The buildings in the city's Hagastaden district will contain apartments, with a bar and exhibition space occupying the upper floors of one tower, and public facilities including a health club, library and shops on the ground floors.

Projecting living spaces cascade down the exterior of the buildings, creating a series of sheltered balconies.

"The informal appearance of the towers will express domesticity, perhaps even humanism," explains OMA partner Reinier de Graaf.

OMA will work with developer Oscar Properties to construct the 100-metre towers, which will be the third tallest twin skyscrapers in Sweden.

Images are copyright OMA unless stated otherwise. Top image is copyright OMA - bloomimages.

Last week, a design by OMA for a bridge incorporating space for events and a pedestrian boulevard made the final two of a competition in Bordeaux, while Swedish architects Belatchew Arkitekter have proposed covering a skyscraper in Stockholm in plastic bristles that would generate electricity through wind power.

See all projects by OMA »
See all stories about skyscrapers »

Here's some more information from OMA:

OMA has won the design competition for Tors Torn in Stockholm. The project, led by OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf and OMA Associate Alex de Jong, and designed as the third tallest twin skyscrapers in Sweden, was selected from entries by four competing practices.

With each of the towers a crescendo composition of different heights, the mixed-use project is an interpretation of existing urban guidelines which call for a gateway to the new Hagastaden area of Stockholm. OMA's design proposes the introduction of a "rough skin" formed through a striking, alternating pattern of protruding living spaces and introverted outdoor spaces.

Reinier de Graaf commented: "We are delighted to have won the competition and - together with Oscar Properties - to build the Tors Torn residential towers. The 100 meter high towers define the new neighborhood Hagastaden as an integral part of the growing city center of Stockholm. The informal appearance of the towers will express domesticity, perhaps even humanism."

OMA's design challenges the expected uniformity and homogenous facade treatment that is often assigned to tower structures. Instead, it extends the skin to expose the individuality of the separate living units in the two blocks - a true vertical, urban agglomeration.

In addition to private residential apartments, Tors Torn will also contain a diverse public program for the wider community of Hagastaden, an ongoing urban development project aiming to extend the downtown area of Stockholm. A bar and exhibition space will occupy the upper floors of one tower, with the ground floors of both towers accommodating a health club, library, children's center and retail areas.

The project is scheduled to break ground in 2015.

The post OMA wins competition for twin
skyscrapers in Stockholm appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a proposal by Rem Koolhaas' firm OMA for a bridge that could accommodate different types of traffic as well as pedestrians and events has been selected by local authorities in Bordeaux, France, as one of two final competing designs.

The proposed design aims to "rethink the civic function and symbolism of a twenty-first century bridge" by creating a platform traversing the river Garonne that could be used by cars, trams, buses, bicycles and pedestrians.

A wide boulevard with a gentle gradient would make the bridge easy to walk across and allow it to be used to host events.

OMA project leader Clement Blanchet said the studio wanted to "provide the simplest expression – the least technical, least lyrical, an almost primitive structural solution. This simplicity allowed us to create a generous platform for pedestrians and public programs, as well as flexibility in accommodating the future needs of various types of traffic."

Either OMA or French firm Dietmar Feichtinger will be awarded the project in December this year, with completion scheduled for 2018.

Yesterday, Thomas Heatherwick unveiled a design for a pedestrian bridge housing a garden to span the River Thames in London.

OMA is up against Danish firm BIG in a competition to redevelop the site of a convention centre in Miami.

In a movie filmed in Milan as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour, journalist Justin McGuirk described OMA's Tools for Life collection of furniture as a nostalgic statement about the decline of industry in the city.

See all stories about OMA »
See all stories about bridges »

Images copyright OMA unless otherwise stated.

Here's some more information from OMA:

OMA leads the final round for Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc international competition in Bordeaux

OMA's design for a new bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux has been selected as one of two final competing projects by the city authorities. OMA's stripped-down design for the Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc attempts to rethink the civic function and symbolism of a 21st century bridge.

Clement Blanchet, leading the project for OMA with Rem Koolhaas said: "The bridge itself is not the 'event' in the city, but a platform that can accommodate all the events of the city. We wanted to provide the simplest expression – the least technical, least lyrical, an almost primitive structural solution. This simplicity allowed us to create a generous platform for pedestrians and public programs, as well as flexibility in accommodating the future needs of various types of traffic."

Vincent Feltesse, president of Urban Community of Bordeaux made the decision with the deliberation of a jury of 40 people, announcing that the municipality wanted something "bold."

Beyond traditional fascinations with style and technical performance, OMA tried to design a 21st century bridge that exploits state-of-the-art techniques in order to create a contemporary boulevard. A platform 44 metres wide and 545 metres long is stretched beyond the water on either side, creating a seamless connection with the land. The bridge slopes gently, allowing an easy promenade while still giving necessary clearance for boats underneath. Each type of traffic – cars, RBD (tram/bus), bicycles – has its own lane, and is designed to meet changing vehicular needs. By far the largest strip is devoted to pedestrians.

The bridge is designed to cohere with the adjacent St. John Belcier urban redevelopment project. It also attempts to unify the different conditions of the two banks of the Garonne: from the Right Bank, strictly aligned on a poplar-lined meadow, to the urban landscape of the Left Bank, it aims solve the dual challenge of aura and performance in an environment steeped in history.

A final decision between designs by OMA and Dietmar Feichtinger will be made in December this year, with the bridge scheduled for completion in 2018.

The project is developed in collaboration with engineers WSP, the landscape architect Michel Desvigne, as well as the consultant EGIS and light design agency Lumières Studio.

The post OMA proposes bridge with pedestrian
boulevard for Bordeaux appeared first on Dezeen.

The MINI Paceman Garage hosted a week-long series of workshops in which students were tasked with coming up with a new product or identity for MINI and pitching it to the car brand.

"The MINI community spreads into the design community, and that's why we do these workshops with young students," Warming says. "Sometimes one very straight thought, especially from a younger generation, actually helps nail things and makes them very simple and honest."

Warming led the first workshop himself. "It's not just a one-way street, where I might be teaching about how to do design," he says. "It's my view on design and what [the students] spontaneously think of that."

The guest in our Dezeen and MINI World Tour Studio is Justin McGuirk, architecture and design journalist and director of Strelka Press. "The most interesting thing I've seen is the OMA furniture for Knoll," he says of this year's fair.

But McGuirk doesn't believe the Tools for Life collection, which includes a motorised table and chair that rise and fall at the press of large red buttons, are meant to be practical pieces of furniture.

"If you look at the way that Knoll is presenting this furniture it's the standard spiel about adaptable, ergonomic furniture," he says. "But it's got nothing to do with that. The whole thing is just a performance and I think it is deeply nostalgic for industry."

"It's an interesting time to launch a product like that," he continues. "Here we are in Milan where the city's industry and the country's industry is visibly in decline - it's almost this message that industry is dead, so now we can turn it into luxury. But also, it turns industry into a fetish."

Another piece in the Tools for Life collection is a counter made of three swivelling stacked blocks. McGuirk says: "It's one of those classic designs that purports to solve all of these different problems, but actually solves none of them. So it's actually completely useless."

"It comes clearly from an architecture studio, and one that's not overly concerned with form as well."

See all our stories about Milan 2013.

The music featured in this movie is a track called Konika by Italian disco DJ Daniele Baldelli, who played a set at the MINI Paceman Garage. You can listen to more music by Baldelli on Dezeen Music Project.

The post OMA's furniture collection for Knoll
"turns industry into a fetish" appeared first on Dezeen.

Scheduled for completion in early 2017, the 27,000-square-metre Bryghusprojektet is a mixed-use development on the site of an old brewery, which will include residential units, community spaces and a playground.

In the middle of the development will be the new offices for the Danish Architecture Centre, an organisation set up to spread knowledge about architecture and the built environment.

The centre will be surrounded by its own subjects of study and research, explains Ellen van Loon, who is OMA's partner-in-charge on the project along with the firm's co-founder Rem Koolhaas.

"Instead of stacking a mixed-use programme in a traditional way, we positioned the Danish Architecture Centre in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking," said van Loon.

The centre will include exhibition areas, research facilities, conference rooms, an auditorium, a bookshop and a cafe.

OMA's design for Bryghusprojektet, which is being funded by the philanthropic Realdania Foundation, was first revealed in 2006.

The Dutch firm is currently going head to head with Danish firm BIG in a competition to transform a convention centre in Miami, USA, while work is nearly complete on the OMA's Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China – see all architecture by OMA.

Images are courtesy of OMA.

Here's some more information from OMA:

The Bryghusgrunden Project is located on the harbor on the site of an old brewery, the Bryghusgrunden, one of the few remaining areas with the potential to link the city to the waterfront. The building itself will straddle the busy Christians Brygge ring road, creating new urban connections for pedestrians and cyclists between the waterfront and Denmark’s houses of government.

Construction begins today on the OMA-designed Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 27,000 sq m mixed-use project will accommodate a new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC). The building will act as the missing link between the city centre, the historic waterfront and the culturally rich Slotsholmen district of Copenhagen.

OMA partner-in-charge Ellen van Loon explained: "Instead of stacking a mixed-use programme in a traditional way, we positioned the DAC in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking. The urban routes reach into the heart of the building and create a broad range of interactions between the different programme parts and the urban environment."

Situated among landmarks in the history of Danish architecture, Bryghusprojektet shares with the indigenous modernism tenets of simplicity, monumentality and urbanity. The site is bound by a cluster of historic monuments, including the Christiansborg Palace and the Old Brewery, whilst sharing the riverside with many other bold, contemporary interventions.

To capitalise on the site's potential, the building is an 'urban motor' to actively link the city and the waterfront. Providing a connection under the busy Christians Brygge, where entrances to the different program elements are strategically located, the site becomes both a destination and a connector at the hinge of the waterfront and the 'entrance' to the city.

The post Construction begins on OMA's
Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen appeared first on Dezeen.

Both Rem Koolhaas' firm and rivals BIG are presenting their proposals to the Miami Beach City Commission today.

OMA is working alongside property developers Tishman and UIA, architects TVSdesign and landscape architects MVVA and Raymond Jungles, who together form a team called South Beach ACE.

"The convention centre site is a total aberration in the urban fabric of the city," says Dan Tishman, chairman of Tishman, in the movie (above). "It just doesn't live up to the standards of Miami."

The team's vision includes building an 800-room hotel on top of the existing convention centre, which is the location for the annual Art Basel - Miami Beach and Design Miami trade fairs.

The convention centre would also be expanded and reorganised, rotating it 90 degrees and placing its main entrance to the south, where it would face a row of new and old buildings, including the renovated Jackie Gleason Theater.

To the north would be a network of shaded green spaces and a large grassy hill covering a loading area for trucks and a parking garage.

Other OMA projects we've reported on lately include the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which is due to complete next month in the Chinese city, and a masterplan for a new urban development south of Bordeaux, France – see all architecture by OMA.

Rival shortlisted firm BIG has also unveiled plans for two twisted apartment blocks in Coconut Grove, Miami, while architect John Pawson recently designed 26 luxury apartments for Miami Beach – see all projects in Miami.

Here's some more information from South Beach ACE:

Sitting on 52 acres within the vibrant and unique community that is Miami Beach, an outdated convention centre acts as an urban blockade – inactive when conventions are not in town, disruptive to adjoining neighborhoods and inhibiting connections to Lincoln Road and surrounding communities. Our masterplan resolves each of these issues through a series of ingenious yet simple moves:

» We conceptually rotate the convention center, reorienting the site to allow for east-west neighbourhood connectivity and a southerly orientation for both convention centre and hotel guests

» We concentrate the density at the centre of the site and make the revamped convention centre and its meeting and ballroom space contiguous with the hotel – a feature that meeting planners love

» We reimagine the area's existing assets: the Jackie Gleason Theater, the Carl Fisher Clubhouse, City Hall, the 17th Street Garage and 17th Street itself are all maintained and transformed to better engage their surroundings while keeping the character of Miami Beach

» We fill the rest of the site with public amenities and programmed uses appropriate to activate the space 7 days a week, 365 days a year

In short, our plan upgrades the convention centre into a best-in-class facility and weaves the entire convention centre site into the fabric of Miami Beach. It will feel both new and like it was always there.

The post Miami Beach Convention Center
by OMA appeared first on Dezeen.