Wednesday, October 21, 2009

OMA at Home in Rotterdam

The Kunsthal, the Cube of Cheese, the Triplet Towers, ever so slowly but steadily Rem Koolhaas has been putting his mark on his home-town. And now OMA, in partnership with ABT Engineers & Co and Werner Sobek is to build the multi-functional StadsKantoor or city-hall & center of Rotterdam.

According to Architectenweb the ANP announced that the People's choice had not been OMA's design but that of SeArch. But Contest Committee members apparently didn't like the prominent "green cones" (I think they resemble cocktail shakers) in that firm's design.

A soundless video on YouTube shows imagery related to the StadsKantoor (City Hall) design, and for a split second the viewer can also detect the three towers OMA is building in the harbor city of Rotterdam.

Does the structure of StadsKantoor remind me of Lego®?
Yes, it does, a Lego® Transformer. Look at those awesome legs that from a certain angle seem to support the whole floating body!

Promised to be the most sustainable building in the Netherlands the complex will catch rainwater, have elevated terraces and homes with gardens, and facades with sandwich panels and lightweight thermal insulators (nanogels).