OMA / Reinier de Graaf and Squint/Opera have released a new video of the "Al Daayan Health District", a low-rise hospital prototype which responds to the medical field's rapid change through the potential of modularity, prefabrication, and automation. The project features prefabricated modular units, local farms for food and medicine, and high-tech facilities across gardens and water features.

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Following Qatar's ambitious museum-building project to further promote cultural institutes in the country, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums has announced that OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, and ELEMENTAL will be designing three new museums in Doha that explore the themes of Islamic art, contemporary art, and evolution of the automobile industry respectively.

OMA’s mixed-use development for Morden Wharf has just been granted planning consent from the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Planning Committee. The scheme created for developer U+I is located on a 2.4-hectare brownfield site, with an industrial past, on London’s Greenwich Peninsula facing the historic Greenwich and the millennial O2 Arena.

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OMA / Reinier De Graaf have been invited to exhibit at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Titled "Hospital of the Future", the installation explores how after years of medical preparations and technological advancements, one pandemic was able to hinder medical progress, and kill the hospital as we know it, envisioning a new form of medical architecture.

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A design team comprised by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Gustafson Bowman + Porter y B720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos has been chosen to lead the transformation of Madrid’s AZCA district.

OMA is designing a 10,000-square-metre shopping center integrated with community spaces in Melbourne, Australia. Entitled the Wollert Neighborhood Centre, the project is located in Wollert, Whittlesea, one of Victoria’s fastest-growing regions, in the suburbs of Melbourne.

Forty percent of the human population lives within 100 kilometers of a coastline, with one in ten living under ten meters above sea level. As climate change induces more volatile flooding events and long-term sea level rises, it is estimated that coastal flooding could cause as much as $1 trillion of damage per year by 2050. We cannot escape the reality that cities, and their populations, are more vulnerable to flooding than ever.

Videos

They say diversity is key for a strong portfolio. Now OMA's Rem Koolhaas can add “featured artist on a musical album” to his resume. New York-based duo Tempers, in collaboration with German artist Katja Eichinger, feature Koolhaas in a mall-themed concept album.

Videos

As 2018 winds to a close, we've started to look ahead to the projects we're most looking forward to in 2019. Many of the projects listed here have been in the works for years, having experienced the frustrating false starts and lulls that come in a profession dependent on long-term and significant capital investment, not to mention changing politics. 

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As identity-based politics continues to grow in influence, we may do well to examine the effect it has on the way we think about and design our cities. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Rem Koolhaas discusses these changes - and how they mark an evolution from the generic city concept he introduced in S,M,L, XL.

OMA has released updated images of their Feyenoord City masterplan after reaching initial city approval in 2016. Developed for the Feyenoord football club in Rotterdam, the project comprises a mixed-use district and a new 63,000 seat stadium along the River Maas.

OMA has revealed plans for the renovation of the New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val in Moscow that will increase the accessibility and visibility of the gallery’s four sectors. Led by Rem Koolhaas, the scheme will use color and material to create a new visual identity and to establish a new link to the Moscow River.

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Update 2/20/18: We've added a gallery of additional images to the post!

OMA has been selected as the winner of an international competition for the design of the new Palais de justice (courthouse) in Lille, France. Located on the outskirts of the city near the historic Vauban fortifications, the new courthouse will house the high court and district court of Lille within a colorful, expressive volume.

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Videos

Two months after the opening of the 2017 MPavilion in Melbourne, its designers, OMA’s Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten, have returned to discuss the commission and design process, as well as their reactions to its use thus far.

“The opening was an opening with many formal obligations and many excellencies, and that was exciting,” said Koolhaas about the pavilions opening events. “But frankly more exciting was this morning, when the thing performed really wonderfully spontaneously in terms of raising a lot of issues and having from the very first second a really animated discussion about a whole range of issues. And that’s exactly we intended it go.”

Facebook has announced plans for a new mixed-use neighborhood adjoining their existing headquarters in Menlo Park, California to be led by the New York office of OMA and Partner Shohei Shigematsu. Known as Willow Campus, the campus masterplan seeks to further invest in Facebook’s home community, joining the original campus designed by Frank Gehry.

“It’s exciting to collaborate with Facebook, whose innovation in networking and social media extends to urban ambitions for connectivity in the Bay Area,” commented Shigematsu. “The Willow Campus masterplan creates a sense of place with diverse programming that responds to the needs of the Menlo Park community. The site has the potential to impact the future of regional transportation, housing, and environment.”

Videos

The Naomi Milhave Foundation have released OMA‘s first renders and drawings for their upcoming MPavilion which is set to take shape this fall in Melbourne, Austrailia. The counterpart to the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, the MPavilion is now in its fourth year. Comprising static and dynamic elements, OMA’s proposal allows for multiple configurations that can generate unexpected programming, echoing the ideals of the typology of the amphitheater. Following the idea of the traditional amphitheater, OMA’s design will be “itself built to perform” as a space for public debate, design workshops, music and arts events.

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Communicating ideas through imagery are central to the design process. In client presentations, site visits, or public exhibitions, we are required to represent important aspects clearly to the receiver, who is often not an architect. Furthermore, producing detailed architectural drawings can allow us to identify and modify certain aspects of the design. 

Diagrams and charts, because of their non-spatial characteristics, are often neglected until the last moments of the design process, however, they can be a useful tool for analysis and organization. Taking the time to think and articulate these elements yield positive results, from understanding and organizing a design process to providing an unexpected change of idea.

In an effort to enhance the graphics and diagrams in architectural representation, check out this series of case studies to help you boost the visual, analytical, organizational power of your work.

With a majority of architecture schools in the Northern Hemisphere ending and the official start of summer fast approaching, architects across the globe – whether fresh out of school or with years of experience under their belt – are playing jobs musical chairs. And with the AIA’s Architecture Billings Index continuing to show growth in the profession, firms of all sizes are looking to add valuable members to their teams.

One of those firms is OMA, whose Jobs site has seen a bounty of positions open up in recent months to keep up with the continued success of their seven offices across the globe. While many of the openings are given ambiguous descriptors, more than a few have titles that can speculatively be connected to projects announced over the past few years:

"Architect with Stadium/ Arena Experience – Rotterdam," for example, likely concerns the recently planning-approved Feyenoord Stadium and Masterplan, while "California Licensed Senior Architect – New York" will probably be involved in either their San Francisco tower or their mixed-use development scheme in Santa Monica, or both.

What other projects might need some help? Check out the full list of job openings, below.