CLC & MSFL Towers | REX

REX  proposal for two of China’s major financial institutions, CLC and MSFL, which chose to consolidate their new headquarters on a single site within Shenzhen’s CDB. Although the planning regulations permit tall buildings on the site, the maximum allowable building area and the proposed combination of offices and retail seemingly dictate a perfunctory tower-and-plinth scheme. Instead, CLC’s and MSFL’s offices are organized into two highly efficient blocks with: an ideal 9 meter distance between core and façade; an entirely flexible, column-free plan; the largest floor area allowed by code and urban design requirements; and an efficiency ratio of 80%.

The ideal office blocks are raised to the planning regulation’s height limit to maximize their property value, views, daylight, and iconographic potential.

On the given site, a typical podium would compress retail and collective programs into an undifferentiated mass that would reduce property value, limit daylight, and eliminate most public space. To avoid this condition, the retail and collective programs are amassed into two billboards of attractors, providing each program a unique identity and amplified visibility. Further, maximum pedestrian space is reclaimed and a new, dynamic urban room is created to boost the vitality of Shenzhen’s CBD.

The two towers are shifted to make the best possible day-lighting relationships between them and their neighbors, and are sheathed in vertical fins of aluminum (CLC) and stone (MSFL) for self-shading and glare control. The resulting towers combine the clients’ desire to project the image of elegance, responsibility, and stability with their wish to stimulate innovation, creativity, and public engagement.

To create the desired typological duality in each building,each structure’s pair of concrete cores holds aloft a “launch pad” truss that supports a conventional high-rise gravity framing system and conventional office plans.

The launch pad trusses free the lower levels from normative structural constraints associated with high-rise construction. Hence, retail and collective functions can become an “ant farm” of highly individuated attractors.

Navigating Shenzhen’s complex urban design requirements, the lobbies and landscape wrest rare public space from an otherwise deplete CDB. The CLC & MSFL Towers playfully impregnate the elegance of Mies van der Rohe with the provocation of Archigram.

Architects: REX
Location: Shenzhen, China
Key Personnel: Adam Chizmar, Danny Duong, Gabriel Jewell-Vitale, Dongil Kim, Romea Muryn, Roberto Otero, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Lena Reeh Rasmussen, Yuan Tiauriman, João Vieira-Costa
Executive Architect: JET/AIM
Consultants: MKA, Transsolar
Client: CBD Leasing Company (CLC) and Minsheng Financial Leasing Company (MSFL)
Program: Headquarters buildings for two of China’s largest growing financial institutions, including owned and leased office space, operations halls, multi-purpose rooms, boutique and “big box” retail, high end dining, cafeterias, gyms, gallery, executive club, shared lobby, and parking
Area: 131,600 m² (1,416,000 sf)
Core & Shell Construction Cost: RMB 1.024 billion ($160.3 million)
Status: Limited competition, submitted 2011

http://www.archdaily.com/185765/clc-msfl-towers-rex/

Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre by REX | OMA

Architects: REX | OMA
Location: Dallas, USA
Key Personnel: Joshua Prince-Ramus (Partner-in-Charge) and Rem Koolhaas, with Erez Ella, Vincent Bandy, Vanessa Kassabian, Tim Archambault
Executive Architect: Kendall/Heaton Associates
Client: The AT&T Performing Arts Center
Consultants: Cosentini, DHV, Donnell, Front, HKA, Magnusson Klemencic, McCarthy, McGuire, Pielow Fair, Plus Group, Quinze & Milan, Theatre Projects, Tillotson Design, Transsolar, 2×4
MEP/FP Design Engineer: Transsolar Energietechnik, Germany
MEP/FP Engineer of Record: Cosentini Associates, New York
Structural Engineer of Record: Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Seattle
Theatre Design: Theatre Projects Consultants, Connecticut
Acoustics: Dorsserblesgraaf, Netherlands
ADA: McGuire Associates, Massachusetts
Construction Management: McCarthy Construction
Cost: Donnell Consultants, Florida
Facades: Front, New York
Furniture: Quinze & Milan, Kortrijk Belgium
Graphics/Wayfinding: 2 x 4, New York
Life Safety: Pielow Fair, Seattle
Lighting: Tillotson Design Associates, New York
Vertical Transport: HKA, California
Project Area: 7,700 sqm
Project year: 2006-2009
Photographs: Iwan Baan, Tim Hursley, Jeffrey Buehner

The Dallas Theater Center (DTC) is known for its innovative work, the result of its leadership’s constant experimentation and the provisional nature of its long-time home. DTC was housed in the Arts District Theater, a dilapidated metal shed that freed its resident companies from the limitations imposed by a fixed-stage configuration and the need to avoid harming expensive interior finishes. The directors who worked there constantly challenged the traditional conventions of theater and often reconfigured the form of the stage to fit their artistic visions. As a result, the Arts District Theater was renowned as the most flexible theater in America. The costs of constantly reconfiguring its stage, however, became a financial burden and eventually DTC permanently fixed its stage into a “thrust-cenium.”

Imagining a replacement for DTC’s old house raised several distinct challenges. First, the new theater needed to engender the same freedoms created by the makeshift nature of its previous home. Second, the new venue needed to be flexible and multi-form while requiring minimal operational costs.

The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre overcomes these challenges by overturning conventional theater design. Instead of circling front-of-house and back-of-house functions around the auditorium and fly tower, the Wyly Theatre stacks these facilities below-house and above-house. This strategy transforms the building into one big “theater machine.” At the push of a button, the theater can be transformed into a wide array of configurations—including proscenium, thrust, and flat floor—freeing directors and scenic designers to choose the stage-audience configuration that fulfills their artistic desires. Moreover, the performance chamber is intentionally made of materials that are not precious in order to encourage alterations; the stage and auditorium surfaces can be cut, drilled, painted, welded, sawed, nailed, glued and stitched at limited cost.

Stacking the Wyly Theatre’s ancillary facilities above- and below-house also liberates the performance chamber’s entire perimeter, allowing fantasy and reality to mix when and where desired. Directors can incorporate the Dallas skyline and streetscape into performances at will, as the auditorium is enclosed by an acoustic glass façade with hidden black-out blinds that can be opened or closed. Panels of the façade can also be opened to allow patrons or performers to enter into the auditorium or stage directly from outside, bypassing the downstairs lobby.

By investing in infrastructure that allows ready transformation and liberating the performance chamber’s perimeter, the Wyly Theatre grants its artistic directors freedom to determine the entire theater experience, from audience arrival to performance configuration to departure. On consecutive days, the Wyly Theatre can produce Shakespeare on a proscenium stage or Beckett in a flat-floor configuration silhouetted against the Dallas cityscape. Both learning from, and improving upon, DTC’s original Arts District Theater, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre will restore Dallas as the home of the most flexible theater in America, if not the world.

http://www.archdaily.com/37736/dee-and-charles-wyly-theatre-rex-oma/