For the Hamburg Hybrid Housing competition we propose a building that optimizes possibilities for its inhabitants and folds seamlessly into the existing urban fabric, a building that is simultaneously 100% public and 100% private. Situated along Reeperbahn, the building dips down to become a continuation of the existing street, creating a continuous public loop, a Sky Park, that encourages visitors to explore, rest and play along its path. Commercial programs and community spaces, sports facilities, cafes and childrens play spaces, engage the Sky Park along the walk and at the top the building provides restaurant space with ground level elevator access and a 360 degree view of Reeperbahn, Hafen City and Hamburg as a whole.

Stacked under the sky park towards the action filled Reeperbahn and Taubenstrasse, the university students and the hostel make up the majority of the apartments with single and one family apartments towards the top. Towards Kastanienallee the majority of the elderly apartments and larger family units enjoy the relative piece and quite of the existing residential neighborhood. Continuous interior stacked parking allow residents to drive straight in, up and park in front of their apartments while also connecting directly to sports and community programs such as cafes, basketball and tennis courts and kindergartens to name a few.

At its core, the Hamburg Sky Park is a mixed use exploratorium that offers private and secluded living areas while embracing its vibrant surroundings.

China has in recent years become the second largest producer and consumer of movies. With this as a starting point, the Bolong 3D Movie Museum and Mediatek is imagined as the cornerstone of a new media park in Tianjin.

The building design takes it inspiration from the clouds, emphasizing ideas of creativity and inspiration.

Each of the buildings programs is encapsulated in its own sphere, creating a series of unique spatial experiences as visitors move through the building. Entering the lobby, visitors are asked to explore the interior universe via series of different public paths, each offering its own unique way of exploring the building.

The Bolong 3D museum offers state of the art projection capabilities mixed with playful and engaging architectural design. The building will serve as the pivot point for the new Bolong Film Festival as well as house the James Cameron Avatar Experience Center.

The DQZ Culture Center sits on a site in a newly developed area of the city of Daqiuzhuang situated approximately 200 kilometres south of Beijing, China. A rural village in a desolated salty marshland only 30 years ago, Daqiuzhuang has rapidly grown from village to city due to its early investments in and production of the city’s main commodity: steel.

The DQZ Culture Center building occupies a redesigned plaza that mimics the historic marshland of the city in its tone and variety of plant life, combining landscape, trees, flexible water features, and gathering spaces into a new urban center with the DQZ Cultural Center at its core.

The building takes its form from the traditional Chinese courtyard square. By lifting the square in the diagonal corners, dual entry points to the building are created, leading visitors through the building’s ground level public programs to the mid- and upper-level exhibition spaces while extending the existing North-South axis of the surrounding city.

The buildings courtyard creates an interior landscape occupied by cherry trees and terraces. This area can be used as an outdoor venue for local theater and festival events. The central exhibition space of the building opens visually through glass facades to the courtyard connecting interior and exterior spaces.

The Eco City Binhai Master Plan is situated outside Tianjin in Northern China covering an area of 50 acres. The plan incorporates a new Central Business District (CBD) as well as five new cultural buildings, ranging from 15.000 M2 to 25.000 M2, including a Library, Planning Museum, Technology Exhibition Museum and a Sports & Cultural Center.

The proposed ‘finger plan’ mimics an open, outstretched, hand, creating an environment that directly integrates nature and living. This design allows the green areas to slide in-between each finger, inviting direct interaction throughout the day and night and creates five islands that house the cultural buildings. The direct access to the green surroundings makes the Eco City Master Plan distinctive and affords its future inhabitants a vibrant and healthy place to live, work and play.

The entire master plan sits on a raised plateau, allocating traffic and service to a lower level, establishing the new Eco City Master Plan as a green pedestrian oasis within the new Binhai area development. In this way, each of the new cultural buildings are closely connected to the new Central Business District below the raised plateau, sharing both loading and parking areas.

As part of the design strategy, both the CBD and the cultural buildings are all designed to minimize energy use and incorporate ideas of passive building design, utilizes solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling. These strategies allow for the overall master plan to achieve near zero CO2 impact on the environment.

The Dongjiang Master Plan site is situated within the new Binhai Harbour area, 60 kilometres outside of the city of Tianjin in Northern China on a newly developed section of the coastline. The Dongjiang Master Plan aims to develop a new, high density, housing typology that emulates the natural surroundings of the site.

The dune-shaped residential development is designed to maximize sunlight and views, assuring that each apartment receives a minimum of two hours of direct sunlight daily and take full advantage of natural ventilation. The western edge of the site provides vehicular access with drop off as well as access to below-ground parking areas freeing up the interior of the site to pedestrians, while the northern part of the site is developed as a mixed-use office and retail development.

The design evolves around the prime beach location with a central pedestrian boardwalk that services both the low and mid rise residential housing blocks. The central boardwalk runs parallel to the beach, creating views of the water while taking the visitor through areas of gardens and retail within the new development.

Location: Montreal, Canada.
Program: Housing, Conference Center, Restaurant, Government, Concerthall, Parking.
Type: Invited Competition.
Size: 68,000 M2 / 740,000 SF.
Client: Montreal Municipality.

Following the auto industries bust and a steady population decrease of Detroit downtown, Detroit city center has been left virtually deserted. The Detroit Mixed Use complex seeks to infuse vitality and life into the downtown area.

By integrating a diverse programmatic mix including public space, retail, office space and residential units.

To maximize views and access while maintaining a sense of neighborhood, 3 towers occupy the site in close proximity. Each tower leans to provide views for the residential units while maintaining a tight ground floor footprint, ideal for retail and public program. Each tower offers a range of residential units varying from 800sf to 2000sf with at least 2 sides of un obstructed views. Lower levels provide parking for both residential and retail areas.

With the predicted doubling of the number of Hajj pilgrims from 2 to 4.5 Million in 2050, Makkah is today facing a challenge like no other city. This competition’s aim is threefold: first, to create a new interior highway and public transportation system; second, to allow development along both sides of this highway and lastly to render the entire development as a grand urban boulevard, which will function as a new “gateway” to Makkah.

By separating the highway from the development, the scheme creates the best of both worlds, a functional expressway as well as a separate “pedestrian highway”: a continuous, shaded walk along the entire length. The experience is punctuated by three public transit stations that act as transfers between private to public transportation as well as social, environmental and cultural condensers. The International Tower, Water Station and Collective Center each give the new MWG a charged new contemporary urban identity.

The WTC proposal proposes an inversion of the typical skyscraper form: the building would grow wider at the top, giving extra space to the more desirable and expensive upper floors.

Struts between each ‘leg’ of the building and its neighbors would serve the dual purpose of connecting them and supporting the lower, thinner and less sturdy floors.

Designed for 24-hour use, the building would contains housing, apartments, hotel rooms and retail and cultural space; the roof would be a green area accesible by all to creating unobstructed views ober the Manhattan Island.

The Tianjin Hotel project is located in the center of Tianjin in Northern China. The building design incorporates the traditional hotel amenities such as conference rooms, restaurants and fitness areas with a state of the art  exhibition center showcasing local and global artists.

The hotel lobby functions both as check in for the hotel itself as well as a changing gallery space which offers opportunities to integrate exhibitions, creating a continuously changing lobby environment.

The hotel has a total of 250 rooms including single and double rooms as well as suites with fireplaces. The hotel experience is designed as an extension of the travellers living room incorporating ideas of art, libraries and lunge areas into both the public areas as well as the private rooms.

The hotel amenities  includes garden areas and a roof top pool as well as private terraces for events and celebrations, offering inviting settings for guests and visitors alike.

The Domino Sugar Factory is situated on the East River waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Now abandoned, the original factory dates back to 1856 and was once the epicenter of sugar processing in the US. Since closing in 2004, the site and its buildings have stood empty. Based on models like the Tate Modern and the 798 Art District in Beijing, the proposal for the Domino Culture Factory seeks to promote the adaptive reuse of the existing factory buildings creating a new cultural destination that combines public and private programming.

Divided into two general zones the project encompasses a green energy technology center, educational, community and hotel-driven programming to the south with publicly accessible private museum space, exhibition and gallery space to the north.

The entire site is accessible to the public; buildings are linked together by large green areas and a new waterfront boardwalk and sculpture park. A marina along with a planned ferry stop emphasizes the site’s unique waterfront location and creates the first of a series of planned ferry stops that link together a variety of outer borough cultural destinations.

The buildings are retrofitted with a combination of publicly accessible green roofs and photo voltaic roof panels, which, along with geothermal heating and cooling and the use of wind and wave energy, will help the site achieve a greatly reduced carbon footprint. Once complete, the new Domino Culture Factory will offer approximately 700,000 sf of publicly accessible private museum spaces along with a public promenade, outdoor sculpture areas, educational spaces, and affordable housing.

Location: Tianjin, China.
Type: Invited Competition.
Size: 100,000 M2 / 1 Mill. SF.
Client: Development Comity of Binhai.
Program: Hotel, Residential, Restaurant, Bar, Spa, Conference Room.
Status: Pending.

The proposal for the new National Maritime Museum is situated in Northern China, outside the city of Tianjin. The museum is designed to house both new and old maritime items with a focus on celebrating the historical achievements of Chinese naval exploration through out time.

The National Maritime Museum combines all aspects of the maritime world, from aquarium to sailing to education, combining a series of unique visitor experiences under one roof. The building takes full advantage of the adjacent lake by pulling in and creating a raised exterior marina exhibition that showcase new and old maritime vessels alike.

The building design evolves around the idea of the “Big Sail”, implementing a large, inhabitable, roof that unites all the museum program while creating large undulating skylights and opening up towards the lake that sits directly to the North of the site. The “Big Sail” covers the main exhibition program of the museum, which sits as a collection of wooden exhibition volumes underneath mimicking the look building style of old fishing villages around the world.

Each of the exhibition volumes are linked by an internal path that ensures a well-defined and fully narrated museum experience for visitors, interspersed with views of the surrounding lake and marina. The flexible exhibition areas and new aquarium space is situated below the central interior reflecting pool.

Location: Los Angeles, US.
Type: Competition with OMA Rotterdam. Winner, 1st Prize.
Size: 38,000 M2 / 409,000 SF.
Program: Exhibition Space, Screening Room, Office, Library, Shop, Restaurant.
Client: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The LACMA complex is reconceived as a system of horizontal layers, with exhibition spaces stacked above an open-air plaza. The notions of transparency and uplift, essential to a true understanding of LACMA’s mission, are made manifest in the translucent roof that spans the entire museum floor.

LACMA’s current proliferation across its site is a microcosm of Los Angeles: distributed rather than focused, it inhibits the full unfolding of its potential, both as a museum and as a site. This configuration resists critical mass and inhibits the clarity of its collections. Our proposal consolidates the collections into a whole, instead of a series of pavilions. It focuses spending on the reinvention of LACMA’s image rather than renovation of uninspired buildings. It creates the opportunity for multiple paths, manifold interpretations and cross-curatorial exhibits within a single entity.

We discovered that a consolidated LACMA could perform more efficiently, spend less money on renovation, open up more of the park to the city and create a sense of coherence and the much-needed presence that this museum has lacked for decades.

Location: North America.
Program: Energy Planning.
Type: Buckminster Fuller Competition.
Size: North American Continent.

The UNA proposal looks at the border areas between Mexico, the United States and Canada as shared zones of electrifying potential. The border between Mexico and the United States runs through some of the sunniest land on the planet while the border between the United States and Canada runs through some of the windiest areas in North America. Both of these areas have some of the lowest population levels in North America, rendering vast areas of land available.

By implementing knowledge from existing solar power plants operating in the Mojave Desert and from wind farms operating globally, we are faced with a unique opportunity. By setting aside a 20-mile zone along the borders of Mexico, the United States and Canada, sufficient land with immense energy potential would be available to generate enough clean electricity to completely offset the electricity needs of all three countries combined.

Welcome to UNA – United North America.

Location: Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York.
Size: 23,000 M2 / 250,000 SF.
Program: Exhibition, Restaurant, Gallery, Event Space.
Client: National Endowment of the Arts.
Budget: $200 Million.
Status: Initiated 2009, Expected Completion 2017.
Collaborators: Diller & Scofidio + Renfro, Rockwellgroup.

The Culture Shed is the cultural anchor of the Hudson Yards development, connecting two public parks: the High Line Park to the south and Hudson Park to the north. Forging an alliance between the arts and commerce the Culture Shed represents a new arts model: independent and financially self- sustainable. Characterized by a dynamic architecture that physically transforms and expands in size, the Culture Shed can uniquely support a large variety of cultural public programs and income- generating events.

The Culture Shed is designed as a five-story base building with museum-quality exhibition spaces and two telescoping outer shells that accommodate a range of programming. When the outer shells are deployed they provide an expanded, multifunctional, space that can accommodate large art exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, and galas. While modest in its nested state, the fully deployed culture shed will be a 21st century Crystal Palace—a tall, structurally expressive, light-filled civic icon that expresses its dynamically changing program.

Location: Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York.
Program: Amusement Park, Housing, Hotel, Retail and Public Park
Type: Commission
Size: 25 HA / 100.000 M2
Client: Coney Island Economic Development Committee, NYC Department of City Planning
Status: Commenced September 2007.

For decades Coney Island has been falling into decay, with a lack of investment in the area and no new attractions to supplement the core of Coney Islands entertainment area. The Coney Island Masterplan project creates and outline for the future development of Coney Island.

The new master plan seeks to re invigorate Coney Island as a whole by expanding the area of public park land and integrating a broad mix of new opportunities. The plan integrates a variety of programs to create a financially viable mix of entertainment, public park and private development while maintaining the existing urban fabric of Coney Island.

In addition to the architectural intervention, a new Calendar of Events was created for the area. Extensive research was done into which new activities would help invigorate the new master plan framework throughout the year

The plan was presented on November 9th 2007 by Major Bloomberg and implementation has begun. The project is currently in the re-zoning stage.

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA.
Program: Offices, Health Club, Screening Rooms, Meeting Rooms, Parking.
Type: Invited Proposal, With OMA.
Size: 60,000 M2 / 650,000 SF.
Client: Universal Studios

Location: Marseille, France.
Program: Exhibition, Conference, Restaurant, Recreational Areas, Retail.
Type: Invited Competition With OMA New York.
Client: Museum For Mediterranean and European Civilizations, Marseille, France.
Collaborators: MOA/Julien Monforte Architects.

MUCEM is a competition entry for a museum of ‘Mediterranean and European Civilizations’ on an unpopulated pier next to one of Marseille’s most important landmarks, the Fort Saint Jean. It is a unique combination of a tabula rasa and a historically loaded site, an opportunity to create a building that thinks globally and acts locally – a museum which embraces new concepts but which breathes and lives in the timeless air of the Mediterranean climate.

The program described a kind of “museum machine” a series of completely flexible and interchangeable galleries, expressed as modules. The contents of the permanent collection were kept secret so as not to tempt the competitors with individuality. The museum was to be placed on both the pier and the fort.

Our project takes the relationship between the Mole and the Fort as its central urban theme. In order to create a context for the new building and to populate the void of the pier, we shifted the entire Museum program to the new building, making the Fort a new public park for the city. The building becomes an urban locus; the Fort becomes more bucolic counterpart.

The building itself extends the modular program of the galleries to the entire building, creating six towers with the same footprint – each attuned to a specific part of the program: permanent collection, temporary exhibition, lobby, library, offices, and conference and education center. The towers are joined back to back by a zone of services and circulation. In the other direction two ‘streets’ are created: one internal to the building connects all of the galleries, the other provides a public path through the building from the Fort to the pier.