Aerial view © OMA, render by Luxigon

OMA has been announced as the winner of the international competition for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) expansion. The CAD$90 million project was also consulted with local residents, with an 82% of approval.

A series of stacked boxes remind the programatic relations of Seattle’s Library, while generating an interesting grand hall facing the street with urban qualities.

Section © OMA

The three stacked galleries vary in size, as you can see on the axo and models included below: contemporary exhibitions (50m x 50m), the permanent contemporary collection (45m x 35m) and design / Inuit exhibits (42.5m x 25m). The cantilever over the street creates the grand hall, a 14m tall transparent space connected to the park, starting point of an ascending path trough the boxes.

“Our ambition is to create a dramatic new presence for the city, while maintaining a respectful, even stealthy approach to the museum’s neighbors and the existing museum. The resulting form of cascading gallery boxes enhances the museum experience by creating a clarity in circulation and curation while allowing abundant natural light into the galleries.”

- Shohei Shigematsu

The other four finalists of the competition were Barkow Leibinger (Germany) + Imrey Culbert (US), Allied Works (US) + Fichten Soiferman et Associés (Canada), Nieto Sobejano (Spain) + Brière, Gilbert et Associés (Canada) and David Chipperfield (UK) + Groupe Arcop (Canada).

The project is led by partners Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu (who we interviewed before), and will be executed by OMA NY in collaboration with Provencher Roy + Associés Architectes. Construction is expected to be completed in fall 2013.

More images after the break:

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© OMA

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.

More images after the break:

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© OMA

A month ago we presented you the finalist entries for Stadskantoor, a new mixed used building at Rotterdam’s City Hall. After a process of public feedback and a presentation to the professional jury, OMA‘s entry was awarded with the 1st prize.

The strategy of the project is very simple: a modular flexible structure spans between existing buildings, supporting the mixed use program, while freeing the space below for public use. The axonometric shown below shows this rich public realm that the offers back to the city.

With this modular structure, units can be added or even dismounted from the structure as demands on the building change over time, and can adapt to either office space or residential parameters as desired. Green terraces on higher levels provide the possibility of an apartment with a garden in the heart of urban Rotterdam.

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© OMA

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.

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SeARCH

In a previous post I told you about the competition held by the City of Rotterdam for a mixed used building to accommodate public services and a residential program, and  we presented OMA’s entry.

After the break, find the entries by the five finalists: Claus en Kaan Architecten, Mecanoo Architecten, Meyer en van Schooten Architecten, OMA and SeARCH.

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© OMA

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.

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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.
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Shenzhen Crystal Island @ OMA / Ole Scheeren

Shenzhen is one of the most active cities in China, and was recently appointed “City of Design” by the UNESCO (2008).  A recent competition for Crystal Island, located in the center of the city, envisions the envisions the Shenzhen Creative Center, an iconic project in front of the city hall.

The project, won by OMA in collaboration with chinese firm Urbanus, includes  a major new cultural center, transport hub, and public landmark. The Shenzhen Creative Center takes advantage of such a central location, and disaggregate the program over a 20-hectare landscape of parks and gardens, on which clusters of pavilions and small buildings form “Design Villages” creating a micro urban system which includes buildings for Design Administration, Tourism Center, buildings for design retail and expo and a design campus. It also includes a big open space, the Ceremonial Plaza.

All these buildings and open spaces are connected by an elevated pedestrian system, the “Ring Connector”, which also connects to existing and future train and subway stations.

At the center of this circular project, a spherical void becomes a landmark for the city: the Shenzhen Eye.

The disaggregation of the program on such an active area has the potential to mix the creative industry with the rest of the city’s activities, potentiating  multiplicity, permeability, and openness towards creative activity.

The project collaboration between OMA and Urbanus includes the young Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas, and Urbanus partner Meng Yan, with a team lead by OMA Associates Dongmei Yao and Anu Leinonen.

After the break, a schematic model of the program relations and another rendering.

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© Iwan Baan

Rem Koolhaas’ latest project -The Prada Transformer- is not just a building, but also a statement on today´s state of architecture. Dubbed the anti-blob, this “object” rejects all common blobby shapes we have seen lately. Simple geometrical shapes (a circle, a cross, a rectangle and an hexagon) enclose a space that depending on its rotation results on different spaces suitable for fashion exhibitions, cinema, art exhibitions and other special events. Each face is the platform on which these activities take place, while also being served by the other faces enclosing the space.

© Iwan Baan

A few weeks ago we showed you part of the construction progress, which is already finished and opened in April 15th with a fashion exhibition (Waist Down – Skirts by Miuccia Prada, see video of animated skirts at the exhibition), that will be opened until May 31 when the Transformer will rotate into Cinema mode.

Architecture photographer Iwan Baan recently visited the Prada Transformer and shared with us this impressive photo set of the Transformer on Exhibition mode (see more after the break).

For me, search for the ultimate flexible space and the use of regular shapes puts several things in question. Transformable architecture is nothing new, but in times on which “mixed use” seems to be the 2nd typical characteristic of a building after “green”, this project makes a stand. No fancy shapes, no wind diagrams, no fancy structure, no shiny surfaces, no eye candy renderings. No blob. Just, a simple building.

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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.

Bryghusgrunden mixed use, Copenhagen
Realdania is a strategic foundation that initiates and supports built projects that improve the quality of life in Denmark. They are involved in aprox. 54 flagship projects, and now they are starting a mixed use building in Bryghusgrunden, one of the few undeveloped remaining areas of Copenhagen, Denmark with the potential to link the city to the waterfront. And guess who they choose for this project: OMA. But what´s interesting in this project is the mixed of use (read more…)

Coolsingel mixed use building and construction at The Hague
There’s nothing more exciting for an architect than to shape the form of his own city with a new building. And that’s what Rem Koolhaas is about to do in Rotterdam with a large scale mixed use building. Also, a project developed for The Hague, also in the Netherlands, will start construction as of next year. Site visits will be closer to the central OMA headquarters this time. First, we’ve got a 120.000m2 (30.000m2 for retail, 70.000m2 for office, residential, culture and leisure) (read more…)

OMA unveils design for their first residential tower in NY
Located at at 23 East 22nd St, the 335 ft (107 m) tall mid-rise tower -which you can see on the second plane behind One Madison Park at the rendering- features an innovative design when it comes to towers, an evolution of the OMA studies on new high rise designs. The building cantilevers 30 feet over its neighbor, a form that “provides a number of unexpected moments that appear at each step – balconies at the upper part of the building and floor windows at the lower part (read more…)

OMA wins competition for the Taipei Performing Arts Centre
The project, led by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, is based on 3 theaters (1 x 1,500 seats – the round one, 2 x 800 seats – cubes) which are plugged into a central cube cladded with corrugated glass. This scheme puts all the stage accommodations of the 3 theaters into the central cube, allowing for more flexibility as theaters can be used independently or combined, expanding the possibilities for experimental performances – an art which is very strong on the country (read more…)

Seattle Central Library (with LMN)
The Seattle Central Library redefines the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store where all potent forms of media-new and old-are presented equally and legibly. In an age where information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and, more importantly, the curatorship of their content that will make the library vital. Flexibility in contemporary libraries is conceived as the creation of generic floors (read more…)

OMA sent us this new images for their latest AMO project, the Prada Transformer. More images after the break. read more »

I just saw the video for the new OMA project for PRADA, the Transformer. This pavilion currently being assembled in Seoul, Korea allows different configuration for different uses (cinema, exhibition, art , fashion show)  - related to a new mix of disciplines, between art, fashion and architecture.

Then, the question on how to mix these different uses under one pavilion become the architectural trigger for this new “object” (I rather use that word, as i think “building” is obsolet for it).

These different configurations result by rotating this object -the transformer- with a crane, and each face of this object is a plane with a given shape, specific for each use but also being used as a helper for other uses (ie: the cinema projector).

If you take a look at each of these shapes, they are all common to us: a circle, a cross, a rectangle and an hexagon… which results on a very recognizable object that Koolhaas calls the anti-blob, and I think that´s where Rem scores another one.

Anyway, i highly recommend you to watch the videos at the Prada Transformer website: Koolhaas explaining the transformer, time lapse of the construction and the transformer being rotated with cranes.

Channel pavilion (blob, by Zaha) versus Prada pavilion (anti-blob, by OMA)?

Renderings and diagrams after the break. read more »

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.

You can see interesting details on the facade and the engineering behind one of the most innovative contemporary theaters. Follow the link to see to whole video.

As the Milstein Hall at Cornell (designed by OMA, project lead by partner Shohei Shigematsu) was getting the finals approval´s by the City of Ithaca, a strong opposition coming from non-architectural faculty members (arguing a provocative and setting-discording design, high budget, and that the planned project has standard LEED rating instead of Gold) is not only putting the project in danger, but also their architectural program at the AAP.

Their B.Arch (ranked #1 during 2008 in the US for architectural programs) and their MArch (ranked #6) could see an end, as their accreditation depends on their facilities: The NAAB has warned us for over a decade, and have explicitly stated that the last accreditation we got is the FINAL one they will grant without compliant facilities. They have just denied us an accreditation review for our new M.Arch 1 program this spring because of delays to the final approval process. When they return next year, they plan to review both the M1 and B.Arch programs — if we don’t have a building in process at that point, the B.Arch will LOSE its accreditation, and the M1 will be denied the same.

The above statement was taken from an email circulating the Cornell community, posted at Archinect. Read the complete e-mail after the break:

UPDATE: The original author of the letter just added the original version on the comments.

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This is -by far- one of the most inspiring projects I know. And it´s not just the skin or the structure. It´s the new program relations, that make of this more than a mere library, but an enhaced public space around knowledge.

Architects: OMA + LMN
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
Key Personnel: Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus (Partner-in-Charge), with Mark von Hof-Zogrotzki, Natasha Sandmeier, Meghan Corwin, Bjarke Ingels, Carol Patterson
Consultants: Arup, Bruce Mau Design, Davis Langdon, Dewhurst Macfarlane, Front, HKA, Hoffman Construction, Inside/Oustide, Jones & Jones, Kugler Tillotson, Magnusson Klemencic, McGuire, Michael Yantis, Pielow Fair, Quinze & Milan, Seele
Client: Seattle Public Library
Program: Central library for Seattle’s 28-branch library system, including 33,700 sqm of hq, reading room, book spiral, mixing chamber, meeting platform, living room, staff floor, children’s collection, and auditorium, and 4,600 sqm of parking.
Project year: 1999-2004
Constructed Area: 38,300 sqm
Budget: US $169.2 M
Photographs: Ramon Prat, Philippe Ruault, Iwan Baan, Fernando Herrera

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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.

Mandarin Hotel on the left, CCTV at the right. Photo by Iwan Baan.

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:

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After a two-phase international competition (with offices such as Morphosis, Abalos+Sentkiewicz, MVRDV and Zaha Hadid), OMA has been awarded the first prize in the design competition to build the new Taipei Performing Arts Centre.

The project, led by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, is based on 3 theaters (1 x 1,500 seats – the round one, 2 x 800 seats – cubes) which are plugged into a central cube cladded with corrugated glass. This scheme puts all the stage accommodations of the 3 theaters into the central cube, allowing for more flexibility as theaters can be used independently or combined, expanding the possibilities for experimental performances – an art which is very strong on the country. This new arrangement of stage and seatings includes a public circulation that exposes parts of the backstage to the public.

And now, my comments on the form.

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Architect: René van Zuuk Architekten
Location: Stadshart Almere, Koetsierbaan, the Netherlands
Client: Ontwikkelingscombinatie Almere Hart c.v
Program: 49 apartments and commercial space
Design Team: René van Zuuk, Kersten Scheller
Project Team: Björn Ophof, Marieke van den Dungen
Structural Ingeneering: Pieters Bouwtechniek Delft b.v.
Project Year: 2005
Site Area: 1,650 sqm
Constructed Area: 8,740 sqm
Photographs: Christian Richters

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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.

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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.

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