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Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice Department of Architecture |
Projects 2008-present
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Riga Port City, Latvia, Riga, 2009 The Riga Port is one of the last remaining dockland areas in Europe to be redeveloped. With effective planning, the relatively late discovery of the potential of this dockland can be turned into a key competitive advantage – an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of predecessors. The masterplan With insights from the combined successes and failures of previous developments as a conceptual foundation, the New Riga Port City could become the ultimate case of informed development. The New Riga Port City is in the unique position of being able to plan its own success.
The masterplan will be developed through a two-phase process: Phase A lays the foundations for the design by providing the necessary insights into the place Riga Port City will occupy within its city, nation, and region. The knowledge gained during these initial studies will provide the basis for a “conceptual blueprint” from which the eventual physical masterplan will be derived. During Phase B, this blueprint will be developed into the Riga Port City masterplan and marketing strategy.
Riyadh al Faisaliah II , Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 2008 For the first time Riyadh will possess what has become the standard DNA of the contemporary city: a skyline. To ensure the continued existence of the Al Faisaliah tower as one of Riyadh’s major symbols, not one, but two almost identical structures — one white, one black — will flank the Al Faisaliah tower. Framing the Al Faisaliah tower like a pair of quotation marks they serve to re-interpret the very statement it makes to the city of Riyadh. The first tower contains the major office and hotel program required by the brief. The second tower acts as a strategic reserve to exploit the full potential of the site. It contains a further office program in addition to the brief and 36 floors of service apartments for a new generation of businessmen. The towers are connected via a plinth that links all the lower levels of existing and new development and addresses height differences on the site. The plinth contains the office and hotel lobbies; the retail program; the conference & business centre and creates a platform for a Mosque with capacity of 900 people. The plinth is designed to allow for the future expansion of the basement levels to accommodate the second tower with no additional depth of excavation. The tapered form of their base minimizes the presence of the towers on the ground to only their circulation cores, freeing up public space and echoing the pyramid shape of the existing Al Faisaliah Tower.
The towers are appropriated for the region’s climate to provide shading and thermal massing. Both towers have concrete exteriors that are perf-orated for fenestration. The pattern of the fenestration gradually transforms across each façade in response to solar conditions. The introduction of two new towers prepares the Al Faisaliah complex for a new Riyadh. The second tower is a trump card to be played only once the city’s transformation has reached a new stage. As such the two new towers are not only a physical bracketing, but also a bracketing over time, where the first tower kicks off the ‘liberation’ of the central strip and the second tower captures its apotheosis. 23 East 22nd Street, USA, Manhattan, New York, 2008 OMA’s first building in New York City, 23 East 22nd Street aims to provide an intuitive resolution to the challenge of creating a luxury residential tower in a culture of congestion. The building’s external form and internal organization are a deliberate reaction to its immediate context. Located just off Madison Square Park, on a site just 33 feet wide, the building is the final phase of Slazer Enterprises One Madison Park development, which also includes a 60-story tower on 23rd Street, currently under construction.
The base of 23 East 22nd Street is a transparent screening room that has a view to the city. More than the typical New York building, the tower above had to respond to a number of complex demands: in addition to the zoning law and neighbors, it had to avoid blocking the view of One Madison Park, its 60-story neighbor to the north. Using the complexity—even strangeness—of the site, unusual qualities were introduced to the apartments: irregular ceiling heights, views around the tower to the north, and overhangs with windows to the city below. Form Residences/Variety Structure Screening Room Within the screening room, a pre-function lounge and the screening room seating are both accommodated on a single grand stair. Larger steps within the grand stair are designed to host pre-function events whilst spaces that serve the screening room—bar, cloakroom, casual seating, projection booth—are embedded within. La Defense Masterplan, Paris, La Defense, 2008
Creating a nodal point allows La Défense to focus on becoming again what it was intended to be in the first place: a compact, attractive, efficient and sustainable business center. The business district, while struggling to maintain and expand its position on the international scene, needs a focal point, capable of bringing it together as well as distributing it. A pump. A heart. La Défense embodies the space to make that new heart possible. Below the deck lies a hidden and unsuspected world that has long been ignored and underutilised. That underworld is possibly La Défense's most valuable asset today.
The deck, a volume rather than a mere surface, becomes a linking body that cements everything together, like an airport terminal. It continues to contain the transportation tracks and platforms, including our proposed internal shuttle that extends to Les Groues, the neighboring district. Above all, the deck's underworld becomes a lively and welcoming space, filled with daylight, where shops and lobbies converge towards the new central stop. An improved signage makes it more convenient for the user to find their way. The awakening of the deck's unconscious provides a heart for La Défense. This long needed nodal point allows La Défense to focus on becoming again what it was created to be in the first place: a compact, attractive, efficient and sustainable business center.
The new towers planned on the site leave no doubt that the district possesses the architectural resources to renew itself. For the renewal to be successful it needs to address the transportation and infrastructure issues and improve the (internal) accessibility of the district. When comparing La Défense to other business districts, the transit stops are too far apart, especially given the importance of the pedestrian. We propose to create a new central stop, right in the middle of the district. Les Groues, which in our proposal is well connected to La Défense, can function very much in the same way as La Défense once served Paris. It can accommodate all functions for which there is no space within La Défenses perimeter. Programs such as the station, nightlife, a park and the university, as well as functions that need a much looser development framework than La Défense can offer, such as smaller, more mixed-use, and more individual, developments. This benefits both Nanterre and La Défense.
The search for mixed-use programs throughout the years hasn't proved fruitful. It has created a suboptimal environment with a relatively low density, security issues, and unattractive pedestrian connections. Mixed-use architecture shouldn't be any longer pursued within the very limits of La Défense. Like the defragmenting of a hard-disk, the functions are to be reorganised in a cleaning process, freeing space for an optimised functioning of the entire system. The office towers are concentrated and intensified inside the Boulevard Circulaire, where housing is only maintained on the southwest triangle. La Défense, a symbol of French modernity, maintains an ambiguous relation to history. L'idolâtrie de l'Axe historique has caused the district to shut itself off from its environment. The historical axis is multiplied to turn the business centre into a new pivotal node of a larger urban network, that of Grand Paris.
Prada Catwalk Men SS 2009, Italy, Milan, 2008 In an effort to dissolve the rigid configurations of the traditional runway, Prada/AMO proposes an Archipelago of irregular wood isles for the presentation of the Men’s Spring/Summer 2009 collection in Milan. As the crowd sits and stands on individual terraced islands scattered throughout the room, the models weave along the coastline of this recalcitrant landscape. As the models fill the interstitial spaces of the room, the runway jumps into relief against the imposing islands, as an experience both rigorous and resisting containment. Coolsingel, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2008
Instead of yet another tower project competing for height, the project aims to reconfigure the image of the centre by inserting the pure form of the cube on the site. Two contextual observations triggered the design process. The position of the site in the urban context of the city Rotterdam can truly be regarded as the center of Rotterdam. This is the moment where Rotterdam’s most important streets: Coolsingel, Lijnbaan, Binnenweg and Beurstraverse merge together. The second observation is Rotterdam’s current construction development that almost entirely consists of tower projects. The high-rise creates an impressive skyline, but due to mono-functionality and its lack of engagement with the surrounding public domain it does not succeed to enhance the attractiveness and liveliness of the centre.
Instead of yet another tower project competing for height, the project aims to reconfigure the image of the centre by inserting the pure form of the cube on the site. The cube spatially reorganizes its context and generates floor surfaces that can facilitate for a wide range of (public) programs. A system of void spaces introduces a spatial configuration that brings daylight into the cube and views to the surroundings from within the cube.
Public program like restaurants, exhibition and media spaces are situated in the middle of the block and on the top floors. From these floors the public will be able to overlook the entire Rotterdam area. The biggest challenge will be to attract the people to go up. Slanted public elevators that stop at few floors only will make an event of the travel. The base of the block will consist of 5 floors of retail. Within these floors connections with the surroundings are established on different levels with Lijnbaan, Binnenwegplein, Coolsingel, Beurstraverse and potentially in the future with underground station Blaak. Parking for both residents and office program will be situated below the retail floors. The actual open space of the site is a courtyard surrounded by monuments including the ABN-AMRO building on Coolsingel. An impressive bank building that was the first to be erected in the centre after the air raid in WWII. OMA considers it a challenge to integrate these valuable buildings within the design. The bank will be given a prominent role in the new plan. It will form the base for the new developments and the monumental entrance will become the main address on Coolsingel. With new retail program the building will become more accessible and reinvigorated, while the current owner, ABN-AMRO, will remain an important user in the future.
Energy-efficient concepts play an integral role in the development of the design. Since the first design ideas, energy consultant Enplus has collaborated in the design process to optimize the daylight condition and energy use inside the building. The municipality’s ambitions for the future development of the centre aim to enhance the physical quality of the public domain and the quality of life in the inner city. OMA feels that with this design it is capable of fully supporting these ambitions. Programmatic mixture, environmental value and engagement with the surrounding public domain are essential elements in the design.
Sant’elia, Italy, Cagliari, 2008 Re-qualification of the Sant’Elia neighbourhood in Cagliari, Italy The ambition of the masterplan is not only regeneration of an under-valued area and community, but also to exploit the full potential of this spectacular waterfront site for the benefit of the entire region, whilst improving social and environmental conditions of the current inhabitants and local nature. The re-qualification of the neighborhood of Sant'Elia aims to the re-qualification of its bad image connotation 'within' the city of Cagliari.
The solution to the problem is in creating jobs, empowering the population, formalizing informal activities, and retaining the static energy of the locality. The solution should be found in the understanding of the present social discomfort and using it as a possible instrument for further design studies. The majority of the residents want to stay in the Sant’ Elia’s neighborhood, land of unlimited freedom and creativity as opposed to the formal city. The residents are continuously engaged in changing and adapting their environment to their very special needs. This is made possible by the absence of regulation and administrative presence on the site. Our scope as designers is to keep this energy flow moving and introducing spaces and opportunities allowing the legalized continuity of such mansion. Encouraging and slightly modifying elements which do work on site seems to be an appropriate system for reintegration.
The often-exaggerated negative images of Sant’Elia, partially responsible for the residents’ hostility towards the city, could be switched into a positive image by bringing new interest to the area. Increasing their sense of belonging and responsibility needs to be implemented in the spatial materialization for a new masterplan. OMA project focuses on accommodating the edges of the site by eliminating distances and isolation and creating new proximities and confrontations with the ultimate ambition of offering a new, fresh, animated piece of Cagliari to the Cagliaritani Fondazione Prada, Italy, Milan, 2008 Intervention on and transformation of an early 20th -century industrial site south of Milan to create new experimental spaces for the Prada Art Foundation
REPERTOIRE It is surprising that the enormous expansion of the art system has taken place in a reduced number of typologies for arts’ display. It seems that the arts’ apotheosis is unfolding in an increasingly limited repertoire of spatial conditions: the gallery (white, abstract and neutral), the industrial space (attractive because its predictable conditions do not challenge the artist’s intentions), the contemporary museum (a barely disguised version of the department store) and the purgatory of the arts fair. The new Prada Foundation is projected in a former industrial complex too, but one with unusually diverse spatial environments. We plan to add three new structures that vastly extend the range of its facilities and accomodations. The new Foundation is intended as a collection of artefacts that encounters a collection of architectural typologies. Not only will the range of spatial conditions be extended, but also the range of contents itself. Apart from spaces for assembly and performance, both Prada’s and Luna Rossa’s archives will be opened, establishing a continuity of creative and intellectual effort.
Courtyard Great Hall
Installations Offices / Gallery Haunted House
Prada + Luna Rossa Archives Three New Inserts Tower
Box Ideal Museum Combines the intimate qualities of a traditional museum – a collection of rooms of various dimensions and qualities – with a large open daylit hall for exhibitions of larger objects; both will enable the sophisticated technical controls demanded for international exchange of exhibitions. Signal Tower, France, Paris, 2008
Ambition The construction of the business district of La Défense will begin with the creation of a virgin surface of any new urbanization: the concentration of critical mass on the outskirts of the city (Paris), whilst protecting the historic centre.
Observation
Integration The brief by l'Etablissement Public d'Aménagement de La Défense (EPAD) to make its previously impenetrable limits accessible, to organize the site into urban space in a hierarchy of a succession of lines and squares, highlighted the need to consider and qualify an area of fringe, an outcome which previously had not been the subject of the project. By adding a critical mass of public programs organized as a network, closely connected to the existing program, Signal project seeks to consolidate the immediate vicinity and access to the slab as an audience.
In the growing competition among Europe's financial centers, La Défense can differentiate itself by changing its logical communication. From a vertical reference, the clarity and quality of the limit of its greatest asset and its greatest potential: the horizontal support of the deck can be highlighted. The position and nature of the adaptation of a project to its site profoundly influences the surrounding environment. The OMA Signal Project is working to this challenge by establishing a horizontal and multifunctional base that simultaneously expands the existing slab, reconsiders the status of South Gate, and most importantly creates a connection between all elements of its environment.
Typology
Synergy The spaces of the spiral are not static but always in movement, ready to accommodate new uses, in order to create new connections drawing on the existing energies.
Facade Bryghusprojektet, Denmark, Copenhagen, 2008 A linear display of the tenets of Danish Modernism: monumentality, simplicity and politeness.
The Copenhagen harbour is experiencing a surge in development, transforming a previously under used natural asset into a new city-wide destination. The Bryghusgrunden site lies in the centre of this transformation. To capitalize on the site’s potential we propose to use the building as an ‘urban motor’ to actively link the city and the waterfront. Providing a connection under the busy Christians Brygge, where entrances to the different program elements are strategically located, the site becomes both a destination and a connector at the hinge of the waterfront and the ‘entrance’ to the city. Opposed to the typical stacked section, where building programs remain autonomous, the program ‘heap’ can create unexpected and unpredictable situations where each program is made aware of its coexistence with the others.
Zoning The Bryghusgrunden site, while occupying an ideal location along the harbour waterfront lacks any identity. Public spaces, city, and water merge into one continuous field of asphalt and concrete. No Spatial Definition
No Connectivity “Meeting Point”
Urban Definition
Building Harbour Modernism
Concept Volume Heights
Mixed-Use Building Urban Passage
Program
DAC Program Sequence
DAC Auditorium Laboratory
RealDania
Offices
Landscape
Playground
Miu Miu Catwalk Women FW 2008, France, Paris, 2008 Fall/Winter 2008 Miu Miu Women Fashion Show The catwalk makes use of modern industrial materials to contrast the showspace venue - a period hôtel particulier on Paris’ Avenue Foch. Aluminum, Rubber and Masking Tape add new structures and surfaces used strictly for their utilitarian purposes: as support structures, outlines and protective surfaces. The linear runway, outlined in black masking tape and lit sharply from above, continues the utilitarian theme, using standard techniques in the generic presentation of fashion.
Waterfront City, UAE, Dubai, 2008 Waterfront City is a square island measuring 1310 m x 1310 m at its outset surrounded by an artificial body of water created by the removal of existing ground allowing the sea water to enter. Surrounding this body of water there are four more areas which form part of the total that is considered the Waterfront City. Starting on the North side and moving clockwise these areas are Madinat Al Soor, the Boulevard, the Marina and the Resorts. The island and the four areas surrounding it form 5 separate precincts that all have their own distinct character. The result is a city centre that is diverse in the urban conditions that it provides.
Island In square meters the amount of residential program is equal to the amount of office program. This means that there are a lot more people working on the island than people living there but theoretically it also means that there are as many buildings occupied at day and at night. This guarantees that the city remains lively 24 hours a day. With this balance between office and residential program there will be a substantial amount of people both living and working on the island therefore reducing the overal need for roads and increasing the amount of pedestrian movement.
Boulevard
With its organic lines and landscape the Boulevard Park offers a contrast to the rest of Waterfronts City’s rational, man made design. Everywhere else in Waterfront City the edges to the water are hard quay walls but in the Boulevard the water edge is soft with the Landscape sliding into the water. The design for the Boulevard Park exploits the possibilities of this soft transition from land to water; at times there is a beach, at times there are mangroves and on several occasions a pier reaches out over the water. Along these piers are various buildings that are surrounded by water on all sides. The piers also make landings for water taxi’s making it possible to access the Boulevard by boat. Although the Boulevard Park is public there are private plots inside of it. These plots find themselves in the unique condition of being surrounded on all sides by park and having a view towards the water and the island. The Boulevard provides a mix of different use and density. It ranges from office, residential, and hotel towers to mid-rise culture, retail, and civic amenities to low-rise retail and restaurants. Additionally, the Boulevard contains a large plot that can be used to build stadium or a large cultural institution.
Madinat Al Soor
The name Al Soor, The Wall, originates from the development’s most prominent structure: a large inhabited wall element on the western tip of the site. The rich urban fabric of building clusters and irregular street and pedestrian path patterns integrates the wall with the other significant moments in this small town. It is only a short walk away from the beachfront resorts, the intrinsic town souks, the serene canal sides and the spectacular waterfront walks with the most privileged views of the two nearby iconic buildings, The Spiral and The Sphere. It is the concentration of all these particular places so close to each other that distinguishes Madinat Al Soor as one of the most attractive places to visit in this region of Dubai. Resort
The area will also host one of the icons: the Spiral. The Spiral will consist of offices, retail, residential areas and hotels. Most of the open space of this area will be focused within the resorts and hotels providing intimate areas for its residents and pool side activities.
Marina
Prada Catwalk Women FW 2008, Italy, Milan, 2008 The catwalk plays with perceptions of space by taking a 3-dimensional structure and flattening it against the surrounding showspace. The result is a large-scale paper model whose ephemeral quality supports the reinventing notion of fashion. Ramps add a vertical element to the catwalk that contrast the flatness of the surrounding space. Lighting reminiscent of a TV set adds another layer to the environment, creating an ambience that further alters the audiences' perception of what is real or fake.
Prada Catwalk Man FW 2008, Italy, Milan, 2008 The catwalk plays with perceptions of space by taking a 3-dimensional structure and flattening it against the surrounding showspace. The result is a large-scale paper model whose ephemeral quality supports the reinventing notion of fashion. Ramps add a vertical element to the catwalk that contrasts the flatness of the surrounding space. Lighting reminiscent of a TV set adds another layer to the environment, creating an ambience that further alters the audiences' perception of what is real or fake. Hermitage 2014, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2008
AMO and the State Hermitage Museum enter a new phase of their relationship to collaborate on the development of a visionary masterplan for the Hermitage. Inspired by the unique potential of the classical institution within the contemporary moment, the initiative will marry the extensive knowledge and historical rigor of the Hermitage with the experimental creativity and contemporary engagement of AMO to create an unprecedented cultural joint venture. The year 2014 marks the 250th anniversary of the State Hermitage Museum. In anticipation of the historical moment, the encyclopedic museum – with its two thousand rooms and three million artifacts – offers itself as incubator and laboratory for a defining vision of the universal institution within the generation to come. Over the next year, the ideas and ambitions of the AMO/Hermitage team will manifest themselves in a comprehensive masterplan for the institution – covering its global agenda to its urban and architectural programming to its curatorial strategies and display methods.
The Hermitage has survived three critically different periods of Russian history, but its existence as an exclusive enclave, buffered from contemporary events and dutifully devoted to conservation has persisted. Though oft perceived as a classical conservative museum, the remarkable character of the Hermitage– largely independent from market forces though heavily political; a historical masterpiece holding historical masterpieces; encyclopedic in size and scope but striking in its details; a constant conflation of art and history, memory and experience – is the basis from which the team will begin to interrogate and assert its potential as the definitive contemporary universal institution. The mutual interest and curiosity between OMA/AMO and the Hermitage was seeded in early 2001 upon the commission for the Hermitage Guggenheim exhibition center in Las Vegas. In 2003, the relationship was fomented with AMO’s study for the Hermitage’ extension of the General Staff Building. During this time AMO’s radical ‘modernization-by-preservation’ posture began to take shape, and the architectural dimensions of the brief reconceived. The sensibility and approach of the proposal led to AMO’s commission as consultant for the General Staff Building extension (2003-2005), and were instrumental in the formation of the collaborative think tank and ambitious masterplan project launched today.
The Masterplan will be initiated by the creation of a (self-)portrait of the institution – a body of extensive research and critical and comparative analyses. This compilation of distilled knowledge and thought will serve as the conceptual basis from which innovative proposals and experimental case studies will be generated. The strategic proposals will be centered upon different aspects of the Hermitage: its global mission, national position and urban situation; its relationship to the city of St Petersburg as both protagonist and microcosm; its historically layered architecture, rooms, collections and objects – and the orchestration of their latent potentials. The ideas and proposals set forth will be refined and tested through a number of case studies, which will include an urban intervention, the conception and design of one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions, and the design of a temporary exhibition. Addressing the global debate, and further informing the ideas, the team will organize four international seminars related to central issues of the investigation, with leading specialists and cultural figures. The Hermitage 2014 Masterplan project itself will also be documented and presented in the form of a final international exhibition and publication. |
