbanity, or where cities instigate regeneration resorting to commercial strategies. The redevelopment of the Mercati Generali offers the opportunity to define a balance between the two. The task to intervene on the grounds of the Ex-Mercati Generali in Rome offers the opportunity to explore the status of public space in the contemporary European metropolis. The Mercati Generali site on the Via Ostiense is a peculiar location in the fringe of the familiar Rome, only a few blocks from the ancient city walls. This central, yet edge location, offers a proximity that eases building inside Rome, with the apparent luster of being outside the Rome. The strategic location, historical importance, urban presence and shear scale of the Mercati Generali should be exploited to spearhead the redevelopment of the complete neighborhood.
Working with a historical site, almost a given in Rome, implies abiding to strict rules of intervention that are heavily prescriptive and severely limit the implantation of the new. In the case of the Mercati Generali the task becomes more so challenging given its relative youth (by Roman standards). Built from the early to mid 1900’s, and its current state of ‘limited’ decay yet with ‘substantial’ historical documentation poses the challenge of practicing an industrial archeology of great meticulousness offering minimal leeway. Prada Skirt, Tokyo, Japan
'Waist Down: Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity'—A Travelling Exhibition of Prada Creations By using Prada’s vast collection of creations dating back to 1988, this exhibition highlights the skirt as a vehicle of movements where the art and creativity of Miuccia Prada flourish. The skirt is a wondrous zone of invention that has inspired the designer as well as the people who wear it. Through a variety of amusing installations ‘Waist Down: Miuccia Prada: Art and Creativity’ shows the skirt as a profound asset that is often overlooked due to its familiarity. Souterrain Tram Tunnel, Netherlands, The Hague A tram tunnel connecting 2 stations combined with a parking garage
The souterrain tram tunnel is an element of intrastructure and a building at the same time. Located in the city centre of The Hague, the multistory underground tunnel provides 500 parking spaces on one level, whilst connecting 2 tram stations on the level below. The Hague in a certain sense is an imprisoned city, confined by the sea, the highway connecting Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and neighbouring cites. It is therefore the only city that for its growth relies on redefinition of sites within its boundaries. To grow, for this city, means to become more dense.
The Hague, the Dutch capital of conservatism and bureaucracy, has planned the completion of more than 30 projects in the centre—most of them much larger than any of the existing buildings—which will before the turn of the century transform radically the character and scale of the existing fabric. Surprisingly, the increase in density (+ 500.000 m2 of program) goes hand in hand with plans to minimize car traffic on street level. To achieve this, a so called parking-road is strung around the heart of the city, defining a 1.000.000 m2 'island' forbidden to all but local traffic. This loop-road will connect to a number of—largely underground—parking garages and to a subterranean service road that brings trucks to the heart of the shopping district.
Most—existing and new—parkings connect to the loop individually, each one of them isolated from the others. One of the new projects, which is as much an element of infrastructure as it is a building, is the digging of a multistorey tunnel—a 1200 m long subway 'scoop', with 2 stations and a 500 car parking-garage. This tunnel-building is the necessary addition that makes all other buildings work. The tunnel acts like a spine connecting the separate 'organs', creating a body of underground connections that serves the city from underneath. The city is turning into a kind of 'La Dáfense in reverse', the slumbering existing reanimated by an 'underworld' of interconnecting parking garages, rails, tramstops and roads even, bringing underground everything necessary but no longer acceptable on grade.
The main challenge of this project was to prove that architecture can have a positive effect when applied to the rigour of transport pragmatism. The building is a sandwich of a subway-line with 2 layers of parking on top and a station at either end. Its stretches out below the main shopping street, repeating its outlines, leaving a 'workspace' of 600 by 15 m approximately, to overcome the boredom of a 600 m long continuous section, and to provide an answer to the question of underground orientation/isolation, every opportunity has been taken to modify the height and the width of the space, to connect physically or visually to other parts of the tunnels program, to provide views of the outide - city or sky, to link the tunnel with surrounding shops and parkings. Usually, built parkings are victims of technical and economical constraints, the full weight of all structural and mechanical difficulties imposed upon them. In this case, the linearity of the site turned out to be an escape from this prison of practice. Ventilation: the tunnel as the duct; structure: the tunnel as the walls, the beams and the slabs. The parking becomes a fluid space, making use of the slopes in the rail and exploiting one of the gives, its enormous length, as an unprecedent quality. Where parking and stations meet, partitioning walls have been kept transparent. Dee and Charles Wyly Theater, Dallas, Texas
Theater situated in the new Dallas Performing Arts Park An unprecedented reconfiguration of the traditional theater typology is the distinguishing feature of this 600 seat center for classical and experimental performance. Unlike conventional configurations in which support spaces wrap the stage house, the design for the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater organizes support spaces vertically, stacking them above and below the performance space. No longer obscured by functional program, the theater is liberated, allowing the public to look in on performances and theater goers to look out on the city.
To design a theater today is to learn from thousands of years of spontaneous performances, while ensuring that theater space can remain a political space for modern reflection, and future expression. Having long been displaced by the cinema, theater today can no longer hope to survive as mere popular entertainment. Rather, theatres all over the world have been challenged to reclaim their position tangent to mainstream culture but not part of it. It is from this critical distance that theatres are again claiming their ancient function as social mirror and cultural critic.
We have recently completed a three-month Research Phase prior to beginning work on the new Dallas Theater project. During this research phase we examined several question regarding the development of theater in the 21st century, including questions as to the optimal configuration of a flexible performance space, the siting of the building in relation to the Dallas Performing Arts District, and the conceptual design of the building itself.
During this Research Phase we travelled together with our client and Theater Projects Consultants to visit several new theatres in London and Chicago. We worked together with research assistants working for our sister-office AMO to investigate the history of the theater to develop a response to the program which pushed the concept of what a theater could be further. This Research Phase provided invaluable insight into theater design and provided an important conceptual base developed together with our clients upon which the project now can be built. Europe Exhibition — Munich, Germany An exhibition examining the representation of Europe, coinciding with the Netherlands' 2004 Presidency of the European Union.
To mark the occasion of the Netherlands' 2004 Presidency of the European Union, an exhibition and symposium was held in Brussels under the joint sponsorship of the Dutch Presidency and the European Commission. The title plays upon the double meaning of the word "image"—implying both representation and perception. Where the exhibition examines the ways in which Europe is represented—through words and symbols, the symposium addresses the ways that Europe is being perceived—by those inside and outside. The exhibition contains an 80 metre panoramic mural—a chronological arrangement of Europe's visual manifestations, past and present—that shows how the image of Europe has evolved over the last 50 years and speculates about its possible future.span On two murals the evolution of "Europe", as a concept, identity, and political reality, is sketched.
Mural I: From there the history plots a cyclical alternation between "good" and "bad", idealism and zealotry, through the spread of Christianity, the emergence of modernity, the rise of colonialism and industrialization, nationalism, and eventually the catastrophic violence of the 20th century. Our current moment of uncertainty, affluence, and opportunity provides a provisional climax.
Mural II: 25x25:
The Acquis: Statue: Passport: Prada Sponge, USA, Los Angeles
Research and development of foam material in the use of Prada Epicenter store. The projects for the Italian fashion company Prada span from research on shopping and new concepts for Prada as a brand to the creation of three big stores in the United States. But beyond restructuring the physical reality of the brand, Prada’s virtual presence is simultaneously defined through extensive in-store technology projects and the creation of a website. The combination of these aspects generates an integrated service structure that enables Prada to provide a new sense of exclusivity, but also to reinforce the diverse and intriguing aura of the brand.
Sponge Foam is a Polyurethane cast of an aggregate condition between solid and void. It is a both irregular and regular structure of sponge-like consistency that can be cast in stages from hard to soft and from transparent to opaque. It forms a substance out of which objects can be build, but also entire spaces can be carved out, itself an interpretation of solid and void.
The development started with an architectural model using a regular cleaning sponge. As the visual effect of this backlit texture was very intriguing, an extensive search was initiated to recreate this material in 1:1 scale. Many hundred tests and prototypes were handmade in order to test hole sizes, percentages of openness, translucencies, depths, colors, etc. Simultaneously, mass production- and 3-d computer modeling techniques were investigated that could help translating the properties of the handcrafted prototypes and all technical requirements into the final product. Methods from Stereolithography to CNC controlled milling processes and specific casting techniques were developed and employed. Along the way, an entirely new Polyurethane composite was generated to comply with fire and building codes. Foam in its multiple and ambiguous deviations offers a new definition of functional and visual properties between artificial and natural, irregular and regular, transparent, translucent or solid, flexible or rigid.
Prada, Los Angeles, USA Prada Epicenter store on Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills The Prada store on Rodeo Drive is a new construction of 24,000 sqft on three storeys plus basement. Because of its location in Los Angeles, the store stands in a specific relation to the New York project, but also through its horizontality and the need to connect mainly two floors. As in New York the floor waves down towards the basement, in Los Angeles the same wooden plane folds up and creates a symmetrical 'hill' that supports a floating aluminum box. Inside this volume, the main store program is organized along its perimeter.
The façade towards Rodeo Drive is literally non-existent—without the classical storefront and glass enclosures, the entire width of the store opens up to the street and merges public with commercial space. The climatic separation is achieved through an air-curtain system, invisible security antennas guarantee the control of the store. At night, an aluminum panel rises from the ground and hermetically seals the building. The third floor is dominated by the 'scenario space': An open floor plan that is used for changing display arrangements, like an extended idea of a display window, offering ways to present clothes beyond the presence of hangbars and shelves.
Leeum Museum, South Korea, Seoul A multifunction building for exhibitions, media and office spaces in Seoul The Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art project is a 27,000m2 masterplan designed by OMA in 1997. Located in Hannam-Dong—a residential district near the city centre, the complex comprises three buildings by OMA, Mario Botta and Jean Nouvel. The OMA building covers a gross area of 13,100m2 for temporary contemporary exhibitions, media and office spaces. The three buildings converge into a central mixing chamber that forms the lobby and information area.
The museum complex entry is through the OMA building via a ramp leading directly into the mixing chamber. The dominant feature of OMA's design is a massive black concrete box, which confronts the visitor immediately at the entrance. The box is suspended within large excavation in the undulating topography creating varying light conditions within the space. Circulation is conceived around the experience of the black box by descending under it, into it and moving above it. This movement provides the visitor a rich experience of the dynamic relationship between the building, the site and the city. |
