It was just announced that OMA + AMO will collaborate with Strelka, a postgraduate school for media, architecture and design in Moscow. The new school is launching an educational program where a select group of students will work intensely and innovatively on a series of themes aimed to reshape Russia’s current role in the world. In an attempt to raise the ambition of the creative industries in Russia, the institute will challenge students with a variety of projects. The students will guided by the expertise of both Russian and international creative leaders.
AMO is a design and research studio inside OMA, a think tank operating on the boundaries of architecture: media, politics, sociology, sustainability, technology, fashion, curating, publishing and graphic design. Some of their works include the barcode flag for the EU and a study for Wired magazine.
And while OMA covers sustainable strategies on a building or master plan scale, AMO is approaching it on en European scale as one of the five consultants conducting technical, economic and policy analyses for Roadmap 2050, an initiative by the European Climate Foundation which looks to chart a policy roadmap for the next 5-10 years based on the European leaders’ commitment to an 80-95% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. You can download a brief of Roadmap 2050 in PDF.
The goal is to achieve a 2% energy efficiency saving per year in order to meet this goal, with power and vehicle transportation being the most important areas.
Through the complete integration and synchronization of the EU’s energy infrastructure, Europe can take maximum advantage of its geographical diversity. The report’s findings show that by 2050, the simultaneous presence of various renewable energy sources within the EU can create a complementary system of energy provision ensuring energy security for future generations.
AMO’s work focuses on the production of a graphic narrative which conceptualizes and visualizes the geographic, political, and cultural implications of the integrated, decarbonized European power sector.
On their study you can find an interesting approach to a diverse european energy grid, including energy trade and the use of new non-traditional sources.
The image of “Eneropa” appears as a new continent based on its energy production: Biomassburg, Geothermalia, Solaria, the Tidal States… are part of this new territory. Other branding concepts are introduced on the study, creating a tangible image of this ambitious plan, which reminds the powerful (yet simple) idea behind the barcode flag.
OMA in association with Leigh & Orange Architects have won the international competition for a 28,000m2 campus for the Chu Hai College of Higher Education in Hong Kong.
The project consists on two 8-stories tall parallel volumes with a rich public space in between, housing three faculties (arts, science and engineering, business), with 10 departments and 2 research centers.
What I like about this project is how OMA incorporated the multidisciplinary focus of this college, trough a rich public space between these two volumes, a topography with library, cafeteria, gym and lecture theaters, which given its ramps, steps and shaded platforms, generate several different spaces for socializing, meeting, studying, etc. So, students from this 3 faculties will flow into this central public space, mixing together.
This project is led by Rem Koolhaas, General Manager of OMA Asia (Hong Kong) David Gianotten and associate Chris van Duijn.
A year and a half ago, OMA unveiled the first images for a residential project in Singapore, on schematic design phase. Basically it was a set of stacked low-rise blocks.
Today OMA sent us an update on this project, The Interlace, and more details appear.
The project is located on a green belt outside the capital city, and consists on 31 stacked apartment blocks, each six-stories tall and identical in length, resulting in 170,000sqm of gross floor area for 1,040 apartments.
What is interesting about the project is how these stacked volumes achieve a high density, while still maintaining privacy and long-range views as you can see on the renderings.
The second result of this “stacked” strategy, are the common spaces filled with tropical green. By looking at the plan view of the complex, a series of inner courtyards appear on the empty spaces between the blocks. The project turns then into a rich vertical community, apart from the single tower projects seen in the area. Extensive residential amenities and facilities are interwoven into the lush vegetation and offer opportunities for social interaction, leisure, and recreation.
The City of Rotterdam held a competition for a mixed-use extension for the City Hall, accommodating public and administrative facilities and a residential program. The competition requests that the mixed-use building becomes “the most sustainable in the Netherlands”.
Five designs were presented by the City, and they will be on public display at the NAI until Sept 13th to receive public feedback, which can also be made through the website. The teams will present to the jury on Septh 23th, and the winner will be announced sometime in October.
The 5 finalists are: Claus en Kaan Architecten, Mecanoo Architecten, Meyer en van Schooten Architecten, OMA and SeARCH.
OMA shared with us their finalist entry, in collaboration with ABT and Werner Sobek Green Technolgies. The project adheres to the highest energy efficiency requirements, and it also considers a sustainable approach in terms of speed of construction and future flexibility of the building through a repeated and flexible structural system.
Images from the other proposals will be featured on another article. Rem Koolhaas’ statement and more images after the break.
We just received this from OMA: After almost 12 years in the boards, OMA announced that the De Rotterdam complex will enter construction during December 2009, expecting completion in 2013.
Tree stacked towers with a total height of 150m, will result on a gross floor area of approximately 160,000m2, making De Rotterdam the largest building in the Netherland, with a total cost of €340m.
The mixed-use program (offices, apartments, a hotel, conference facilities, gym, shops, restaurants, and cafes) and the resulting density make this project a vertical city, located in the old harbour district of Wilhelminapier, next to the iconic Erasmus bridge.
Rem Koolhas founded the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in 1975 together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. Winners of the Pritzker Prize in 2000, OMA employs a staff of almost 300 of more than 35 nationalities. So for today’s Round Up, we bring you previously featured projects by OMA.
The folks at Art & Seek published a video with interesting insights on the construction of the Wyly Theater in Dallas, TX designed by REX | OMA, which is almost complete.
The Mandarin Hotel, adjacent to the CCTV building and part of the project, just got on fire today. The project, designed by OMA with facade studies by FRONT, looks to be completly affected as you can see on the above video. This supossedly started after fireworks during the last day of Chinese new year.
The hotel was used during the Olympics, but wasn´t officially opened yet, but was supossed to during 2009. This will definetely push dates back, as it seems like a complete loss to me.
Photos of the fire by Reuters here (very impressive, but can´t put them here because of copyright). More videos after the break.
UPDATE 5: Added 4 more videos
UPDATE 4: Statement from the Mandarin Hotel Group after the break
UPDATE 3: I replaced the first video with actual footage of the hotel starting to burn after the fireworks
UPDATE 2: Wonitata and other chinese blogs have impressive photos of the fire. See some more after the break.
UPDATE 1:Beijing police says the building could collapse
UPDATE: We just got the following statement from OMA:
I was very eager waiting for the mail man on this one, because as i stated before, Mark Magazine is one of my favourite publications when it comes to new projects.
The October/November issue has a very nice texture on the cover, featuring Sou Fujimoto´s Log House. This issue´s central theme is “House Rules”, with 7 amazing houses on the inside.
But lets start by the beginning, with the section Notice Board.
Mark Magazine is by far one of my favourite architecture magazines. Their motto “Another architecture” tells us what we´ll find inside: fresh architecture – the main reason we love this magazine so much.
This bimonthly magazine is structured in 5 sections: Noticeboard (a collage of new projects), Cross Section (short articles on new buildings and architectural subjects), Viewpoint (interviews with architects on the rise), Long Section (in depth articles on buildings) and Service Area (new building materials).
On the August/September issue (October one on the mail, more about that soon) we find an amazing house by spanish studio Ensamble, shown on a collage with embossed textures, something that has become a signature on Mark Magazine covers.
The La Defense is a 160 ha business district in the west of Paris, currently under a renewal plan to strengthen its place among the great international business districts. The plan is managed by the EPAD (The Public Establishment for Installation of La Défense), an organization formed by local authorities, government and neighbors focused on developing the La Defense for the best interests of its 20.000 residents and 150.000 inhabitants in floating population.
The renewal includes severalhigh rise sustainable towers. One of this towers, the Tour Signal, entered an international closed competition for teams of architects/investors/developers, on which EPAD didn’t impose a site. The candidates were thus able to choose their sites either from among the entrances to the business district (South Gate and West Gate), either from sites subject to demolition operations. The Tour Signal will thus endow the business district with a new landmark in 2013.
The finalists for this project were Jacques Ferrier Architectures, Foster + Partners Ltd, Studio Libeskind Architect, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Wilmotte et Associes SA.
And a few days ago, the winner was announced: Ateliers Jean Nouvel, project shown on the video above.
More pictures of the Jean Nouvel proposal, and the rest of the candidates/finalists after the jump.
A few weeks ago we started conducting a series of video interviews with some of the most promising young architects. In times when “ architect may no longer mean architect“, they were asked to talk about key aspects of their role as an architect in modern society, among other topics to discuss about the direction of architecture.
Our first guest is Shohei Shigematsu (1973). He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University in 1996, and then went to the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He started working at OMA in 1998, becoming an associate in 2004. He´s now the director of OMA*AMO NY, working on projects such as the CCTV Headquartes in Beijing, the design of the Whitney Museum extension in NY, the Millestain Hall at Cornell, the Stock Exchange at Shenzhen, the Torre Bicentenario in Mexico and a mixed use building in Jersey City.
![Mandarin Hotel in Beijing by OMA on fire [UPDATED] - Image 17 of 4](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/55e6/14b2/2347/5ddf/a900/0053/medium_jpg/884426949_tvcc-cctv-451x329x90.jpg?1441141933)
![Mandarin Hotel in Beijing by OMA on fire [UPDATED] - Image 22 of 4](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/55e6/14bb/2347/5ddf/a900/0054/medium_jpg/1652488657_cctv-fire1.jpg?1441141941)
