Oslo Opera HouseSnohettaOslo, Norway 2007

The CarpetThe «carpet» was one of three main design concepts for this project. The idea is that visitors can climb up the building and use the roof areas as social gathering spaces. It creates a very dynamic and social space.

The FactoryThe building is divided into two halfs by a long hallway, known as the Opera St., running north-south. To the west of the Opera St. are the main performance and public rooms. In the open atrium space there is a long curved wall known as the «Wave Wall» and it is meant to tie the land and building site to the open ocean nearby. To the east of Opera St. are the workshops and studios that house about 600 employees. It is called «The Factory». There is a large courtyard in the middle encouraging colaboration. The public can look through these practice rooms from the ground level and also as they climb on the roof of the building. At each level there is a different activity to observe.

The Learning HubHeatherwick StudioNTU, Singapore, 2015

Re-Thinking the Conext of LearningHow can we make learning more productive? How can we learn alongside other diciplines? Can we think about education as a Self Organizing System? Heatherwick studio attemptef to answer these questions and more. They recreated the typology of educational buildings. Replacing the long and never-ending corridors with a generous central space was the first and main step towards acheiving their goal. All the rooms and labs are organized around one central space. Students and teachers can easily intereact with one another on the balconies and green terraces looking across at the different terraces and floors. The floorplan of the rooms are extremely flexible such that every professor can rearrange them as they wish.

Onstoppable LearningAmin Yazdi

What is the context in which we learn the best like? How do we learn? Is it an emerging consiquence? Through observation and research, I have come to a conclusion that the most effective learning has been done withought the preesnce of an educator. Education is an interest, and learning happens as long as there is an interest in a certain topic. In a TED talk given by Sugata Mitra, we learn that learning is done best by collaboration. Mitra, after years of experimentation, came to a conclusion that education is a self organizing seystem and learning emerges from it and the environment in which education takes place in is of important value. In this studio we design a building that encourages unstoppable learning. Creating a building that becomes the heart of a community and makes a closed loop system (ecological and economical) could be the best medium in which to learn, grow, and put value.

For this project we reframed what a parking garage is; from a passive, single-use structure to something that does so much more. Not only does the parking garage support cars and visitors to the neighborhood, but also it provides energy and waste management systems for the neighboring businesses. The garage cleanses the storm water run-off and creates a better ecological environment for all. The garage creates a closed loop system supporting the ecology and neighboring urban context.

The Heart