The winner is revealed – OMA won the final round of a public design competition for Axel Springer’s new media center in Berlin. The building aims to create new hub in the existing campus in central Berlin. As seen in Axel Springer, the winning design presented conceptually and aesthetically most radical model, while the fundamental innovation of working environments support the cultural transformation towards a digital publishing house.

The building will be located on one of the city’s most significant locations – the street previously separated East and West Berlin. The new office block is bisected by a diagonal atrium that opens up to the existing Springer buildings, an extension of the Springer campus. The essence of the proposal is a series of terraced floors that together form a ‘valley’. Each floor contains a covered part for formal work, which is then uncovered on the terraces to act as an informal stage and a place to broadcast ideas to other parts of the company. The ground floor is open to the city and contains studios, event and exhibition spaces, canteens and restaurants.

OMA’s  winning design team is led by partners-in-charge Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon, and project leaders Katrin Betschinger, Alain Fouraux and Betty Ng. The project was developed in collaboration with Chris Carroll from Arup London, Duncan Phillips from RWDI for microclimate consultation, Eckhard Kahle of Kahle Acoustics, Christian Wernicke and Christoph Winter of SMV Bauprojektsteuerung & Emproc GmbH for cost consultation, and Peter Stanek for fire safety consultation. Read the rest of this entry »

On November 21 OMA finally marked the completion of De Rotterdam, mixed-use vertical city on the river Maas. Efficiency has been very important or even central design parameter from day one, as they stated in OMA. The extreme market play directed the course of the project, but that has been far from a design constraint and in fact has reinforces the original concept. The overall result is a dense, vibrant building for the city, in words of Ellen van Loon, partner in charge. With the completion of the building, a critical mass has been established on the Kop van Zuid, realizing the long-established vision of a second city center south of the Maas.

The building – De Rotterdam – is named after one of the ships on the Holland America Line, which transported emigrants from Europe to New York from the Wilhelmina Pier, next to which the building is located.

The high-rise is composed of the three stacked and interconnecting towers, 44 floors high and with a width of over 100 meters. The building is highly compact, and program mix is organized into distinct, overlapping blocks of commercial office space, residential apartments, hotel and conference facilities, restaurants and cafes. Office employees, residents and hotel guests are brought together in conference, sport and restaurant facilities. The building’s shared plinth is the location of the lobbies to each of the towers, creating a public hub by means of a common hall. Read the rest of this entry »

OMA has won the design competition for the Essence Financial Building in Shenzhen. The project, led by OMA Partners David Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas, and designed as a new generation office tower for Shenzhen, was selected from entries by four competing international and Chinese architectural practices.

The Essence Financial Building, located in the Financial Development Area of Shenzhen, reflects on how the emergent forces in business and society could shape a contemporary office tower typology. The building challenges the many conventions that govern office tower designs, in particular the prevailing central core plan and curtain wall systems.

David Gianotten commented: “OMA is very excited about its continuous and deepening participation in Shenzhen’s development, especially as the city makes its latest evolution: from a manufacturing city into a services hub. This next generation of urbanism calls for a new generation of office towers, of which the Essence Financial Building could be one.” The Essence Financial Building will be OMA’s second building in Shenzhen: the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, for which OMA won the competition in 2006, will be completed in April this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Rethinking OMA/Koolhaas’ Embassy of the Netherlands‘ conceptual play on solids and voids as a defining system for programmatic function, Kokaistudios integrates a traditional plan of Beijing’s historical Courtyard Houses into their winning design for the new Tsinghua University Law Library. A central void allows natural light to shine through the interior of the the 8-story building and for a trajectory to be exposed at different points due to the carving of a stone facade. Visitors proceed through a narrative of solid and void spaces and skylights ranging from circulation, indoor and outdoor areas. Read the rest of this entry »

Shanghai is a fragmented collage of different scales and styles. The identity of the city lies in the diversity of traditional, colonial, communist, and “post-modern” architecture united only through the city’s history. The Global Financial Centre on the Bund – yet another mixed-use project among all these opposing elements – has the natural task of addressing and emphasizing all the contradicting qualities of Shanghai without compromising their benefits.

The schizophrenic character of Shanghai calls for a cohesive agent: our project is a cluster of similar tilting towers but with different heights and footprints of different scales. The varying scales of each footprint allow different programs to inhabit the same complex and follow the logic of the site, with a smaller scale facing the old town, mitigating the difference between the various typologies surrounding the site. Global Financial Center on the Bund incorporates the richness of the small and the big, the local and the international, “hard” structures and “soft” elements, natural forms and man-made constructions. It can become a new landmark for Shanghai that is immediate, unique and identifiable while simultaneously remaining a fully-integrated and representative piece of the city’s rich culture. Read the rest of this entry »

The Energy Report: a comprehensive study developed by the WWF, AMO and Ecofys claiming that the world can be 100% reliant on renewable energy by 2050, launches globally today.

The report proposes to address the urgent problems caused by looming climate change and dwindling fossil fuel supply through its assertion that by 2050, the world’s energy needs could be met entirely by renewable sources. It outlines an ambitious energy saving scenario as the first step toward an energy system in which fossil fuels are gradually replaced by wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower and sustainable forms of bio-energy.

The aim of the report is to inspire governments and businesses to understand the challenges associated with this shift and, at the same time, to encourage them to move boldly to bring the renewable economy into reality. By demonstrating the advantages of global cooperation and the deeper integration of global energy infrastructure, The Energy Report shows that the benefits of a transition to renewable energy far outweigh the challenges.

AMO’s contribution to the report, led by Partner Reinier de Graaf and Associate Laura Baird, both conceptualizes and visualizes the geographic, political, and cultural implications of a 100 percent renewable energy world. AMO draws a vision of a world without borders in which all continents have equal access to sustainable energy. Read the rest of this entry »

Ground will be broken today for Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel, a facility in Glasgow providing emotional and practical support for people living with cancer, their families and friends. Designed by OMA, the building, which is located on the grounds of Gartnavel hospital and close to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, is one of several Maggie’s Centres in the UK and part of a pioneering project using thoughtful architecture and innovative spaces as tools for solace and healing.

OMA’s single-level, 534m2 building is a ring of interlocking, carefully composed spaces that provide moments of comfort and relief. With a flat roof and floor levels that respond to the natural topography, the rooms vary in height, with the more intimate areas programmed for personal uses such as counseling, and more open and spacious zones providing areas to gather and creating a sense of community. Read the rest of this entry »

OMA recently unveiled their masterplan for Qianhai Port City. Situated at the threshold of Hong Kong and Mainland China, Qianhai occupies a position of strategic significance in the Pearl River Delta. The planned intensification of transport through the site renders inevitable its emergence as a new center. The question is not whether Qianhai will develop, but how? If successful, a new city center in Qianhai could fulfill Shenzhen’s coastal ambitions and establish a node for interaction between various components of the PRD.

The existing use of the site consists primarily of infrastructure, transportation, and logistics. The operations of the port and its related functions define the quality of much of the site and adjacent areas. What if, rather than attempting to suppress or insulate these uses from new development, they are considered as latencies capable of forming the identity of a new city? Can the introduction of new urban conditions benefit from and reinforce the existing (port) conditions of the site? The design organizes the site in a series of parallel bands running east-west. The irregular extension of these layers into the Qianhai Bay and Pearl River Estuary creates piers and increases the proximity of the city to the water. The layers form a stack of different and juxtaposed types of space, each varying in terms of architectural typology, density, and landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

OMA’s first completed project in Hong Kong opens today: museum-quality exhibition space and offices for the Edouard Malingue Gallery, the city’s first gallery dedicated to Impressionist and Modernist masterpieces.

The design, led by David Gianotten, General Manager-Architect of OMA Asia (Hong Kong), and architect Giulia Foscari, juxtaposes two distinct environments: for the 750 square feet of exhibition space, an articulated sequence of three rooms encased in an aluminium volume visible from the street; for reception and administration, an open office area that reveals the original structure of the building.

The articulation of the three rooms maximises exhibition space and allows viewers time and space for contemplation of individual artworks. The aluminium volume that encloses the three rooms creates a box-within-a-box, serving aesthetic, atmospheric, and practical purposes: the box is visible as an object from Queen’s Road Central below; it creates a sense of protection and seclusion for the viewing of art; and allows for a controlled environment, guaranteeing museum standards for climate, acoustics and lighting. Read the rest of this entry »

The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority unveiled today OMA’s conceptual masterplan for a major new arts district in Hong Kong. Under OMA’s plan – one of three competing proposals – the 40 hectare waterfront site facing Victoria Harbour would become an authentic environment of three urban villages embedded in a new public park, Hong Kong’s largest.

OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas commented: “Using the village – a typology every citizen of Hong Kong is familiar with – as the model for our plan allows us to absorb the massive scale of WKCD’s ambition into manageable portions and forge deep connections with Kowloon, whose vital urban energy will be the lifeblood of WKCD.” Read the rest of this entry »