ctulane school of architecture

NYU EXPANSIONAMMAR ELOUEINI OMA

theCharrette november 2010

2 theCharrette

CONTENTS

3 Letter from the Editor

4 A Moment with Ken

5 Studio Culture

6 Faculty Profile: Ammar Eloueini

8 GVSHP & NYU Expansion

12 Letter to the Editor: Bike Racks

13 Paper Cranes

13 Sustainable Design Conference

14 Firm Profile: OMA

thesis/ platform reviews

thanksgiving break

jill stoll: in camera

1st year reviews

2nd year reviews

3rd year reviews

winter break

nov. 19,22

nov. 24-28

dec. 1

dec. 3

dec. 4

dec. 6

dec. 13

1 2

5 6 7 8 9

12 13 14 15 16

19 20

3 4

10 11

17 18

24 25

31 1

7 8

14 15

21 22

28 29

5 6

21 22 23

26 27 28 29 30

2 3 4 5 6

9 10 11 12 13

16 17 18 19 20

23 24 25 26 27

30 1 2 3 4

7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

(cover) november 7th rally NYU silver tower protest (GVSHP)

3November 2010

The ability to convey our thoughts through writing will be a valuable as-set when we emerge into the professional sector. As I’ve begun search-ing for a summer internship, students and professionals who have in-fluenced me all agree on one thing: being able to diversify ourselves will more easily get us noticed. By finding a passion such as journalism to supplement an architectural education, we essentially are adding to our arsenal of skills. Not all firms have the manpower to effectively employ division of labor like SOM, HOK, NBBJ or Gensler. Depending on what type of firm we work for, we may be called upon to produce all the necessary documentation and creative material to see a project through. Being versatile and well rounded with different proficiencies rather than solely focusing on one particular aspect of a design project will produce a rich set of content. We can all agree that it’s the diversity of drawings and information that makes for a great review.

One of my main motivations for originally accepting Nick Vann’s role as Editor in Chief my freshman year was to continuously keep up with writing so that, once thesis arrived, I would have fine-tuned my writing skills to the level fifth year research requires. I also believe in the good of expressing a school’s worth through prose. Tulane School of Archi-tecture only becomes stronger as student leadership constantly stays active. If you already haven’t I challenge you to get involved somehow around TSA.

Student participation in national design conferences has appeared to increase in the past few months especially among TSA students. By visiting the websites of ACSA, AIAS and other collateral organizations, you can find a list of current competitions and their deadlines including the AIAS/ Vinyl Design Competition for a “Pan Am Awards Pavilion.” Our administration can do everything in their power to bolster our reputation as great designers but ultimately students must go out and produce work to reflect our school’s great name to the public.

Letter from the Editor | Kevin Michniok

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A Moment with Ken | studio culture (a continuation from last issue)Interview by John Nelson

Q. How do you perceive the current state of the studio culture develop-ment and where do you want to see it by semesters end?

A. I am not sure where it is now. I have a general sense of last year. Even though we are well into the semester this year I don’t know how to gauge it yet. I can tell you that the studio design competition was designed to get the semester off to a fast start, to build a sense of collective purpose, to get design front and center from day one and I think I worked very well. So I was happy about that, and we will most certainly continue that next year in the fall.

When I arrived I was concerned about studio culture here, and I was pretty open about that with faculty and with students. The same kind of spirit and commitment was not seen across the studios. I don’t say that to be criti-cal of others but I just saw that there was something wrong. I didn’t know why or what was explaining it. I wasn’t the only one who saw this. As we have been ramping up the graduate program, we went through an admis-sion cycle in the spring of 2009, and we had quite a few graduate student who chose not to come here because of our studio culture, and I know this because I talked to almost all of the students who we accepted and chose not to come. This year the evidence I would point to is that we were dra-matically more successful in recruiting extraordinary graduate students to this school. In a way they look at this issue in many cases through a much more focused lens than a 17 year old high school senior because they have finished their undergraduate degrees and most have been out working. They

look at us and compare us with other very good schools like us, and we got many of the best students that we accepted to come here. I think the two key elements to that were the improvement of studio culture, and com-munity engagement. When you put those things together we have a pretty powerful option available to graduate and undergraduate students alike. So I am very comfortable with the idea of competing, I like to compete against very good programs. I want us to be perceived as one of the best programs in the country, and that takes competition to get there. So you have to be try-ing to succeed to be competitive, and that is exactly what we’re doing, and I think we are definitely showing progress. This kind of success feeds on itself. If you put the right ingredients in play and people are conscious about the issue, you will always have a sense that there is something happening here that is special and that really matters in the lives of students who come here. A shorter answer is that I think we have a ways to go. I don’t know exactly what shape it should take or what that means. I know the students have worked on this issue a lot last year, and I appreciate the work that has happened at the student level. I think that faculty are continuing to work on it, and we’re trying to get faculty more mobilized around this issue. It is actually harder than it seems to get people to focus on this because I think it’s a topic that a lot people take for granted. We’re in the studio, it’s intense, it’s a great mode of teaching, but then step back and try to think how can we do this.

5November 2010

Studio CultureJohn Nelson

Studio culture can only be described as one of the most unique experiences that exists on earth. Ironically, only a few people know about it, and no one believes them. Trying to explain why you have been up for 63 hours to an architectural alien is not only completely unfulfilling, but it also is taking away from that model sitting on your desk that needs to get finished - now get your Panda Express and go. Do not forget to read the fortune.

Studio culture has resurfaced within the past three years with the changing of power, and for good reason. It is a fact that an architecture school without a collective sense of identity or culture is not going to grow, flourish or in-spire inventive design. This idea can be seen on a small scale in those who don’t take advantage of the benefits that studio culture provides.

Contention surrounding the issue of studio culture begins to arise when actions are taken to try and create more of it. For starters, studio cul-ture is hard to quantify. As a result, measuring the generative success of a campaign to create more studio culture is complex at best. With that said, what is the best way to go about creating a stronger sense of community? Would it be by restricting the use of a specific program between the walls of an unnamed building? No, that would be ridiculous. Who would try to rally the support of a community by making rules and regulations that go against

what they actually want? The answer seems simple, create an environment of incentives rather than restrictions. The benefits of a collaborative work environment should be apparent. There will always be those that won’t take advantage of studio culture and those who do. The hope is that the few that don’t see the merit of studio culture will not dictate the narrative on how to make it better. If you end up trying to force everyone to be in studio, you will have some people there for the wrong reasons, and they will only add negativity.

In a recent interview with the dean, he stated that the recent curriculum addi-tions were created, “To build a sense of collective purpose.” And that is ex-actly what we need. Whether competitions are the way to do this is another issue, but we need to stress our common goals. We are here to learn how to be responsible designers and how to be successful in a studio environment.

This article is timely in that we need to start a dialogue about studio culture, one that is inclusive and open. The discourse must involve both students and faculty acting with parity. One singular source cannot provide the an-swer to the problems surrounding studio culture or try to define it.

lone ranger second year studio on a sunday evening

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One of the most intriguing aspects of attending Tulane University is the diversity amongst its faculty. For this month’s featured profile, I had the chance to interview Ammar Eloueini, esteemed professor at TSA with an impressive international background. His work has been featured in many permanent collections, most notably at the MoMA in New York and has won numerous international design awards. Aside from teach-ing, Eloueini currently operates offices in both New Orleans and Paris, France.

Ammar Eloueini was born in 1968 in Beirut, Lebanon. At a young age, he moved with his family to Paris where he grew up and eventually attended the School of Architecture at Paris-Villemin. After graduating in 1994 with a Diplome par le Gouvernement, Eloueini immigrated to America to pursue his passions. In 1995, he enrolled at Columbia Uni-versity in New York in one of the world’s first paperless studios. This 1-year program at Columbia extended three semesters, from May to May, and was based on innovations in digital technology and its appli-cation in architecture. “You have to remember,” remarks Eloueini, “this was at the time when many firms were still REFUSING to accept Auto-CAD and computer drawings.” The program was lead by very young faculty including Hani Rashad, founder of Asymptote Architecture, Greg Lynn, owner of Greg Lynn FORM Offices, and Stan Allen, head of Brook-lyn based Stan Allen Architects and current dean of the Princeton Uni-versity School of Architecture.

Faculty Profile | Ammar EloueiniFrank Xiong

ONS (architecture.tulane.edu)

7November 2010

After completing his studies at Columbia, Eloueini was strongly interested in pursuing digital design. He founded his current firm Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio (AEDS) immediately following college and based his work on the digital production techniques he learned at Columbia. Starting out, Eloueini took an $18,000 loan from the bank solely to purchase a computer with enough processing power to handle the complexity of his work. He subsequently spent an additional $6,000 on software. His in-vestment paid off and after only a few competitions and publications, Eloueini’s designs started getting noticed. He received many commis-sions, such as a grant for an exhibition by the French Ministry and also led digital production workshops around Paris.

In 1999, Ammar Eloueini’s teaching career began when he was recom-mended by one of his former mentors for a teaching position at the Uni-versity of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. After a swift application process, he became the architecture school’s director of digital production. “At the time, the University of Illinois had four computers in the basement that served as their lab,” Eloueini chuckles. During this time, Eloueini also maintained two offices: one in Paris and one in Chicago, commuting to his Paris office at least once a month.

In July 2005, prior to Katrina, Eloueini accepted a job at Tulane University from former dean Reed Kroloff. His plane ticket for the final move was a flight scheduled on September 1st; however, on August 31st, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. When Kroloff re-extended the job offer, Eloueini enthusiastically accepted to return the next semester. After being asked

why he was so excited to teach in a recently devastated city, Eloueini re-plied “Architecture is the most interesting at times of disaster because we can see what energy and attitude comes out of it.” In January of 2006, Eloueini moved to New Orleans. He also brought his Chicago studio along. His two offices are currently operating at capacity with commis-sions for eight total projects. He still commutes to Paris regularly.

Concluding our interview, I asked Ammar what piece of advice he would give students at TSA. He responded that the best way to get a broad-range architectural education is to expand your experiences. He encour-aged students to both work in an office and submit entries for national competitions. From competitions, students will understand the mas-siveness of a complete design; from internships, students will observe the more meticulous side of the profession. Studio will then seem like a breath of fresh air where designs are free from the limitations of actual scenarios in the professional sector.

chair design series (architecture.tulane.edu)

CoReFab#116 chair (www.flickr.com)

8 theCharrette

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) has sought to safeguard the uniqueness and eclecticism that is Greenwich Village, the East Village, and “NoHo” (the area north of Houston Street) since its inception in 1980. Many of us old enough to remember Green-wich Village know it to be the Bohemian capital of the East Coast and birthplace of the cultural phenomena that is the Beat Generation of the 1950’s. Prominent literature emerged during this progressive period of New York City culture including Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 poem Howl in ad-dition to other writings of radical thinkers that challenged the conformist 1950’s lifestyle.

According to Andrew Berman, Executive Director of GVSHP, the “Village” is one of the most distinctive and beloved parts of New York City. It’s unusual off-the-grid winding streets paired with charming architecture situated between the skyscrapers of Midtown and Downtown make the neighborhood particularly special. This unique history, together with the architectural richness of the area, present GVSHP with a challeng-ing agenda to protect against the forces that attempt to tamper with its delicate urban fabric.

Washington Square Park, a roughly ten acre open space, serves as one of the iconic emblems of Greenwich Village. Right at the foot of Fifth Avenue, the park creates an urban hub of cultural activity, radiating out towards the surrounding neighborhoods. Evident from this location is one example of how New York University (NYU) has attempted to expand and grow in the area. Most surrounding park buildings now belong to NYU, some converted by adaptive reuse and others built from the ground up. NYU’s expansion into this rich neighborhood has met much criticism and opposition by city councils, residents, and GVSHP. As NYU further

embraces its movement forward as a modern university with a contem-porary mindset, its biggest challenge pertains to how they position them-selves into a historic area, fitting the context in terms of scale, material, and appropriate size.

NYU 2031: NYU in NYC is a comprehensive expansion plan aiming to maintain the academic standards of the university by providing facilities that reflect its growth in terms of student enrollment and departmental space. This strategy, the offspring of nearly four years of brainstorming, is characterized by NYU Senior Vice President Lynn Brown Ph.D. as a “thoughtful, reflective, and reasoned” forward-thinking citywide approach to growth. Brown envisions half of NYU’s growth away from the Wash-ington Square campus and the other half in the Greenwich Village area, all to be completed by the university’s bicentennial in 2031.

Part of the unique experience of attending NYU is navigating from street to street in a dense urban setting, giving students a big city feel. As stu-dent enrollment tops 41,000, NYU will require six million square feet of additional space to accommodate their growing population surge. Ber-man, one of the key leaders in GVSHP’s opposition to NYU’s plans, feels constantly concerned about the growing efforts in the neighborhood. “We are deeply troubled by the fact that NYU is seeking to roughly double its rate of spatial growth in our neighborhood (given that their current rate of growth is so overwhelming already). The university could easily be exploring additional options outside of our neighborhood such as the Financial District to absorb massive growth but is refusing to. The scale of construction NYU is seeking approval for, which includes the tallest building ever constructed in Greenwich Village is frightening and totally inappropriate.”

PROGRESSION VS.PRESERVATIONGreenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation fights NYU expansion planKevin Michniok

historical photo compilation (GVSHP)

9November 2010

november 7th rally (GVSHP)

silver tower complex (nyu office of public affairs)

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The tallest building Berman refers to would be a fourth tower added to the University Village or Silver Towers Complex site off Bleecker Street designed by I.M. Pei in the 1960’s and subsequently landmarked in 2008. The three existent towers, two of which are NYU owned and operated, stand 30 stories tall at 305 feet each and frame a beautiful open space with an iconic Picasso sculpture of the “Bust of Sylvette.” In 2001 NYU acquired the Morton Wil-liams supermarket on this block with the intent of building only on that site but has since pushed for the addition of this fourth tower. The proposed 40-storey 400-foot tall tower would be 25% larger than its three neighbor-ing structures, depleting the size and proportionality of Pei’s original site. Because the building sits on landmarked area, approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission must be granted before any plans can move for-ward.

“The approvals NYU are seeking are in and of themselves potentially quite destructive - unprecedented landmarks approvals to allow large-scale con-struction on open space, the lifting of long-standing zoning protections which preserve open space in one of the most open space-starved parts of the city, the transfer and destruction of publicly-owned green space to NYU for development, the changing of zoning in residential areas to large-scale commercial, and the lifting of urban renewal deed restrictions on land to allow NYU to build more than a decade sooner than they are allowed” Berman said.

GVSHP believes NYU’s plan needs to be entirely rethought because of their ignorance on feedback received from neighbors preceding the release of NYU 2031. According to Berman, the “vocal and unequivocal opposition of the local community has been as high as I have ever seen it on any issue in the neighborhood.” Because NYU has rarely agreed to compromise on their strategies in the past, “it will come down to which of those approvals (NYU) are able to get and which they are not.” The Mayor, City Council (especially local Council members Margaret Chin and Christine Quinn) and several other commissions, boards, and the Borough President will determine approval of NYU’s projects.

In addition to NYU’s in-house team of architects and planners, Grimshaw Architects, SMWM and Toshiko Mori Architects collaborated to create the current master plan. Mark Husser, Partner of Grimshaw’s New York office and also a Greenwich Village resident, states the focus on NYU’s strategy to be of “building in an environmentally effective way” by employing sustain-able practices for the existing and new NYU properties. Husser justifies the fourth Silver Tower’s height by explaining that enhanced building codes im-plemented since the Pei Towers construction required additional core utility space and thus a larger number of floors are needed to create a comparable amount of usable space as the other three towers.

silver tower complex site model (GVSHP)

11November 2010

According to NYU President John Sexton in a letter regarding NYU 2031, having the sufficient space to “house all the artists, scholars, and students who will answer the call to come to New York City and make contributions to it” marks one of the many driving forces behind their expansion framework. Sexton also acknowledged how NYU has previously failed to recognize the obligation to their historic context but believes the imperative steps of three major categories (Growth, Sustainability, and Awareness) will result in re-sponsible advancements that considers the city’s longevity. Major tenets of NYU 2031 include promoting greater pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use areas with ample open space and a commitment to building only when neces-sary with the highest standards of adaptive reuse and sustainability. NYU has been blatant, though, about restrictions, saying that space constraints should not limit their academic ambitions although simultaneously admit-ting their interdependent relationship with the success of the neighborhood.

Community outrage has been frequent. Most recently, GVSHP’s November 7th rally to protest the 400-foot tall tower on Bleecker Street is evident of how crucial an issue the proposed fourth Silver Tower and other matters are to the local Village community. In the eyes of GVSHP and Berman, NYU’s development does not reflect responsible growth and has “degraded the character of the neighborhood. Their facilities have generally been by all objective standards (and even by their own admission) ugly, out of scale,

and out of character for the neighborhood. But we are also concerned with their expansion in the neighborhood even when it only involves taking over existing buildings. There is the danger of NYU going from being one vital ingredient in the neighborhood to being the overwhelming presence, and from a vital and diverse urban neighborhood becoming the equivalent of a company town, with one entity - NYU - owning and controlling everything.”

Educating architecture and design students to the inherent logic behind pro-tecting the built intricacies of places like Greenwich Village is of supreme importance. Some graduates will work in an office which builds new or applies adaptive reuse techniques to projects located in a historic setting with corresponding zoning laws. Upholding the character of such a place requires an awareness to what really makes a context meaningful and worth protecting. Much like the ontological studies of being or existence, it is vital to discover the essence of a building; what makes it create space and direct attention. The debate rolls on whether NYU will ever come to its senses and carefully craft a plan, which correctly addresses the vicinity in which they dwell. The importance of such societies as GVSHP proves to be paramount in protecting the special qualities of architecturally significant sanctuaries. As Alistair Cook said, “New York is the biggest collection of Villages in the world.” The thought of further degradation to one of New York’s finest is totally unacceptable.

silver tower complex rendering (archdaily.com)

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Letter to the Editor | Bike RacksZeke Jordan III

TSA Auction

It might be known to a select few that architecture students are in fact the most difficult and needy of all the different kinds of students found in the world. Having said that, here is one more architecture student who is going to follow a millennium of past students who also complained. There simply are just not enough spaces for Tulane architecture students to park their eco-friendly alter-natives to driving, also know as the bicycle. Bicycles, introduced in the 19th century, serve about one billion people in the world as a form of transportation as well as a very large number of environmentally conscience architecture stu-dents. It appears that about half of the one billion bicycle riders are parking in front of Richardson Memorial.

Just the other day I rode my bicycle from Magazine Street to Richardson Memo-rial, a trip that takes me eighteen minutes in my car (including parking and walk-ing) and six minutes on my bicycle in a rush. When I arrived, I could not find a single place to park my bicycle. The very aesthetic and functional bike racks were completely bursting with bicycles and their locks; the trees, light polls and even the trashcans were cluttered with bicycles, all surrounded by angry and frustrated students. Trying to see myself as a self-proclaimed architecture stu-dent activist for bicycles, I decided to lock my bicycle to the pipes adjacent to the drawing board entrance. When I returned I found a nasty note from our cam-pus police warning my unregistered bicycle that it was going to be removed.

What is hard to believe is that Tulane has participated in designing numerous bicycle racks but all for other institutions or locations, when the actual bicycle rack need is here! A-Week 2008 was completely dedicated to the designing and building of bicycle racks and as far as I can tell, I don’t remember the two racks currently outside being built behind Richardson Memorial. Is it not some-what ridiculous that we had Eric Carlson, the architect for Louis Vuitton, here to help students design bike racks when we ourselves do not have good ones? A-Week 2006 incorporated a bicycle rack at the Ujima Community Center in Treme and in 2007 A-Week at Lusher there were several bicycles racks in the designs of the outdoor seating environments. Maybe we should focus some of our own efforts here in our school of architecture to provide our students with the convenience and access to beautiful and functional bike racks before we so quickly donate our design skills to the needs of others for the satisfaction of community outreach.

TSA Students

Sean FisherJack GarbuttKevin MichniokJohn NelsonIan O’CainKate Peaden

TSA Faculty and Staff

Scott BernhardLinda CanteroDan Etheridge

Elizabeth GamardIrene KeilJudy KinnardJohn KlingmanHeather KnightTiffany LinByron MoutonGrover MoutonGraham OwenTabitha PentonCarol ReeseCordula Roser-GrayWendy SackMilton Scheuermann

Marcella del SignoreJill StollKen SchwartzEmilie TaylorMark ThomasKentaro TsubakiEllen Weiss

Tulane and New Orleans CommunityAromatherapy SpaBabylon CaféEnglish Turn Country Club

Emeril’sFresco CaféForstallHub HobbyInExchangeLouisiana Philharmonic OrchestraNuance Local CraftsSake CaféStoryvilleTulane BookstoreTulane Computer StoreTulane Department of Campus Recreation

Architecture Student Government would like to thank the following do-nors to this year’s annual TSA Auc-tion, and a special thanks to host and auctioneer Scott Bernhard!

bike hanging from tree outside richardson memorial

13November 2010

APX Philanthropy | Paper CranesHannah Ambrose

Sustainable Design ConferenceSanaa Shaikh

Recently the members of Alpha Ro Chi teamed up with other branches of their esteemed professional fraternity to dedicate a day of service for one of their Brothers, Kevin Pratt. You may have stopped to read Kevin’s story posted on the LCD screen in the Favrot lobby, a story that undoubtedly pulled the heartstrings of everyone who read it.

Kevin, a recently married architecture student at Arizona State University, was a thriving Sun Devil and member of Alpha Ro Chi when he was diag-nosed with stage four brain cancer. As you can imagine, Kevin had only limited funds with which to pay his medical bills and this, combined with his deteriorating health, meant that he was forced to drop out of school a semester short of graduation.

When the news of Kevin’s tragic story had circulated ASU, Kevin’s Broth-er’s and Sister’s in Alpha Ro Chi took initiative and started planning a fundraiser. Borrowing from the children’s book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (a story about a terminally ill child that uses the Japanese art of origami to build paper cranes as she lives in the hospital,) members created the APX paper crane fundraiser. In exchange for a small donation, architecture students around the country had the opportunity to learn how to construct a beautifully folded paper crane.

The generous students, faculty, and passers-by that participated in the Paper Crane project helped Tulane’s APX chapter raise over $150 for Kevin and his family. Nationally, the paper crane fund-raiser has generated around $3,000 for Kevin’s cause, evidence that as a large architectural community we can make a difference for a colleague in need.

On November 13, 2010, Tulane School of Architecture held it’s 2nd annual “Issues and Case Studies in Sustainable Design” Conference. Last year Dean Kenneth Schwartz communicated the idea of having a continuing edu-cation conference to be held at Tulane and chose the conference chair to be John P. Klingman, Richard Koch Chair of Architecture Professor at the Tulane School of Architecture. Rather than having four different speakers like the first conference, Klingman invited three speakers who together formed a strong platform, offering different perspectives on sustainable practices. A panel for questioning, a new addition to the conference, encouraged the conference attendees to ask specific questions geared towards implement-ing sustainable practices into their professional careers. This year, current Tulane students were allowed to attend, which exposed them to the leaders who are at the forefront of responsible sustainable design.

Professor Klingman states we must initially have a paradigm, “a compel-ling reason for architects to address sustainable issues.” Edward Mazria’s compelling work with Architecture 2030 provides inspiration and motivation towards sustainability. Architecture 2030 will change the way you look at buildings.” Second, fundamental grounding is needed. The second speaker for the conference, Ted Flato from the firm of Lake | Flato, talked indepth about the dominant link between landscape and its built counterparts. “Es-

tablished in 1984, Lake | Flato gained national recognition for architecture that is rooted to its place, responds to the natural environment and merges with the landscape.” Lake | Flato has gained much recognized and their work has demonstrated a sustainable site response over a vast number of projects and places. Their insight concerning sustainability in different cli-mates proved highly engaging. This grounding of sustainable ideas moved the paradigm along for the third speaker, Joan Krevlin from BKSK Architects. Klingman states, “We need concrete evidence that well intended architects can surmount the daunting challenges and complexities of sustainable de-sign. Having constructed the highly acclaimed Queens Botanical Garden without particular expertise in the building types or technical project details for sustainability, BKSK has created a stunning result.”

Issues and Case Studies in Sustainability have become more important to-day than ever before. As Architecture 2030 states, “buildings consume more energy than any other sector,” and with the amount of fossil fuel energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that buildings are responsible for polluting the environment and contributing to climate change, architec-ture needs to work to discover innovations in sustainable design and explore alternative options to available in this modern market.

14 theCharrette

Firm Profile |

Rianna Bennett

OMA

theCharrette14

15November 2010

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA, founded in 1975 by Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenhhelis, has quickly become one of the most influential firms in modern architecture and urbanism. This diverse firm, with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong, is composed of five part-ners and a staff of approximately 220 from more than 35 countries. OMA stresses the importance of the collaboration of architects, researchers, de-signers, model makers, industrial designers and graphic designers from the beginning of the design process.

Rem Koolhaas and OMA view architecture as being atomistic and seek to analyze existing circumstances and society in a given environment. For this reason, the firm depends heavily on the diagram to express their ideas. For OMA, virtually any type of information, especially economy and technology, has the possibility to become a theme or idea behind a project. Beginning with the widest collection of information, OMA utilizes a selection, reduction, and simplification process to narrow their focus and act as a beginning point to their explorations. Diagrams bridge the visual concept behind the particu-lar project to rational thought as it is read through images.

Some of OMA’s most well-known and recognized projects include the Se-attle Central Library and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin. The Seattle Central Library earned a national American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture. The goal of this project was to create a civic space that allows for a free flow of knowledge in all forms of media, organized in an innovative manner for the ever-growing collection of books. The vari-ous programmatic elements in this design are intuitively arranged across five platforms with four fluid planes intersecting the program to create the building’s logical and elegant form. Another of their most published proj-ects, the Netherlands Embassy, was the recipient of the 2005 Mies van der Rohe Award (the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture). The building is an incredibly disciplined cube form from the exterior with an equally disciplined circulation trajectory throughout the interior. The idea was inspired by the city of Berlin and offered differing ideas about how this complex and beautiful city should be rebuilt. With the understanding of the differing planning guidelines of East and West Berlin, OMA designed an Embassy from an obedient approach, filling the lock’s perimeter while still disobediently designing a clearly isolated cube.

This past year, current fourth year Rebecca Miller had the opportunity of working at OMA’s Rotterdam office in the business development depart-ment. Rebecca’s minor in business and her background in economics at the University of Chicago made her a perfect fit for the job. Her evident skill in graphic design shown in her portfolio played a pivotal role in initially getting noticed. This was crucial in acquiring the job where she utilized these skills daily during her stint at OMA. According to Rebecca, “In my [phone] interview I also talked about my leadership experiences with AIAS as Chapter President and South Quad Conference Coordinator, which prob-ably helped me stand out.”

Although she originally only planned to intern for four months, she enjoyed the work so much that she stayed for eight. For her, it was the perfect blend of both business and architecture. In addition to the amazing work experience, Rebecca was able to spend a lot of time getting to know the other interns from all over the world. At OMA, Rebecca designed and as-sembled tenders and booklets for clients and outlined incoming projects to be presented to the partners. She also helped with the acquisition of OMA’s most recent projects including the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, the Caen Library in France, the Chu Hai College in Hong Kong, and the Stadskantoor in Rotterdam. Rebecca says that “overall, it was an amazing experience from which I gained invaluable skills and knowledge. I would recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity.”

seattle central library exterior view (photo by fernando herrera)

(across) netherlands embassy in berlin side facade (cambridge2000.com)

netherlands embassy in berlinv back facade (cambridge2000.com)

kevin michniok, eichannah ambrosekatherine delaceyian o’cain

rianna bennettjohn nelsonsanaa shaikhlucas vellefrank xiong

andrew bermanGVSHP

editors staff contributorsc