Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Hard Hatted Joshua Prince-Ramus

OMA is all over the map. At the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Joshua Prince-Ramus leads the team that's working on the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology, while Los Angeles based Gruen Associates provides executive architecture services.

"We are delighted to have a design partner of the highest caliber in OMA. The combined intellect of Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus will help us realize the full potential of the physical vision for IST," said David Baltimore, president of Caltech. "I am confident that they will design a building that will encourage the effective exchange of ideas across academic disciplines."

Peter Schroder, professor of computer science and chairman of the Annenberg Center building committee noted, "OMA's approach to the design of a building is as exacting and thorough as our approach to science and engineering. We have a real meeting of the minds."

Gruen Associates also has numerous well-known buildings to its credit, including such Los Angeles-area projects as the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Convention Center renovation, and the Pacific Design Center.

Caltech will be represented on the project by Bonnie Khang-Keating, the Institute's head architect and director of the architecture and engineering department on campus.

The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology will serve as the interdisciplinary home for IST at Caltech. IST brings together people from different academic backgrounds to work on challenging problems that share a common theme of information. It is the first activity of its kind in the nation organized at an institutional level.

Rem Koolhaas returns to Alma Mater

OMA has signed with Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. to design the new Millstein Hall.

The new building will be used by the College of Architecture, Art and Planning and will accommodate classrooms, studios and office spaces for each of the College's departments. The building will also offer a major lecture hall, as well as a boardroom.

OMA's design will enable integration with an already existing building, which in previous design concepts had been earmarked for demolition. The project budget is estimated at US $34 million and groundbreaking will start in 2007.

Joshua Prince-Ramus, OMA partner and head of the firm's New York office, will lead the design team, together with Rem Koolhaas, who is a 1972 AA graduate, and one of the department's visiting lecturers since 2005.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

AMO & Platform 21

AMO, OMA's research office for architecture and new markets is involved with concept consulting for Platform 21


Quote:

"Platform 21 is a new stage for design, fashion and creation.
As our name implies, Platform 21's focus is on contemporary issues and topics that will be of relevance in the future. We aim to create dynamic spaces for a variety of projects and activities that question and give insight into how the world is shaped around us.

The domain of creation is - at least to us - not something professionals have a monopoly on. We are interested in creative developments in fashion and design, including amateur initiatives. Platform 21 functions as an international meeting point, real and virtual, where seemingly disparate groups can inspire and strengthen each other: a network for people curious to explore our new century.

We are starting in a temporary home: a beautiful round chapel in the Zuidas district of southern Amsterdam. During this initial period, we look forward to experimenting with different ways of exhibiting design and fashion, showing the process of creation, and allowing interested designers and companies to share and test their latest projects.

www.platform21.com is another stage where we can show, tease, inform, question and play. It will develop into a 'little brother' or 'big sister' of Platform 21's real space, depending on the traffic it attracts.

In 2009, Platform 21 will move to a new 5,000m2 building near our present location. What this building will look like, how it will function, and who is going to design it are questions that have yet to be answered.

The Platform 21 concept will be developed further with the help of our founders, ING Real Estate, Premsela - Dutch Design Foundation and the Amsterdam City Council.

In the meantime, we hope to welcome you as a visitor, a contributor or a critic, online and our new site."