OMA, finalist in Axel Springer competition
19/12/2013.
Competition [BER] Germany
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Multimedia group Axel Springer announced that OMA, BIG and Buro-OS are the three finalists in the competition to design their new Media Center headquarters in Berlin. Final rankings are expected next month.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
OMA's proposal for the new Axel Springer Media Center. Image courtesy OMA.
As one of three practices, OMA is entering the final stage of the competition. The winner is due to be announced in the new year following a series of public consultations. All winning entries are publicly displayed in the "A call for ideas - the new Axel Springer Campus in Berlin" exhibition at the Deutsche Architektur Zentrum (DAZ).
Project description by OMA.-
Springer has launched a corporate move from "print" to "digital media" - in which our building will act both as a symbol and a tool; a palace to lure the elite of (Germany's) digital Bohemia to its compound in Berlin.
The genius of print is that it is a cheap, physical, hyper-accessible embodiment of a complex collective effort, for which so far the digital has been unable to find an equivalent. Architectural offices are similar to newspapers in that they produce complex assemblies and selections from radically different sources of information.
As architects, we have experienced the advantages: speed, precision, smoothness. But we have also suffered one crucial consequence: the relationship between the worker and his computer, which isolates him in a bubble of introverted performance, inaccessible to collective overview.
In the classical newsroom, dominated by smoking, typing journalists, each inhabitant was aware of the labour and progress of his colleagues and of the collective aim: a single issue, with the deadline as a simultaneous release. In the digital office, staring intently at a screen dampens all other forms of attention and therefore undermines the collective intelligence necessary for true innovation.
We therefore propose a building that lavishly broadcasts the work of individuals for shared analysis. The new office block is injected with a central atrium that opens up to the existing Springer buildings - a new center of the Springer campus.
The essence of our proposal is a series of terraced floors that together form a digital valley. Each floor contains a covered part as a traditional work environment, which is then uncovered on the terraces. Halfway through the building, the valley is mirrored to generate a three dimensional canopy.
The public can experience the building on three levels - ground floor lobby, meeting bridge, and roof-top bar. The meeting bridge is a viewing platform from which the visitors can witness the daily functioning of the company and how it evolves.
The common space formed by the interconnected terraces offers an alternative to the formal office space in the solid part of the building, allowing for an unprecedented expansion of the vocabulary of workspaces: a building that can absorb all the question marks of the digital future.
More information
OMA. Office for Metropolitan Architecture
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.
