OMA has developed a new masterplan for Columbia Circle, a historic site in the center of Shanghai. Columbia Circle is the first urban renewal project in the core area of Shanghai by the Chinese real estate developer Vanke, transforming a vacated 4.7 ha compound into a new part of the city with a publicly accessible mixed-use program.
Columbia Circle is a site with a rich and layered history, including both preserved colonial monuments and former industrial buildings. The original buildings of the Columbia Country Club, from which the project derives its name, were designed by American architect Elliott Hazzard during the grand epoch of Shanghai in the 1920s for the prewar American elite society and include the former clubhouse, a gym and an outdoor pool. Another historical building on the site is a villa designed by Hungarian architect László Hudec in 1930, owned by Sun Ke, the son of Sun Yat-sen. In 1952 the Shanghai Institute of Biological Products moved into the premises and gradually developed a research campus with production facilities, offices, warehouses and laboratories.
 
OMA’s renewal strategy combines the careful transformation of both the existing monuments and the industrial buildings with the introduction of three new buildings, which extend the repertoire of spaces and offer programmatic possibilities not available in the existing buildings. The site will include a diverse mix of offices for creative businesses, hotel, event space, cultural venues, retail spaces and restaurants distributed over the entire site, enlivening the pedestrian experience. Two new access points will improve the accessibility of Columbia Circle from the surrounding streets and connect the outdoor spaces designed by landscape architects West 8.
 
With Columbia Circle, OMA further expands its portfolio related to preservation projects and redevelopment of existing structures, which includes the regeneration of industrial site Largo Isarco for the establishment of cultural venue Fondazione Prada (Milan, 2015); the redevelopment of a Soviet canteen in Garage Gorky Park into Garage Center of Contemporary Art (Moscow, 2015); the renovation of Fondaco dei Tedeschi (Venice, 2016); and the redesign of former coal mine Zeche Zollverein (Essen, 2007) into a museum and visitors center. 
 
OMA’s approach to regeneration, respecting the multi-layered history and current character of the site, fits with the present-day preservation and redevelopment ambitions in China. After the recent completion of Shanghai Lujiazui Harbour City Exhibition Centre, Columbia Circle is OMA’s second project in Shanghai. OMA is collaborating with ECADI (LDI) and West 8 (landscape architect) on this project.

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Architects
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OMA
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Partner in Charge
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Chirs van Duijin
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Project Architect
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Mark Veldman
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Team
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Competition.- Mayssane El Barkani. Emile Estourgie. Danna Lei. Davide Masserini. Francesco Moncada. William Qian. Lukasz Skalec. Dongmei Yao. Ronald Yeung. Yushang Zhang. Zheng Zhou

Design Development.- MacAulay Brown. Kees van Casteren. Aleksandar Joksimovic. Cristina Martin de Juan. Lei Li. Emma Lubbers. Davide Masserini. Francesco Moncada. Maria Aller Rey. Silvia Sandor. Tjeerd van de Sandt. Jim Shi
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Collaborators
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Local Architect.- East China Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd
Landscape.- West 8
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Client
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China Vanke Co.
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Dates
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2016- ongoing
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

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Published on: April 3, 2017
Cite: "OMA Designing Masterplan for Columbia Circle in Shanghai " METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/oma-designing-masterplan-columbia-circle-shanghai> ISSN 1139-6415
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