I am conducting a research topic for my firm to study the organization structure, business practices, etc. of OMA. Basically, the 'architecture' of the firm. Recruiting, publishing, pay scales, management, everything and anything would greatly be appreciated.
There's a promo video on the office floating about; Rem often talks about how the practice changes;S,M,L,XL; in the new issue of Icon there is a small interview with ole Scheeren (spelling) where he talks briefly of how the CCTV project brought about a change in their internal structure to a more decentralised/de-remified hierarchy.
Contacting their office would count as a primary source. For secondary sources, go to a library and find articles and books about OMA.
because in academia some schools are very careful about separating primary and secondary sources by the student's place in the hierarchy. i don't know why but believe it has something to do with the way academia evolved ages ago...maybe even as a way to teach students the difference between the two.
I worked at LMN architects just after the library in Seattle was completed and so OMA was still on everyone's mind... I think the most striking realization about how they work was in understanding that Rem was a journalist first.. (actually screen writer.. then journalist) and he runs his office like a publishing house. He is an editor in chief so to speak. He requires multiple people creating multiple solutions to problems or just ideas and he goes around editing.. picking ideas or solutions to either keep pushing forward, or drop and move on.
So, I would say that philosophy, or way of working, is what makes that office unique. In addition, the fact that the office builds a small fraction of what they design is unique.. I imagine he needs to keep publishing books and making speaches to pay the bills, but... I can't say for sure.
oma is consciously moving towards a corporate model, and apparently have even put some of their own money into financing projects (dutch article about the recent NY tower says so anyway).
oma decided to do competitions only if they make money from now on as i understand it and basically are not as interested in the way they used to work.
i think they have changed the office model a few times since smlxl even. would be interesting to read a paper that puts all the pieces together.
jump makes an interesting point about the way the competitions work - i remember talking with joshua prince-ramus when he was still heading the ny office. he had done an internal study of their (oma's) competition history. basically, yes, the competitions drove a lot of press and more competition entries, but of the dozens and hundreds they had done, it had only resulted in a handful of built commissions. the ratio was something staggering (to me at least). his conclusion was that they really had to change their mindset on it, especially (as it's been noted above) since they were as well established in the media as anyone has ever been. the change was: be far more selective, get paid regardless (meaning do only invited competitions), and continue to use them as research vehicles.
the one person i know who went to work in rotterdam for a bit - their office was the stateside partner for a large development proposal - though it was the single most schizophrenic environment they had ever been in. they were there for a month and ready to leave after a few days.
oma is probably facing some of the issues a lot of their peer firms are facing - increased opportunities to build (and, for oma, on a massive scale). you need specialized expertise (and usually people long in the tooth) in the office to really get these things through to completion. and, you need some level of stability and hierarchy to make that happen. the trick for oma is how to balance what makes them unique (the more horizontal organizational model) with the need for some orderly structure to actually get the quantity and quality of projects completed. h&dm seem to have a pretty good grasp on it, as does gehry. eisenman, for example, has never gotten 'it' and has missed some huge opportunities, i think, over his career. others, like diller scofidio and scogin elam, have undergone similar transformations in their office culture over the past decade, to respond to the opportunities they are getting.
your study, in the end, would be really interesting to see - hope you can come back and publish it here.
Oct 2, 08 9:06 am ·
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OMA case study
Dear all,
I am conducting a research topic for my firm to study the organization structure, business practices, etc. of OMA. Basically, the 'architecture' of the firm. Recruiting, publishing, pay scales, management, everything and anything would greatly be appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Dreamer
have you contacted their office?
would that qualify as primary research?
(because we were told not to do that)
only secondary research.
i don't think so because that data would already exist.
There's a promo video on the office floating about; Rem often talks about how the practice changes;S,M,L,XL; in the new issue of Icon there is a small interview with ole Scheeren (spelling) where he talks briefly of how the CCTV project brought about a change in their internal structure to a more decentralised/de-remified hierarchy.
Contacting their office would count as a primary source. For secondary sources, go to a library and find articles and books about OMA.
fine line what is this libary you are talking about and how can i find one on google?
And of course http://www.google.co.uk/books?hl=en ...
primary source and primary research are two different things...
thanks guys
yeah, i don't know why any kind of research would prohibit the use of primary sources.
because in academia some schools are very careful about separating primary and secondary sources by the student's place in the hierarchy. i don't know why but believe it has something to do with the way academia evolved ages ago...maybe even as a way to teach students the difference between the two.
lots of schools are quite particular about it.
My mistake Holz. It was my A-level History definitions running wild...
I worked at LMN architects just after the library in Seattle was completed and so OMA was still on everyone's mind... I think the most striking realization about how they work was in understanding that Rem was a journalist first.. (actually screen writer.. then journalist) and he runs his office like a publishing house. He is an editor in chief so to speak. He requires multiple people creating multiple solutions to problems or just ideas and he goes around editing.. picking ideas or solutions to either keep pushing forward, or drop and move on.
So, I would say that philosophy, or way of working, is what makes that office unique. In addition, the fact that the office builds a small fraction of what they design is unique.. I imagine he needs to keep publishing books and making speaches to pay the bills, but... I can't say for sure.
i don't think he works that way anymore.
oma is consciously moving towards a corporate model, and apparently have even put some of their own money into financing projects (dutch article about the recent NY tower says so anyway).
oma decided to do competitions only if they make money from now on as i understand it and basically are not as interested in the way they used to work.
i think they have changed the office model a few times since smlxl even. would be interesting to read a paper that puts all the pieces together.
jump makes an interesting point about the way the competitions work - i remember talking with joshua prince-ramus when he was still heading the ny office. he had done an internal study of their (oma's) competition history. basically, yes, the competitions drove a lot of press and more competition entries, but of the dozens and hundreds they had done, it had only resulted in a handful of built commissions. the ratio was something staggering (to me at least). his conclusion was that they really had to change their mindset on it, especially (as it's been noted above) since they were as well established in the media as anyone has ever been. the change was: be far more selective, get paid regardless (meaning do only invited competitions), and continue to use them as research vehicles.
the one person i know who went to work in rotterdam for a bit - their office was the stateside partner for a large development proposal - though it was the single most schizophrenic environment they had ever been in. they were there for a month and ready to leave after a few days.
oma is probably facing some of the issues a lot of their peer firms are facing - increased opportunities to build (and, for oma, on a massive scale). you need specialized expertise (and usually people long in the tooth) in the office to really get these things through to completion. and, you need some level of stability and hierarchy to make that happen. the trick for oma is how to balance what makes them unique (the more horizontal organizational model) with the need for some orderly structure to actually get the quantity and quality of projects completed. h&dm seem to have a pretty good grasp on it, as does gehry. eisenman, for example, has never gotten 'it' and has missed some huge opportunities, i think, over his career. others, like diller scofidio and scogin elam, have undergone similar transformations in their office culture over the past decade, to respond to the opportunities they are getting.
your study, in the end, would be really interesting to see - hope you can come back and publish it here.
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