Movie: in this exclusive interview, Rem Koolhaas tells Dezeen why the colossal new De Rotterdam tower is the most visible OMA skyscraper yet. “Nobody will be able to avoid” seeing it, he says.
Located on the south bank of Rotterdam’s Maas river, De Rotterdam is a 150-metre structure where overlapping glazed towers accommodate apartments, offices and a hotel. It is only the fourth high-rise that OMA has completed, even though the firm has developed designs for dozens over the years.
“This is on a site where nobody will be able to avoid seeing the entire building,” says Koolhaas, comparing the project with the Rothschild Bank Headquarters in London and CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, both of which are located within a dense cityscape. “It has a superb location on the river that can be only approached on one bridge, so we could really predict how it will be perceived,” he said.
OMA originally looked at designing two buildings on separate plots. The architect explains that he wanted to avoid “planting needles” so instead came up with a concept for a single structure with large vertical openings that break up the overall mass.
“We made a building that consists of separate volumes that were slightly shifted vis-a-vis each other so that it was very adaptable,” says Koolhaas. “We could easily replace one part with another part and therefore accommodate different logics and arguments.”
“This shifting creates a large building, but a large building that is a very dynamic presence in the city, because it is very different from any angle. It can be a wall, it can be almost three separate buildings, it can be a single mass,” he adds.
Holidaymakers can now spend nights sleeping beneath the surface of the ocean at this partially submerged hotel suite in the Zanzibar archipelago (+ movie).
Located 250 metres off the coast of Pemba Island, the Underwater Room forms parts of the Manta Resort, a holiday retreat on the mainland of the island, and comprises a three-storey floating structure with its lowest level positioned four metres beneath the water.
After being escorted to the remote suite by boat, guests use a staircase to descend to their underwater bedroom, where windows on every wall allow 360 degree views of the underwater coral reef and sea life.
“Some [reef fish] have taken up residence around the room, which affords them some protection from predators,” said the resort owners. “For instance, three bat fish and a trumpet fish called Nick who is always swimming around and seemingly looking in!”
Coral is expected to grow around the outer walls, plus underwater spotlights are fitted below the windows to encourage squid and colourful sea slugs to come into view.
The structure was designed and built by Swedish company Genberg Underwater Hotels and takes its cues from Utter Inn, a floating structure on Lake Malaren in Sweden that was modelled on a traditional Scandinavian house.
Like this structure, the Underwater Room has a timber-clad upper section that sits above the water. This includes lounge and bathroom facilities, as well as a roof deck that can be used for either sunbathing or stargazing.
News: New York architect Steven Holl has won a competition to design four museums in Qingdao, China, with a concept for a series of “art islands” linked by a looping route of galleries and pathways (+ movie).
The Culture and Art Centre of Qingdao will occupy an 18-hectare site to the north of Jiaozhou Bay, creating a complex of museums dedicated to classic art, modern art, public art and performing arts.
Steven Holl’s plan features a snaking tunnel structure designed to reference the form of the nearby Jiaozhou Bay Bridge – the world’s longest bridge over water. This “light loop” will connect the four museums, accommodating a trail of galleries inside.
“The project starts with a very unique connection to Qingdao and the idea of actually connecting to the morphology of the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge,” says Holl in a movie accompanying the competition entry. “It inspires the possibility of this whole project to become related to that linear idea.”
Three of the museums will comprise cube-shaped structures positioned at intervals along the route, while the fourth will be positioned around a public square at the centre of the complex.
The surrounding spaces will be filled with gardens, pools of water and an outdoor sculpture park.
“There’s a great porosity and a great fusion between the movement across the site and the movement in the gallery system above,” says the architect. “It will have breezes coming in from the ocean that cool the entire landscape.”
A mixture of sanded aluminium and stained concrete will be used to construct the new buildings.
Here are some extra details from Steven Holl Architects:
Steven Holl Architects Wins Invited Competition for the Culture and Art Centre of Qingdao City
Steven Holl Architects has been selected by near unanimous jury decision as the winner of the new Culture and Art Centre of Qingdao City competition, besting OMA and Zaha Hadid Architects. The 2 million sq ft project for four museums is the heart of the new extension of Qingdao, China, planned for a population of 700,000.
The winning design for the new Culture and Art Centre begins with a connection to Qingdao. The linear form of the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge – the world’s longest bridge over water – is carried into the large site, in the form of a Light Loop, which contains gallery spaces and connects all aspects of the landscape and public spaces. The raised Light Loop allows maximum porosity and movement across the site, and permits natural sound bound breezes that blow in off the ocean to flow across the site.
Bridge link concept
Set within the master plan are Art Islands, or Yishudao, which take the form of three sculpted cubes, and four small landscape art islands that form outdoor sculpture gardens. Five terraced reflecting pools animate the landscape and bring light to levels below via skylights.
The Light Loop and Yishudao concepts facilitate the shaping of public space. A great central square for large gatherings is at the centre of the site overlooking a large water garden. The Modern Art Museum shapes the central square. The Public Arts Museum forms the main experience of entry from the south. The North Yishudao contains the Classic Art Museum, with a hotel at its top levels, and the South Yishudao, which floats over the large south reflecting pool, holds the Performing Arts Program.
In the Light Loop, all horizontal galleries receive natural light from the roof that can be controlled with 20% screens as well as blackout options. The 20 metre wide section of the Light Loop allows side lighting to the lower level galleries, and provides space for two galleries side by side, avoiding dead-end circulation.
Site layout diagram
The basic architecture is in simple monochrome of sanded marine aluminium and stained concrete, with the undersides of the Light Loops in rich polychrome colours of ancient Chinese architecture. These soffits are washed with light at night to become landscape lighting in shimmering reflected colours.
The entire project uses the most sustainable green technologies. Placed between the skylights on the Light Loop, photovoltaic cells will provide 80% of the museum’s electrical needs. The reflecting ponds with recycle water, while 480 geothermal wells provide heating and cooling.
Set to be completed in 2015, the National Maritime Museum of China by Australian studio Cox Rayner Architects will be a 80,000 square metre museum located in Tianjin, China.
“China has been built on water,” says Rayner. “Not only has it been very much related to the sea, but it was built on canals and that’s how it evolved.”
“There’s a feeling that there isn’t much understanding of China’s maritime past. [The Chinese government] wanted the world and also their own people to understand more about how the country evolved from a water perspective.”
The design of the museum features five separate halls that spread out like a fan, each of which will be dedicated to a different aspect of China’s marine heritage.
“We wanted to segment it, to stop it from becoming one very large object,” explains Rayner.
“The brief consisted of a series of different themes, so we felt there was a good reason to give each of those an identity. So the form you see in the plan was in part about giving them a distinction and then converging to show how each of those things might relate to each other.”
However, Rayner reveals that the exact form of the building is still evolving, as his team are having to redesign parts of the museum as they go to accommodate the different artefacts the Chinese government is acquiring to fill it.
“Museums at that scale need about a million artefacts to occupy them, so the government has been very rapidly trying to collect elements to work in it,” he says.
“So the design has had to adapt post competition to fit some of the things that are going to be in there. It has been an evolving process.”
The design team are also up against a very strict timescale to finish the project, he says.
“The government announced that, no matter what, they wanted the project completed at the end of 2015, which in our terms is a record time to do a project,” Rayner explains.
“They’re about to start putting the piling in at the end of this month, so it’s a very immediate kind of start but we’ve designed it in such a way that the piling and the main floor can be put in and we’ve still got plenty of flexibility to develop the curatorial brief as we go on.”
“We’re trying to dovetail the rapidity [that the client requires] with the quality that we want to get out of the project.”
Michael Rayner of Cox Rayner Architects
World Architecture Festival 2013 took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2 to 4 October. Next year’s World Architecture Festival will take place at the same venue from 1 to 3 October 2014. Award entries are open from February to June 2014.
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in this movie Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto discusses his philosophy of designing structures that are “in between” opposing concepts such as nature and architecture, and says the approach could work just as well on a skyscraper as a small private house.
Sou Fujimoto. Copyright: Dezeen
“Nature and architecture are fundamental themes [of my work],” says Fujimoto, speaking to Dezeen after giving his keynote speech at this year’s World Architecture Festival.
“I like to find something in between. Not only nature and architecture but also inside and outside. Every kind of definition has an in-between space. Especially if the definitions are two opposites, then the in-between space is more rich.”
Fujimoto gives his recently completed Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London as an example of his philosophy, in which he used a series of geometric lattices to create a cloud-like structure.
“In various meanings it is in between things,” he says of the project. “It’s made by a grid, but the shape is very soft and complex. The experience is half nature and half super-artificial.”
Final Wooden House in Kumamoto, Japan, by Sou Fujimoto. Photograph by Edmund Sumner
Fujimoto then goes on to discuss Final Wooden House in Japan, in which chunky timber beams form the walls, floors and roof of the house, as well as the furniture and stairs inside.
“It’s a beautiful integration of the architectural elements in various different levels,” says Fujimoto. “The wooden blocks could be the floor or the furniture or the walls, so in that house every definition is melding together.”
House NA in Tokyo by Sou Fujimoto. Photograph by Iwan Baan
Finally, Fujimoto discusses House NA in Tokyo, which consists of several staggered platforms and hardly has any walls.
“It is not like a house but more like a soft territory, something beyond a house,” he says. “The client is a young couple and they are really enjoying their life in that house.”
Fujimoto believes his approach can be scaled up to larger projects
“The concept of creating something in-between is not only for the smaller scale,” he says. “I think it could be developed more, for example [up to] skyscraper scale.”
“The high-rise building and landscaping are opposite, but maybe it could be a nice challenge to find something between skyscrapers and landscaping. I like to expand my way of thinking to explore pioneering or hidden places in the architectural field.”
“This was the first botanical garden in Australia, if not the world, that is for Australian natives only,” Adams says.
“There has been a strong bush garden movement [in Australia], which started off in the 1970s and 1980s. But this takes it to another level. It’s not just about using native plants, but really celebrating the qualities and properties of them.”
The structure of the garden is based around the flow of water, Adams goes on to explain.
“Australia is an island surrounded by water with desert in the inside,” he says. “We wanted to tell the journey about the water moving from the desert to the coast, so the botanical garden is set up to form a narrative for the Australian landscape.”
There is limited signage at the garden, a decision Adams says was designed to increase visitors’ sense of discovery.
“We wanted the visitor to take home their own experience, rather than to have signage to tell them what they should be feeling or what they should be seeing,” he says.
“You go there and you make your own journey, and your own discoveries, and take home your own findings.”
World Architecture Festival 2013 took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2-4 October. Next year’s World Architecture Festival will take place at the same venue from 1-3 October 2014. Award entries are open from February to June 2014.
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: Colin Seah of Ministry of Design shows us examples of how Singapore is responding to the challenge of housing a growing population without sacrificing its green spaces in our second movie from the city.
“It has been a perennial issue,” says Seah. “How do you house five to seven million people on an island that would fit into Lake Geneva?”
“The government could have just said: ‘let’s not control it, let’s have sprawl and have more people living in houses’. But the strategy instead was to protect public spaces and green areas.”
The Pinnacle@Duxton, Singapore, by Arc Studio
Seah takes us to three of his favourite architectural projects around the city, which each tackle the challenge in different ways.
The first is The Pinnacle@Duxton by Singapore architects Arc Studio, a vast public housing complex comprising seven 50-storey tower blocks connected by large bridges and a sky garden at the top.
The Pinnacle@Duxton, Singapore, by Arc Studio
“It’s amazing because on the same piece of land that housed 150 houses [they have built] up to six or seven times the number of family units,” says Seah.
The Pinnacle@Duxton, Singapore, by Arc Studio
“The top level is open to the public, because it is public housing after all. You have a 360 degree panorama of Singapore.”
Next Seah takes us to The Interlace, a new private housing development designed by former OMA partner Ole Scheeren, who has since set up his own studio.
“Instead of having these tall vertical towers, they broke them down to horizontal towers,” says Seah of the complex, which comprises 31 six-storey blocks stacked diagonally on top of each other.
The blocks are arranged around large hexagonal communal courtyards, while the roofs of the lower blocks provide smaller gardens for the blocks stacked on top of them.
Finally, Seah takes us to Marina Barrage, a dam designed to control the water coming in and out of Marina Bay and prevent flooding in low lying areas of the city. The machinery that operates the dam is housed in a large building alongside, which features a public park on its gradually sloping roof.
Marina Barrage, Singapore
“Instead of being a utilitarian building, there was a really fantastic agenda to infuse it with a public, park-like quality,” says Seah.
“On the weekends and evenings it’s incredibly popular with families. So for a building that just houses machines, it becomes this living space.”
Roof of Marina Barrage, Singapore
Seah concludes: “The government has been very clever to balance the need for density with more ample public space that people can share collectively.”
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki in New Zealand, which was designed by Australian architecture studio Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp together with New Zealand studio Archimedia, is an extension and refurbishment of an existing gallery.
“It’s a turn-of-the-century building, it kind of embodies a colonial attitude to a European settlement,” says Francis-Jones of the original gallery.
“This new project gave us an opportunity to rethink that, to recast it in current values, to create a bi-cultural gallery that can have a much more holistic relationship to New Zealand society.”
The extension provides the gallery with a new entrance, atrium and gallery space, areas that are covered by large wooden canopies made from the indigenous kauri tree.
Francis-Jones says that it was very important for the design team to create a building that related to its local surroundings.
“One of the great challenges we face as architects in this age is that our materials and our systems are sourced from all over the world,” he says. “But we were seeking to make a building that was really embedded in this place, in this culture.”
He continues: “To create these canopies we wanted to use a material that was very precious and meaningful to New Zealand, so we used natural kauri. It’s got to be one of the most beautiful timbers you’ve ever seen in your life and it’s a timber of great significance and meaning to Maori culture.”
“But, of course, it’s a protected species, so we had to source it from fallen kauri or recycled kauri. We had to use it very sparingly.”
Photograph by Luke Hayes
The large glass walls of the building are designed to allow clear views outside to the surrounding landscape.
“The building, in a sense, creates a connection between the natural landscape and the city,” says Francis-Jones.
“Our effort was to strive to make a building that was transparent in a way, to create a building that was more open, inclusive and connected with the landscape. It is a more open interpretation of New Zealand’s future.”
Photograph by Luke Hayes
World Architecture Festival 2013 took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2-4 October. Next year’s World Architecture Festival will take place at the same venue from 1-3 October 2014. Award entries are open from February to June 2014.
Movie: a recently completed concrete house in São Paulo is depicted as a luxury home from the 1950s in the latest architecture film by Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan.
Kogan, founder of São Paulo office Studio MK27, worked with film producer Lea van Steen to produce the movie, which is entitled Modern Living and based on a Bauhaus film by the late architect Richard Paulick.
The movie centres around Casa Pinheiro, a family house comprising rectilinear concrete blocks that appear to be stacked on top of one another at perpendicular angles.
A large living and dining room occupies the ground floor of the building and can be opened out to the garden by sliding glass walls, while the middle floor accommodates four bedrooms with access to a roof deck and the uppermost level contains a separate family room.
In the film, these spaces are presented as “the latest innovations in housing construction and technology,” filled with gadgets and space-saving solutions, such as a built-in vacuum cleaner and chutes for laundry and rubbish.
A garage is tucked away in the basement and is shown in the movie as the storage area for the owner’s classic Corvette.
Security is also highlighted in the film, as a housekeeper demonstrates how post can be collected “in total isolation from the outside world” and how every space can be monitored using a CCTV system.
The Pinheiro house is a puzzle game. Rotating three volumes around one nucleus generated not only a particular spatial dynamic, but also different visual relations between empty and full, between the private and semiprivate areas and the view of the city.
The site is located on the other side of the Pinheiros River, one of the main rivers that define and cut into the city of São Paulo, in an essentially residential neighborhood, Morumbi. From there it is possible to see the entire valley filled with gardened houses, the river and, on the other margin, another hill, the corporate area of the city drawing the metropolitan skyline with its typical skyscrapers.
The program boasts three floors: a garden, a terrace with fireplace and barbecue, home theatre, dining and living rooms, washroom, kitchen, four bedrooms, office and family room. In the basement: a garage, laundry room, utility rooms and a gym. The nucleus of the circulation is made of a continuous staircase joined in a structural wall. This block, which organises the structure and distributes the fluxes, is the pivot around which the boxes revolve.
The volumes are developed to create constant and distinct relations between the inner and outer spaces. The bedrooms on the second floor look out to the pool and take advantage of the deck above the roof of the living and dining rooms. The box comprising the bedrooms projects outwards over both sides of the first box. From one side, the cantilever determines the main entrance of the house and, on the other, it shades the terrace.
The spiral movement continues with the third box, supported by the second and projecting outwards over the first. It shades the window of the master bedroom and part of the deck while, simultaneously, creates new visual relations with the other bedrooms and the terrace.
All of the boxes are bare concrete frames. The living room and the bedrooms have their sides closed by freijó wooden folding panels which filter the light and allow for permanent crossed ventilation. The family room, on the top floor is enclosed by glass, to preserve the view.
The result strengthens interactions, the crossing of eye views and vectors through the garden: eyes that see the view and the treetops around the pool, eyes that are turned back to the house itself, its volumetry and, above all else, to its own life.
Project: Pinheiro House Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Architecture: Studio MK27 Architect: Marcio Kogan Co-architect: Lair Reis Interiors: Diana Radomysler
Collaborators: Carolina Castroviejo, Carlos Costa, Laura Guedes, Mariana Simas, Oswaldo Pessano, Suzana Glogowski Team: Andrea Macruz, Samanta Cafardo, Renata Furlanetto Architecture collaborator: Fernanda Reiva
A cluster of five gabled cabins make up this summer retreat in northern Denmark by architects Powerhouse Company (+ movie).
Powerhouse Company designed the holiday home for a family in northern Sjælland as a twist on the traditional Danish summer house, with five interconnected cabins arranged in a five-fingered plan.
“This solution faithfully reflects the rather different desires of the family members,” said the architects. “One wanted a picturesque, cosy and archetypal summer house, while another wanted a spacious and contemporary feeling.”
Externally clad with blackened timber boards, the cabins overlap one another to create a central living area that opens out to a series of wooden outdoor decks.
“Summerhouses are traditionally family spaces but when children grow older they need more independence from their parents, hence the ‘village of cabins’ organisation, with radiating individual spaces that are united in the centre,” the architects added.
The living room, kitchen and dining area occupy three of the cabins, while one contains a master bedroom and another houses two smaller bedrooms.
White walls and timber flooring feature throughout the house and angled skylights bring extra daylight into each cabin.
Powerhouse Company was asked to design a weekend house for a young family in northern Sjælland, Denmark. Village House is an exploration on the possibilities of the Summer cabin, the traditional Danish vacation home. While keeping the cabin’s footprint small, spatial as well as sustainable, there is a wide range of spatial possibilities, by using a five-fingered floor plan.
The house is a cluster of five wings, like miniature cabins. These fan out like a hand spreading five fingers over the site, generating a variety of views, light effects and outdoor areas. This variation means the house provides an enjoyable environment all year round and at all times of day. For example, a large window above the living room allows sunlight to bathe the dining table at around midday. Summerhouses are traditionally family spaces, but when children grow older they need more independence from their parents. Hence the ‘village of cabins’ organisation, with radiating individual spaces that are united in the centre.
Each member of the family effectively has the option of privacy when they need it. Meanwhile a star-shaped central space, uniting the living room and kitchen, forms the shared area which nevertheless offers pockets of seclusion to spend time alone while still in the family circle. This solution faithfully reflects the rather different desires of the family members. One wanted a picturesque, cosy and archetypal summerhouse, while another wanted a spacious and contemporary feeling. Both desires are united in the design.
In basing Village House on the classic Danish summerhouse, while adding modern ideas of space, Powerhouse Company has created a contemporary harmony. The elementary wooden structure has a pitched roof, and it is black, the most discreet colour in nature, like the dark shadows in the surrounding woods. Inside, the uniform white surface maximises the northern light. The rustic but modern solution is low maintenance, which is more important for a holiday home than offering lots of space. From an architectural point of view, its close relationship to the context is especially significant in a holiday home. The house contrasts with the routine home of the clients, and provides the basis for a separate lifestyle. Isn’t that what we are looking for when we go on holiday?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
