After 5 years of design and construction, ODA New York has completed Denizen Bushwick, 1.2 Million SF residential wonderland featuring 911 apartments, 20% affordable housing units, 15 mega-murals, 100,000 SF of outdoor space and a full suite of curated amenities. ODA designed the entire development, architecture, interiors and landscape design.
To date, Denizen is one of ODA’s largest projects, and one of the largest residential projects in NYC. With it, ODA envisions a more connected future for this area. Denizen is welcoming and inclusive of the community around it, while providing a sense of ownership and personalization for the people living there. In areas of rising urban density, ODA is working to create transparency and belonging through art, public space and community involvement.
The pilot program reclaimed an existing elementary school’s underutilized, overgrown and rat-infested courtyard. It was redesigned as garden beds, teaching kitchen and education pavilion. The structure encompasses a teaching wall, tables with seating, and covered area for outdoor learning.
The Kindergarten is located as part of a local Armenian community’s school campus in the Northern suburbs of Beirut.
The campus presents a rare green lung in a residential development that has developed in the area.
In a city with little green space, the single floor layout of the design of the Kindergarten provides back to the city its entire footprint under the form of a green roof that blends with its surroundings.
The renovation project is located in a huton within a core old quarter of Beijing. It’s a small Siheyuan (a typology of traditional Chinese residence) with three courtyards, with a total length and width of 15 and 42 meters. It’s named as “Qishe” (“Qi” and “she” respectively refers to “seven” and “house” in Chinese language), because its address number in the hutong is 7 and it originally consisted of 7 pitched-roof buildings. The Siheyuan before renovation was old and dilapidated. The basic wooden beams and some arched door openings featuring the style of the Republican era were relatively well preserved, while most of the roofs, walls, doors and windows were badly damaged or disappeared. In the three courtyards, there were many temporary architectural blocks inserted many years ago. After demolishing those blocks, the yards were filled with waste of construction materials and overgrown with weeds, presenting a bleak view.
Jiuxi, a scenic spot on the west side of West Lake in Hangzhou, boasts fantastic natural landscape and cultural relics, and presents a poetic lifestyle. Connecting Qiantang River and West Lake, it integrates picturesque mountains and rivers with the aesthetics inherited from Song Dynasty. The name of the project is derived from the Jiuxi Scenic Spot. And the design displays Oriental charm in contemporary context.
121 East 22nd is OMA’s first ground up building and residential complex in Manhattan. The design was conceived from its site which straddles two separate and different neighborhoods: a quiet residential area surrounding Gramercy Park, an enclosed and private garden, and the bustling commercial space around Madison Square Park, a public park that hosts an array of activities.
The L-shaped site posed an opportunity to be informed by the two neighborhoods while activating three street fronts. The concept emerges from this dualistic condition, referencing Cubist artwork, in which objects are viewed from a multitude of viewpoints rather than a single one to represent the subject in a greater context. As such, the North Tower conveys the meeting of the two neighborhoods, realized through two interlocking planes that come together at 23rd and Lexington to form a distinct, three-dimensional corner.
Concept to Design Development: Yolanda do Campo, Lawrence Siu, Sunggi Park, Daniel Quesada Lombo, Jackie Woon Bae, Juan Lopez, Jorge Simelio, Andrea Zalewski, Nathalie Camacho, Leen Katrib, Nils Sanderson, Carly Dean, Nicholas Solakian
Construction Documentation to Construction Administration: Christine Yoon, Yolanda do Campo, Darby Foreman, Marki Becker, Nils Sanderson, Andrea Zalewski
Hutong, poses the question of how we can reinstate a discourse on the reinvigoration of ancient city spaces. We avoided inserting intrusive programs into the courtyard house, deflected from the idea of merely switching out old doors and windows, and refrained ourselves from the plagiary of a faux-Wabi-Sabi-esque atmosphere that is in fashion amongst the Chinese bourgeoisie. We challenged ourselves to look for new perspectives apart from the banal and overused stylistics and tastes.
In actuality, urban renewal is not a solely aesthetic issue. What it needs is the renewal of spatial relationships to revive and attract new human usage. This project was faced with hindrance from multiple parties, complicated and layered bureaucracies presented arduous limitations to the design.
The site lies among mountains, with nice pine trees scenery in the distance. The site has two platforms with a height difference of about 1.8 meters, on which several large trees and young trees grow. The original buildings on the site are enclosed on three sides: a two-floor building on the west side and two one-floor buildings on the north and south sides.
Accessed from Kloof Road, which winds along the western slopes of Lion’s Head, this site is positioned in the wind-protected suburb of Clifton. Years before any development was introduced, this slope was conceivably covered by indigenous forest and fynbos. Today, however, the area is developed and enjoys spectacular views over the sandy beaches, boulder outcrops, and Twelve Apostles mountains towards the south and sunset views over the Atlantic Ocean.
The first aspect of the project that required addressing was the steep slope that would have to be excavated to accommodate the structure. The home was conceived as an arrangement of staggered blocks that rise along the side of the mountain, with the upper, private levels becoming appropriately shielded from both visibility and street-level noise.
This small building tucked away in the back of a courtyard in Paris 10th district formerly housed small, dark apartments over two levels that were unsuitable for living in. “Given the presence of house fungus (mushrooms that had attacked all the building’s wooden structure) in particular, we had to entirely recreate the building, only keeping the outer building envelope, which was remodeled as well,” the architects, Alia Bengana and Capucine de Cointet, point out.