After the fall of the Iron Curtain, cities of the former Soviet Bloc experienced a rapid change from a central planned economy to a free-market society with similar problems to some developing nations with a rapidly increasing population and lack of adequate infrastructure, affordable housing, and urban planning.

Restituted Spaces by Piotr J. Lesniak is a skyscraper proposal for Warsaw which investigates the urban future of the site now occupied by the Palace of Culture and Science – a soviet skyscraper built by the an initiative of Joseph  Stalin in the 1950’s which completely neglected the existing urban fabric.

Restituted Spaces embraces the Palace with a map-like topography derived from the original master plan. The result is a hyper-dense high-rise structure that challenges the existing typologies of architectural form and organization. Funicular-like elevators and ramping streets act as an extension of the existing urban infrastructure – a three-dimensionally planned city with many possible urban scenarios. The program includes a new velodrome, a community centre, offices, residences, and art galleries. Read the rest of this entry »

This project, conceived by Tan Bing Hui, rethinks the skyscraper beyond its architectural scale by interpreting it as a new urban community. It is located in Singapore’s Marina Bay, where modernization and densification is increasing due its proximity to the Central Business District.

The project analyses and rethinks the properties of Buckminster Fuller’s theory of ‘close-packing’. It is an investigation on the structural and spatial qualities of the octahedron and the tetrahedron. It unveils a possible methodology to aggregate patterns and modules for vertical urbanism. Read the rest of this entry »

Even though China regained control of Hong Kong a decade ago, the political, social, and economic conditions between the two continue to be very different. There has been an increasing interaction between Hong Kong and the mainland’s nearest city, Shenzhen, which has prompted the construction of numerous checkpoints, factories, and the relocation of entire communities.

This project designed by architect Koren Sin proposes a single community for the two regions -a set of residential towers, one located in each city and linked by a habitable bridge. The Hong Kong tower is designed according to the residential needs of the island while the program for Shenzhen’s development is based on traditional Chinese housing. The residential portion located on the bridge is a fusion of both lifestyles – an experiment on the possibilities of a twin-city that could accommodate both political and economic systems. Read the rest of this entry »

Based on Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, this project designed by Austrian architects Roman Agreiter and Andreas Perkmann Berger examines the integration of a skyscraper into a fishermen community. The proposal is a cluster of sculpted volumes individually shaped according to various programs; being  the most important one, a vertical fish market that is surrounded by interior pedestrian streets with satellite programs such as restaurants, radio station, cinema, bar, café, and fitness center.

Agreiter and Perkmann explore the relationship between different programs to create a vertical city. The playfulness and careful attention to light and shadow, solid and void, and the human scale are evident characteristics of a highly integrated building to its immediate urban context. Read the rest of this entry »

This landmark tower designed by Mustafa Abadan from Skidmore Owings and Merrill located at the heart of Seoul’s Digital Media City proposes a new paradigm in high-performance skyscraper design.

Conventional high-rise towers traditionally create a barrier between program and environment; mechanical systems consume significant amounts of energy in order to heat and cool interior spaces as well as to draw in fresh air. The Digital Media City Tower explores ways of bringing the environment within the structure to reduce energy consumption and create better interior spaces. The inspiration was taken from the marine sponge, a creature that survives by filtering nutrients from water.

Several large atria maximize daylight harvesting. The interior atria along the perimeter act as lungs for the tower, providing air circulation and filtration for the varied programmatic volumes. Within these, active phytoremediation walls temper and refresh the quality of interior air. 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 »

Fogo Island lies outside of Newfoundland, Canada and is home to a gentle, independent people who have lived for centuries between wind and waves in pursuit of fish. Fogo Islanders live in the untamed landscape of the North Atlantic. The people are subtle and unpretentious yet have seen their traditional way of life by threatened by forces largely beyond their control.

Fogo Island is an elemental place of subtle and abiding beauty – a place where time is not obliterated by the circulation of everything. Its people are inextricably bound to this place where they belong. They are a culturally rich and resourceful people who live in close connection with each other and with their people who have come before.

The Shorefast Foundation works with the people of Fogo Island to find ways to preserve this special place and this special culture. We have chosen to find new paths by leading with the arts. We want to create structures that respect where we’ve come from and dignify this landscape that is so fragile yet so fearsome. We want structures that touch our imaginations and help maintain a connection between our past and our future.

The following 3 buildings are a selection of a number of artist studios designed by Saunders Architecture for the Shorefast Foundation on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada. The project is the basis for an Arts Residency Program starting in 2010. Studios will be built in remote settings on Fogo Island and traditional Newfoundland homes in various communities will be restored to become artists’ residences.

The idea behind the forms of the various studios was to create a bold geometric structure to starkly contrast, yet lay silently in the striking natural environment. The studios are all oriented towards the sea and elevated above the ground to provide the resident artist with a feeling of being unobstructed and unbound. The materials and construction methods chosen reflect that of the local architecture of Fogo Island. The environment will leave its marks on the studios by weathering the structures over time. Read the rest of this entry »

Dutch Parliament Extension, The Hague, 1978 [13th century]; OMA’s first preservation project. Watercolor by Madelon Vriesendorp. ©OMA

OMA’s major installation ‘Preservation’ opens next week in Venice at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, alongside exhibits on current work around the world and a new, large-scale preservation project in Venice itself.

OMA’s installation will assert the critical position of preservation in architecture and urbanism and occupies two large rooms in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. The installation includes historic objects and photographs, analysis of the rapid growth of preserved urban and natural territory, and a take-away display of OMA’s own projects spanning 35 years. ‘Preservation’ will redefine this under-explored theme as one of urgency within and beyond architecture’s disciplinary boundaries.

A new OMA project in Venice, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, embodying many of these ideas, will be announced during the Biennale. A former trading post and customs house owned by the Benetton family and dating from 1228, the Fondaco, centrally located and adjacent to the Rialto bridge, will be converted into a culturally-programmed department store which preserves the building’s historic profile.

OMA’s conceptual masterplan for the West Kowloon Cultural District will be presented in an exhibition, Quotidian Architectures, organized by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Part of the government’s ambition to redefine Hong Kong as a cultural as well as financial hub, the proposal includes a diverse program of cultural facilities set on public landscape overlooking Victoria Harbour. Rem Koolhaas will participate in a forum on the competition, ‘Hong Kong Arts: Imagining the Future.’

Koolhaas and OMA partner Reinier de Graaf will also participate in ‘Rethinking Education’, a symposium co-hosted by OMA and the Strelka Institute, to be held in Venice. OMA and its think tank AMO have designed an educational programme for the Moscow-based research platform which addresses the future of cities in Russia and abroad.

As part of the Biennale’s opening events, Rem Koolhaas will be awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement upon the recommendation of Kazuyo Sejima, the director of this year’s Biennale.

“Rem Koolhaas has expanded the possibilities of architecture,” says Sejima. “He creates buildings that bring people together and in this way forms ambitious goals for architecture. His influence on the world has come well beyond architecture. People from very diverse fields feel a great freedom from his work.”

Il Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice, Italy, 2010 [13th century]; OMA’s most recent preservation project. ©OMA

Strelka, a new postgraduate school in Moscow for Media, Architecture and Design, is teaming up with OMA at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition – directed by Kazuyo Sejima and titled People meet in Architecture – for a conversation on architectural education – in Russia and beyond. OMA’s think tank, AMO, has developed an educational programme for Strelka, which will open its doors to students in October.

The conversation in Venice will introduce Strelka to a global audience. Strelka founders Alexander Mamut and Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper will discuss their ambition to raise the standard of architectural education in Russia through this new research platform in the heart of Moscow. Rem Koolhaas will introduce Strelka’s educational team – drawn from AMO’s global network of collaborators – and present the research agenda, based on five interconnected themes: Design, Energy, Preservation, Public Space and Thinning – issues that are critical worldwide and particularly urgent in Russia.

Reinier de Graaf (OMA partner and director of AMO) and Michael Schindhelm (cultural advisor and writer), both co-authors of Strelka’s educational programme, will join the discussion after the keynote presentations. Members of Strelka’s Steering Committee Sergey Adonyev, Dmitry Likin and Oleg Shapiro will be present at the discussion.

Strelka and OMA’s public conversation is in sync with a key curatorial aim of the Biennale Architettura: to reconsider architectural education and to transform the Biennale programme – its lectures, exhibitions and workshops – into educational opportunities for students and the general public. Read the rest of this entry »

A new cultural development in Frederiksberg, Denmark is on the works by BIG architects. The main idea is to create a new city monument for culture and movement that systematically blends programmatic elements with a spontaneous interaction.

The site is located in a crossroads of city bike paths, train routes and pedestrian pathways. While addressing this contextual issue, the project provides a framework for programmatic mixing which first stacks vertically and then fans out horizontally to provide a visual and physical overlap of elements.

This 180 degree array creates a variety of spaces ranging from the intimate to the monumental and provides accessible roofscapes that carry and blend function to the outdoors while engaging the surrounding context. Read the rest of this entry »