Program diagram architecture oma software#

One year later, in the 'Laboratory of 1989' in OMA's Rotterdam studio, things would explode, with the office working simultaneously on three competitions - Très Grande Bibliothèque (TGB) in Paris, Zeebrugge Sea Terminal in Belgium, and Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany - whose designs Holger Schurk collectively describes as 'Project Without Form' in his new book of the same name.īased on his dissertation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna that was undertaken between 20, Project Without Form was published in German, as Projekt ohne Form, in 2020 and then released two years later in English. The fragmented nature of the high-rise and the Constructivist design of the companion bridge no doubt made Koolhaas and OMA a fitting addition to the exhibition in the eyes of the curators, who linked the philosophy of Deconstruction with Russian Constructivism. The single project by Koolhaas and OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture included in the exhibition and catalog was Boompjes, a slab-like high-rise for Rotterdam that was commissioned in 1980 but remained unbuilt (the later De Rotterdam, built in 2013, can be seen as a 21st-century version of that earlier project). The introduction of compartmentalized uncertainty, for which flexibility is required, tries to actively engage and manage in physical space the unpredictable change announced by the digital paradigm.Rem Koolhaas was one of seven architects gathered by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley for the influential and somewhat infamous Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition on view at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in the summer of 1988. Since the future of technology and its impact on the library typology is unclear, uncertainty was equated from the beginning in the design.

Thus, areas where there is a high level of certainty of their evolution are specifically designed and enclosed in the floating boxes (represented by the larger and darker words), while other possibly more volatile functions are accommodated on their rooftops (represented by the smaller and lighter words). The second level of information is suggested by the binary system of size and colors of the words that populate the diagram specifically establishing the distinction between areas of compartmentalized flexibility. The more self-evident reading relates to the oddly serpentine form of the entire building, generated by the dislocation of the horizontal platforms from the building’s ground footprint. This conceptual tool has various levels of information, not all of which are immediately apparent. This depiction of the library is comprised by a diagrammatic orthogonal cross-section and several differently expressed words reflecting the program, function and elements of the distinct levels of the building. How the program-to-square-footage was formulated is a mystery. The underlying peculiarity is that the chart gives its programs which, as sets of processes, are not themselves material, a materiality by assigning them square footage. Clearly this is what OMA intends: they have optimized the hard drive that is the Library.

Program diagram architecture oma software#

The transformation of the original bar of colors, put together by the library’s staff, to OMA’s “program reshuffled” chart very closely resembles the visual feedback of computer disc utility software defragmenting a hard drive. It is not the linear processes themselves that are depicted but their (database) classification. Again this reveals a database aesthetic rather than a narrative aesthetic - the chart is vertical, not horizontal, not linear, but hierarchical. The metaphor extends to the separation and containment of like programs in five different platforms with “trading floor” areas in between.

As groups of functionality and processes, they are very much like computer programs. This is the visual slight-of-hand that transposes material books into a “program.” Other programs are: operations, parking, hq, reading, attraction, living room. This visualization of the library’s “programs” is the heart of the Library’s design, as confirmed by Joshua Prince-Ramus.