Browsing: Rem Koolhaas

© 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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© 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.

A few weeks ago, we presented the Transformer at Position 1 (Fashion Exhibition) with photos by Iwan Baan . Now, he sent us his photo set for the Transformer at Position 2: Cinema.

From June 26th to July 5th, the Transformer used a center piece on one of the faces to project “Flesh, Mind and Soul”, a film festival co-curated by Alejandro González Iñárritu (director Babel, 21 Grams). Please note that the interiors are now almost all black.

As of now, the Transformer is going through some changes to debut on its new position on Jul 30th to host “Beyond Control”, an exhibition by the Prada Foundation.

More photos by Iwan Baan after the break and the complete photo set on Iwan’s website:

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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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CNN’s Talk Asia just featured an interesting interview with Rem Koolhaas. At the beginning of the video we see the Prada Transformer in action.

Highlights of this interview are Dubai, which lead to Koolhaas talking about the public sector and the stimulus, and his views on the Generic City.

When talking about influence (Rem was on the 100 most influential people list by Time magazine in 2008) and “star architects”, Koolhaas sentences the term to death:

“I think it’s a name that is actually degrading to the vast majority of people it is applied to. And it really is a kind of political term that for certain clients is important because they use star architects. My hope is that through the current complexity that title will exit discretely and disappear”.

© 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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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 »