TAICHUNG, TAIWAN 2010

Team: OODA + OOIIO

Diogo Brito, Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, Francisco Rugeroni, Pedro Maciel

Joaquín Millán VIllamuelas, Alfredo Muñoz Herrero, Juan José Ortega López, Sandra Sainz Vicente

Result: Merit Award

The competition intention was to create a pioneering and innovative design concept which will stand as a new-age landmark and a symbolic voice to the world of Taiwan´s new spirit. The Tower was planned to be at least 300-meter high freestanding tower including offices for Taichung City Government, leisure and recreational functions, retail and educational centers and the new Museum of Taichung City Development.

The concept form proposed links a Taiwan´s significant cutting industry (diamonds) with the required program and some inspirational features such as the Eiffel Tower (structure and icon), the Origami (folding process and symbol generation) and Taiwan´s star-look flag (identity).

The massing development had in consideration the need to become the most visual focus and the new gateway image for Taichung area, so the building perception is different from every corner and establish renewable relations with the city from within the building and from the outside context.

The building has three distinct entrances (Museum, Tower and Offices) that are defined by three separated volumetric pieces that get unified in the first common sky Lobby above and create a public sheltered space below. On the central area is positioned the main functions (such as the Museum, Conference Centre, Fitness, Sky lobbies, Retail, Food and Beverage, etc) and on the peaks and the between areas is where we can find the offices, the sightseeing zones and the complementary functions.

Evalution Method: Architecture: 50%

Structure, Green Solutions and Office Portfolio: 50%

The area in which architecture acts always was guided by an explicit rhetorical shipment and of dense reflection about several parallel themes to his exercise. One that, while synergies established by the disciplinary diversity , it become important in the converging trial of information fixed in the conception of artistic manifestations or architecture buildings/features.

Especially through critical publications to the work of the architects and of reflections about generic themes of the practice by the social media, we always had the opportunity to stand beyond of the artistic expression and really do understand the conceptual side and thought throw process of the architect work. That did make possible for everyone to better  establish the architecture as a social art with critical inclination, with living-hood adjusting function, with self-awareness need and  intellectual nonconformity.

Even relating the architects themselves, is easy to verify  that all the big names the we recognize and follow, have been dropping some explicit energy in some written testimonials, of critical reflection about the practice or about some parallel issue that merges with architecture somehow.

We do believe that through analytical pro-activity and theorical reflection expressed in books and publications that fits several themes will allow not only that we could define our position in the practice and society where we live on but also to underline our drive in order to be useful, irreverent and question-makers to the problems of our planet, market and social system.

We like to believe that the language structures the thought. Being so, we will try as well to communicate in a consequent way with our identity and try out to contribute to a major global debate over vital society/problematic issues such as ethnic standards, age disfunctions, geographic developments and global warming.

As we do so, we will assure that architecture is positioned aside solutions and not problems and, therefore, make a stand as its main purpose: architecture as art of social adjustment.

Specifically, we  developed a entrepreneur volume and we are doing a theorical/practical book right now.

First we did a business publication in order to help to settled down our company with all the resources and the technology needed: a Business Plan.

Now we are developing LivE. A book about the energetic issue in a global scale which intends to underline the present facts, enhance the existing possibilities that are not on everyone´s disposal as public domain information. And mainly to explain that besides all the fuss around  global warming awareness the architecture is the real operating tool on solutions side.

LivE. A book about renewable resources facilities, its applied systems and the architecture action as a structural element to energetic worldwide enclosure.

Its Bizness time!

OODA®

” Strongly inspired on a similar text on Seeking Alpha I decided to adapt and adjust this text for the Portuguese reality as I am convinced Portugal has at least 10 top of mind reasons for BAs to invest here.

Portugal has a population of 10.7 million. The GDP is estimated to grow 1% in 2010 , from about $233.4B in 2009. Just a couple of decades ago, the economy of Portugal was primarily based on agriculture, clothing and other traditional industries, but, that is changing. Nowadays, Portugal features a diversified service-based economy and a experiences a strong growth of its knowledge based and high tech industries. Portugal has great infra-structure, is part of Eurozone and offers many excellent investment opportunities, from tourism to leading companies.

Why invest in Portuguese companies? There are lots of sound reasons. We’ve listed some that we like and that potential investors might want to consider when seeking attractive opportunities.

• Portugal is at the cutting edge of development in advanced technology in several important areas – software (Critical Software), telecommunications(EID), semiconductors(Critical Manufacturing), pharma (Bial) electric power equipment (Efacec), and alternative energy (specially wind, solar and waves power with industrial companies like Martifer).

• Portugal experienced the strongest growth in R&D investment, leading European statistics.

• Foreign companies have recognized the value of Portuguese companies and are active acquirers, providing lucrative exits for investors. Foreign acquirers of Portuguese companies in recent years include Microsoft (acquired Mobicomp), MIPS (acquired Chipidea), Cisco Systems (Paredes Valley), Oracle, among many others.

• Giant US, European and Japanese companies operate development and R&D facilities to take advantage of the high caliber workforce from leading Universities like IST, Nova, FEUP or Univ. do Minho. These firms include IBM, Nissan, Microsoft, Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, General Motors, Volkswagen, Nokia Siemens Networks, NEC among many others.

• The Portuguese Government and the European Union is a major supporter of Portuguese technology through a host of financial programs that encourage investment like INOV Capital, and Portugal is a member of the European Space Agency, and the high energy center for nuclear research CERN. There are also a number of private VCs in Portugal like Gesventure that can direct you to entrepreneurs looking for investment.

• Portuguese companies can take advantage of programs managed by bi-national foundations. These provide funding to cooperative projects between Portuguese firms and companies from other countries. The FLAD Foundation, for example, has supported joint projects between US and Portuguese companies, and granting hundreds of grants to leading US academic institutions like MIT, Chicago School of Economics, Harvard, among others.

• Portugal is a gateway at a geo-strategic vortex of the triangle between oil rich Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa like Angola and high growth economies in South America, like Brazil.

• Portugal is home to the third largest renewable energy power utility, in terms of installed capacity, EDP Renovaveis, which recently became one of the largest investor of this sector in the US, after the acquisition of Horizon Energy.

• In the past two decades, Portuguese entrepreneurs have started hundreds of companies, gaining invaluable managerial experience in all sectors, like Outsystems, Critical Software, Critical Links, WIT Software, IPbrick, Bluepharma, among many others. They are continuing to apply the lessons learned in new and upcoming areas.

• Portugal has world class academic institutions, producing highly qualified engineers and scientists, like IST (producing best-in class engineers in the fields of robotics, aerospace, chemistry and computer science), Nova (where they invented paper chips, and other exotic technologies), FEUP (top software engineers), FCTC (top computer scientists), and Univ. do Minho (home to the minds of Portugal’s most innovative portal www.sapo.pt).”

via TEDx Edges blog

http://blog.tedxedges.com/2010/07/10-good-reasons-for-business-angels-to.html

OODA was invited to give a lecture at ULP some weeks ago.

The aim was to talk about the ´City, Territory and Design´ and so we gave an hectic ride through our universe as a drifting point of view about architecture and all its circumstances.

“(…) Architecture is, beforehand, a will. Expressed through/by all organs and entities connected to practice, but also (although seldom) by the architectonic agent, in a pro-active, conceptual or formal posture. (…)”  And so on.

Next one, next week.

OODA®

OODA is upgrading its web page.

For now we have an ´onhold´ feature in our place.

Permanent version available next Fall.

Stay tuned.

www.ood-a.com

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OODA + Lencastre Arquitectos

Design competition for the Tram Museum in Porto

Team: Diogo Brito, Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, Francisco Lencastre e Tiago Souto Castro

As a generic surface of placement, the city of Porto has special identifying characteristics at the same time capable of creating architectural difficulties.

Such as transportation.

The tram is one of the most iconic figures of Porto and not only helps to keep alive its history and background but also contribute to the statement of the city as a trademark for turism and leisure.

However the museum, concerning its present building, only works as a fragment of memory that do not communicate with the city nor in program neither in presence which is the Tram inner definition and function: circulation, connection people and places.

That said, in our proposal we first adjust the outline of the existing building to our programmatic needs reflecting the nearby fabric. Then we conceptually took the old route plan of Porto Tram as a grid and we intersected literally with the present building which formally creates voids, masses and gaps.

What was circulation in the old plan as tram city-circulation generates now the inner circulation of the building through its functions and the spaces that are left in between are where all the program required is activated and positioned.

OODA®

For centuries, Portugal had a maritime empire spread throughout four continents that was never able to organize. After the 25th of April of 1974, Portugal found itself with its current continental size and the adjacent islands, and still was incapable of a structured vision of its territory that could contradict the attraction for Porto and Lisbon. Regionalization appeared only to display strategies of power and the problem’s resolution was adjourned sine die.

Considering the urban level, a vast index of problems hardened the intervention’s resolution. Instead of strategies, an amount of dominantly personal interests were set on top of the public interest. As a side effect, the cities and the rural world suffered a loss of structure, thus creating un-urban and suburban spaces, void of meaning and life, which placed the citizens on daily, endless and nerve breaking commuting.

The political bet on private transportation has created a structure that depends on gas, on automobiles and highways and hasn’t had a counter-balance on public transports like trains, subways or urban networks of buses and trams. As a result, the existence of Portuguese cities with internal systems of public transportation is scarce, aggravating traffic fluidity and consequently raising difficulties in the organization of cities.

In Porto’s metropolitan area, similar to what happened in other countries, urban growth initially spread along the main railway lines. However, the spreading of motorways has imposed the filling of small empty spaces that weren’t yet occupied, resulting in an oil stain-like expansion starting from Porto, and constricting people to the use of private transportation, making commuting even more extensive, painful and disorganized. The whole situation has led to a fast and continuous unbalance of the public transport system, and the dependency on private transportation translates in economic and environmental losses of various kinds, aggravated mostly by the impossibility to answer the Kyoto Protocol.

On a regional level, the public transportation system will only be restructured through the correct and simultaneous deployment of various measures that allow the inversion of the current loss of public transportation users. Among these measures lies the urgent use of penalizing politics upon the personal vehicle usage: developing measures for parking space management (by creating area influenced prices, limiting city centre parking and facilitating parking near transport interfaces), prioritizing public transportation (by delivering the system’s management to the Metropolitan Transports Authority, and creating efficient lanes restricted to public transportation) and increasing the transportation network (by improving the service, frequency, punctuality, transparency among other aspects.)

The constant development of housing and business spaces in the greater area of Porto has brought the structural impossibility for providing efficient public transportation to them all. This way, individual mobility becomes so inevitable that any positive practical effects towards public transportation systems (like STCP or METRO) will only be achieved through measures that facilitate automobile access to transport interfaces and that create adequate infrastructures for walking and cycling.

On this same setting, the urban requalification of Porto’s downtown has made (and continues to make) significant aesthetical and mobility changes, directly linking the accessibility issue to the renewal and repositioning of that symbolic area of the city.

Any intervention upon the heart of a city is always delicate and susceptible to controversy, especially when the urban tissue displays such an undeniable value in its architecture that in some cases remounts to the 8th century. More delicate it becomes when the population is extremely zealous for their public places in general, from where they keep a collective memory of important events, making them reluctant to change.

Nevertheless, and as a finishing remark, the previously approached question of mobility and accessibility has an active reflection on the whole downtown requalification process. Since this is an area that intends to keep its strength and life continuously in what concerns housing, commerce and leisure, it is obliged to maintain in its structure the basic conditions of urban sustainability. These conditions include the effort to avoid problems caused by traffic, parking and more importantly mass access, therefore showing the decisive importance of public transportation.

Bearing in mind topics such the extension of the area to be renewed, the way the intervention was planned and managed, the elevated financial investment and the short deadlines for the public works completion, there is no doubt that the renovation process that we are living will certainly be included in one of the main chapters from Porto’s contemporary history.

OODA®

OODA designs and proposals embrace the advent of a new era. These designs assumed as its own pragmatic utopian experiments, intend to pursue a new direction in the architectural practice by creating unprecedented ambiences ,exploring uncharted geometries, developing the use of new languages and applying current building methods, as well as rethinking the prevailing discourses In a nutshell, the projects and expressions reflect a specific architectural exploration in contemporary art, the transformed life style, and the multimedia new expectations, taken as nowadays prime platform for practice business relations and projects development.

OODA loop.

Coronel John R. Boyd retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975. He spent a lot of that time thinking. He devoured the writings of Heisenberg, Newton, and Sun Tzu and read thousands of books, journal articles, and newspapers. During that period, he came to his idea of the OODA loop and, beyond that, to a sort of unified theory of competitiveness.

Boyd applied his intuitive understanding of energy maneuverability to the study of aeronautics. In the 1970s, he helped design and champion the F-16, an aluminum manifestation of everything he knew about competition. Then he focused his tenacious intellect on something grander, an expression of agility that, for him and others, became a consuming passion: the OODA loop.

Observation; orientation; decision; action. On the face of it, Boyd’s loop is a simple reckoning of how human beings make tactical-intelligent decisions. But it’s also an elegant framework for creating competitive advantage.

The concept is just as powerful when applied to business, specifically to architecture. The convergence of rapidly globalizing competition, real-time communication, and smarter information technology has led to a reinvention of the meaning and practice of strategy. We operate in a video-game world where time is compressing, information goes everywhere, and the rules of the game change abruptly and continuously.

Think instead of the loop as an interactive web with orientation at the core. Orientation — how you interpret a situation, based on your experience, culture, and heritage — directly guides decisions, but it also shapes observation and action.

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Welcome.

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