Archinect - News

New Jersey defunds OMA's planned Centre Pompidou x Jersey City project over high costs

2024-07-31T12:18:00-04:00

The unlikely pairing of the Centre Pompidou and the state of New Jersey that would have seen OMA remake the historic Pathside Building in Jersey City into its first American satellite appears to be over after officials determined the project to be "no longer viable" financially.

"Due to the ongoing impact of COVID and multiple global conflicts on the supply chain, rising costs, an irreconcilable operating gap, and the corresponding financial burdens it will create for New Jersey’s taxpayers, the Legislature has rescinded financial support, leaving us to determine that this project is unfortunately no longer feasible," the letter from NJ Economic Development Authority chief Tim Sullivan to Centre Pompidou president Laurent Le Bon reads. Artnet has more on the unfolding funding debacle, which centers around a question about the satellite's operational costs.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris is currently undergoing a $280.5 million overhaul led by Moreau Kusunoki with associate designer F...

OMA's LANTERN renovation opens at the Little Village in Detroit

2024-05-20T13:22:00-04:00

Work on the OMA-led new LANTERN project has been completed in Detroit’s Little Village neighborhood.

The block-sized 22,300-square-foot complex serves as a new home for two local arts non-profits. Signal-Return, designed by Detroit-based M1DTW, and PASC (Progressive Arts Studio Collective) will occupy LANTERN's roughly 5,300-square-foot artist studios, art gallery, and 4,000-square-foot "creative retail" in the site's former North Building.

Photo by John D’Angelo

Photo by Jason Keen

Led by Partner Jason Long, the design is centered around a 2,000-square-foot open outdoor community space lined by galleries. The project's brief called for repurposing a former commercial bakery and warehouse that had fallen into complete disrepair. Now, looking to create a Dia:Beacon or Bergamont Station-like cultural gateway to the East Side neighborhood, OMA's team reinvigorated the structure with spaces for art production, exhibition, and community interface.

Photo by Jason Keen

A ...

OMA breaks ground on The Perigon Miami Beach

2024-04-22T12:28:00-04:00

OMA has broken ground on its new Miami Beach development called The Perigon. The project from partner Jason Long at 5333 Collins Avenue will reach a height of 17 floors when it first opens to residents in late 2026.

A total of 73 one- and two-bedroom residences are included, oriented around creating ocean vistas and including about 20,000 square feet of amenities spaces highlighted by a speakeasy and the latest restaurant concept from celebrity chef Shaun Hergatt.

Image credit: The Boundary

A double-height entry lobby welcomes residents to the building’s other features, including a conservatory space, film screening room, beach club, and 82-foot swimming pool. The building is conceived as a series of small rotated “towers.” The vistas are referencing European Riviera-style resort designs, reflected again in interiors designed by Tara Bernerd & Partners.

Image credit: The Boundary

Viewed from the outside, its singular form is define...

OMA completes stepped Greenpoint Landing towers in Brooklyn

2022-12-08T11:36:00-05:00

Construction has been completed on OMA’s Eagle + West towers along the Brooklyn waterfront. Designed in collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle, the towers represent OMA’s first high-rise scheme in New York.

The 600,000-square-foot development comprises two towers and a seven-story building, holding a total of 745 residential units. The two towers lean into and away from each other, with expanding and contracting forms determined by an attempt to maximize internal efficiency. While the forty-story tower widens as it rises in order to maximize views, the thirty-story tower widens towards the ground to face the waterfront.

Image credit: Jason O'Rear

The stepped massing of the towers sees the form broken into seven-to-eight-story blocks, reflecting the scale of neighboring buildings, according to the architects. The subdivision is further expressed on the façade itself, where a grid of precast concrete panels is carved by angled planes alternating in orientatio...

OMA unveils design for tiered residential tower in Miami Beach

2022-05-13T13:56:00-04:00

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has unveiled the design for a 17-story, 408,000-square-foot residential tower in Miami’s Mid Beach neighborhood.

The Perigon, located at 5333 Collins Avenue, will sit at the center of a rare section of Miami Beach that spans from the small village of Indian Creek to the Atlantic Ocean. Its unique position allows for dual-waterfront living. The project is being led by OMA Partner Jason Long.

Image Copyright OMA and Binyan Studios

The structure has been designed as a series of “towers” rotated to orient views away from neighbors and towards the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. The towers are merged and lifted 45 feet above the flood line into a singular volume. This allows for panoramic views across each floor and opens up space on the ground level.

“Miami Beach combines natural beauty with urban density—Collins Avenue is at times a walled fortress blocking off the city from its best asset. We tried to make our building touch the ground...

OMA and Library Street Collective unveil new mixed-use arts space in Detroit

2022-05-05T14:27:00-04:00

Detroit-based contemporary art exhibition space Library Street Collective has announced a partnership with OMA to transform a former 1900s-era commercial bakery and warehouse into a mixed-use arts education and public space.

Led by OMA Partner Jason Long, the adaptive reuse project will see the conversion of the 22,300-square-foot complex at 9301 Kercheval into a headquarters for two local arts nonprofits, Signal-Return and Progressive Arts Studio Collective (PASC). Nicknamed “LANTERN,” it will also feature roughly 5,300 square feet of affordable artist studios, an art gallery, and nearly 4,000 feet of creative retail. This will be centered around a 2,000-square-foot outdoor courtyard that will serve as an accessible community space and activity condenser.

The original vacant bakery and warehouse. Photo: Jason Keen, Courtesy LSC

The proposed revamp. Image Copyright OMA and Luxigon

PASC and Signal-Return will occupy approximately 8,500 square feet of combined space on the building’s ...

OMA revitalizes historic US Post Office mail sorting warehouse with POST Houston

2021-12-03T18:32:00-05:00

The first phase of OMA’s POST Houston, a project revitalizing the historic Barbara Jordan Post Office in Houston, Texas, is nearing completion. Finalized areas of the building opened to the public for the first time.

Image: OMA / Steve Hyde

Designed by OMA Partner Jason Long and OMA New York, POST Houston is the transformation of a former United States Post Office mail sorting warehouse into a mixed-use, public space in downtown Houston. The owners of the 500,000-square-foot concrete warehouse, which was originally built in 1962, wanted to preserve the scale and aura of the structure, while also integrating it into the fabric of the downtown area.

The original Barbara Jordan Post Office structure. Image: OMA

“Our approach balanced wholesale preservation with surgical interventions,” said the architects. “Like farmers working on concrete soil, we raked a series of horizontal thoroughfares into and through it. Along each line, we cut an interior void,” they continued. The apertures allo...

OMA reaches major milestones with 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington D.C.

2021-09-30T16:11:00-04:00

OMA, along with landscape architects OLIN, structural engineers WRA, and other members of the 11th Street Bridge Park design team have reached major milestones in the planning and design of the multi-use pedestrian bridge in Washington D.C. The breakthroughs come following the review and approval of plans by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) at the beginning of April 2020.

Previously on Archinect: OMA, OLIN move forward with interlocking bridge design in Washington, D.C.

As per OMA, the intermediate design of the project is 65% complete. The team will move into final construction plans this fall. Additionally, the project has met 85% of its Capital Campaign development effort goal, with $118 million of the $139 million total project budget secured. Approximately $30.3 million allocated to the project was maintained in Washington D.C.’s new 2022 budget, as well.

Image: Copyright OMA and Luxigon

New renderings, following receiving approval and feedback from the U.S. Commi...

OMA's Greenpoint Landing towers top out in Brooklyn

2021-05-04T15:21:00-04:00

Roughly 18 months after breaking ground in November 2019, two residential towers of the OMA-designed Greenpoint Landing development in Brooklyn have structurally topped out at 300 feet (North Tower) and 400 feet (South Tower) respectively.

The project was first introduced by the developers Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group in March 2019 and is expected to deliver 745 units of mixed-income housing — 30% marked as Affordable and 70% Market Rate — on Greenpoint's transformed, formerly industrial waterfront.

Photo: Elevated Angles LLC, courtesy of Highbury Concrete.

"These towers, our first in Brooklyn, have reached an important milestone made possible by the perseverance of Brookfield, Park Tower Group, BBB and the entire construction and design team during an unprecedented time," Jason Long, OMA Partner-in-Charge, commented on the recent milestone. "It’s exciting to see our collective efforts take shape on Greenpoint’s dynamic skyline."

Rendering of the completed Greenpoint L...

OMA/Jason Long and YA Studio to design 100% affordable housing project in San Francisco

2020-06-10T14:12:00-04:00

New York City-based OMA/ Jason Long and San Francisco-based Y.A. Studio were recently selected by the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) to design a 150-unit "deeply affordable" housing complex in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

The project's 38,000-square-foot site is situated at the entry to Golden Gate Park, a picturesque 1,000-acre park that stretches across San Francisco's west side. Ultimately, the architects write, the project will bring much-needed senior and family housing and "a sense of comfort and the feeling of independence and dignity" to the area.

Aerial view of the project site. Image courtesy of OMA.

In a press release announcing the project, OMA Partner Jason Long writes, “This project will create over 150 homes for families and seniors who might otherwise be pushed out of the city. Haight-Ashbury became famous as a place for the community to gather, convene and mobilize, and th...

OMA, OLIN move forward with interlocking bridge design in Washington, D.C.

2020-04-21T14:40:00-04:00

A design team led by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), landscape architects OLIN, and structural engineers WRA has completed preliminary plans for the new 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C.

Aerial view of the bridge. mage courtesy of Luxigon / OMA.

Made up of two interlocking runways that meet to create a series of covered outdoor spaces, the bridge park links two sides of the Anacostia river that are currently only connected by highway overpasses. Like other recent active bridge designs, the overpass creates habitable green spaces along the ground below the bridge while also creating new overlooks and usable spaces along the span of the bridge itself.

According to a press release from OMA, plans for the bridge were reviewed and approved by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) in early April. Late last year, The Bridge Park also ”received positive feedback from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and is planning a presentation to the full Commission t...

OMA breaks ground on new twin tower complex in Brooklyn

2019-11-19T13:54:00-05:00

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) New York office and developers Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group have broken ground on a new 745-unit, dual tower complex on the Greenpoint waterfront in Brooklyn.

Image courtesy of OMA/Bloom.

The housing towers, rising to 300- and 400-feet respectively, feature 8,600 square feet of ground floor retail spaces that connect to a new one-acre extension of the burough's waterfront park system.

The complex brings more than 40,000 square feet of new public green spaces designed by James Corner Field Operations to the district, according to a press release. Part of the plan includes extending an existing street that currently dead-ends into the site through the project, completing a broad esplanade that connects the waterfront to the inner reaches of Brooklyn. The portion of the site that will contain the new street is being donated to the city in perpetuity by the development team.

Image courtesy of OMA/Bloom.

“We’re excited to beg...

John King reviews OMA's Avery Tower in San Francisco

2019-07-20T11:00:00-04:00

As much as any single new building downtown, the tower dubbed the Avery embodies the grand, often clashing ambitions of today’s San Francisco.

John King, urban design critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, has weighed in on the recently-completed Avery tower complex, a 55-story high-rise block designed by Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) for the city's bustling Transbay neighborhood.

King writes, "What sets the Avery apart is the extent to which its creators try to fill a blank slate with nuanced urbanism—modern in looks but with an old-school desire to make passersby feel at home." The project, created for developer Related California, includes a mid-rise affordable housing complex designed by Fougeron Architecture that "helps frame the courtyard and passage that slices through the block" to positive, "cozy" effect, according to King.

A conceptual model highlighting the massing approach for the project's mid-block passageway. Image courtesy of OMA.

King praises the materiality of Fougeron's contextual apartment blocks, referring to their brick-clad articulation as "a satisfying gesture of deference to the modes...

OMA revamps Houston's old post office

2019-07-01T13:18:00-04:00

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and developers Lovett Commercial have unveiled plans to transform the 55,000-square-foot Barbara Jordan Post Office in Houston into a mixed-use cultural center and park for the city.

Rendering of proposed atrium located within the renovated post office building. Image courtesy of OMA and Luxigon.

The adaptive reuse project, called POST Houston, will bring a rooftop park, urban agriculture, retail establishments, a market hall, co-working spaces, and other uses to the former post office building with the goal of "balancing preservation with strategic, almost surgical interventions" in order to reposition the post office into a dynamic cultural node.

View of POST Houston's proposed rooftop park. Image courtesy of OMA and Luxigon.

The complex will be topped with a five-acre rooftop park designed by Chicago landscape architects Hoerr Schaudt containing an organic farm and other recreational areas. Hoerr Schaudt is also behind the 2015 desig...

A First look at OMA's Avery Tower

2019-06-14T13:41:00-04:00

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has nearly completed work on their new 56-story residential tower in San Francisco, The Avery. To celebrate, the firm has unveiled a series of new photographs of the spaces that have so far been completed, including the tower's exterior, amenity areas, and penthouse.

The project, undertaken with Fougeron Architecture, HKS, Clodaugh Design, Y.A. studio, and Jay Jeffers, will bring 548 residential units to San Francisco's bustling Transbay district. Designed as a tower-and-podium scheme, the development includes a mid-block paseo that has been carved out of the site's buildable area. The walking street is overlooked by Fourgeron's contextual, apartment-wrapped podium designs. The new mid-block shopping area includes trees, native vegetation, and public open spaces, and is overlooked by apartments wrapped in industrial materials like brick and tooled stone.

Included in the project are 118 condominiums, 280 market-rate rentals, and 150 affo...

Brooklyn gets its first set of 'stacked boxes' OMA towers

2019-03-07T15:39:00-05:00

Two new OMA-designed residential towers at Greenpoint Landing, Brooklyn were unveiled this morning by Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group, the developers behind the endeavor. The towers, in conjunction with a lower seven-story building, will offer 745 housing units and are expected to accelerate the transformation of the post-industrial waterfront into a thriving residential community.

"By extending Eagle Street and Dupont Street, the towers will expand the existing public waterfront esplanade, creating a total of 2.5-acres of continuous public open space along the shoreline, and will add 8,600 sf of ground-floor retail to the neighborhood," explains OMA's project description.

TADDAAAA: Architecture!

"We have designed two towers—a ziggurat and its inverse—carefully calibrated to one another," said Jason Long, OMA Partner-in-Charge, about the twin tower ensemble's design which will include 30% affordable housing units. "Defined by t...