Rem Koolhaas is a renowned Dutch architect known for innovative designs. He co-founded the architecture firm OMA in 1975 and think tank AMO in 1998. Koolhaas' design process involves extensive observation, model building in the studio, archiving models and past projects, publishing books, and drawing from these sources for new projects. This iterative process allows OMA to rapidly generate and test creative ideas.

1. Rem Koolhaas
designing the design process

2. Who is Rem Koolhaas
- Born in the Netherlands in 1944
- Studied script writing in the Netherlands and
- Architecture at the AA in London
- Co-founded architecture firm OMA in 1975
- Co-founded think tank AMO in 1998

3. Seattle public library
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75905404@N00/371038175/

4. Casa da Música
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wojtekgurak/5827545090/

5. CCTV HQ

6. Rothschild HQ
http://oma.eu/media/291397/
rothschildbank___oma_by_philippe_ruault_108_72.jpg

7. Delirious New York

8. Project Japan

9. For four decades Koolhaas has
managed to stay at the top of his
profession by producing creative,
ground-breaking ideas at a record
speed - how does he do it?

10. “To keep thinking about
what architecture could be.
What I could be.”
Rem Koolhaas
Index Magazine, 2000

12. 1. Observation

13. 1. Observation 2. Studio

14. 1. Observation 2. Studio
3. Models

15. 1. Observation 2. Studio
4. Archives
3. Models

16. 1. Observation 2. Studio
4. Archives
5. Books
3. Models

17. 1. Observation

18. “We look at the current moment and see
where and in what way we could make a
certain breakthrough.”
Rem Koolhaas
OMA in conversation, Barbican 2011

25. 1. Observation 2. Studio

26. “What the OMA process focuses on is not
the creator but the critic. ”
Rem Koolhaas
INTELLIGENT DESIGN Can Rem Koolhaas kill the skyscraper? New Yorker, 2005

27. “Of course it’s easier to use materials
from the shelf, from the catalogue, but
we can’t be on the cutting edge if we do
that.”
Kunlé Adeyemi
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 86

28. “We really want every year at least 25%
of our people to be new. And we want
them to be young, bright people.”
Victor van der Chijs
Inside OMA, William Wiles, Icon magazine, 149, 2011

29. “You can walk out or you can stay the
whole night and you can work here. You
have a freedom to continue to work.”
Mark Veldman
Inside OMA, William Wiles, Icon magazine, 149, 2011

30. 1. Observation 2. Studio
3. Models

31. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmnl/207379365/in/set-72157594225306617/
"When you have creative minds you get a lot of ideas.
The luxury product is in the fact that we an actually
test all of them.”
Stephanie Akkaoui
Inside OMA, William Wiles, Icon magazine, 149, 2011

32. http://atelierone.wordpress.com/project-four/
“Past reception [...] is a meeting room filled with
smaller maquettes. At first glance there appear to be
perspex and foam models for dozens of projects - but
close up you see they’re all clearly the same site, [...],
modelled over and over again.”
William Wiles
Inside OMA, William Wiles, Icon magazine, 149, 2011

33. http://atelierone.wordpress.com/project-four/

34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmnl/207379105/
“The model [...] presents itself as a [...] complex entity
composed of multitudes of ‘little persons’; it is much
bigger, always richer in difference and complexity.”
Albena Yaneva
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 26

35. Open Explore Close
Inspired by Dave Gray, Game Storming

36. Inspired by Dave Gray, Game Storming

37. Inspired by Dave Gray, Game Storming

38. 1. Observation 2. Studio
4. Archives
3. Models

39. http://www.archined.nl/en/reviews/2010/engels/blue-foam/
“Archiving the models allowed architects to keep the
traces of creativity for a longer period of time; de-
archiving them meant they could rediscover those
traces of design invention that time had left intact.”
Albena Yaneva
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 65

40. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wojtekgurak/5827545090/
“The abandoned and temporarily forgotten model of the
private house came up to the office and re-entered the
cycles of design. Lingering on the tables of models for
months, it was finally taken with new assumptions,
reshaped, refreshed and adjusted.”
Albena Yaneva
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 86

41. “Ten years ago the Netherlands
Architecture Institute (NAI) proposed to
acquire OMA's archive. They sent an art
historian for four months to the office's
basement storage to make an inventory
of all the items. When the work was
done, OMA decided not to sell. Instead
they hired the art historian as its
archivist.”
Rotor
OMA/Progress free guide

42. 1. Observation 2. Studio
4. Archives
5. Books
3. Models

43. “We [...] spend a lot of time on making books, which is
also part of the presentation materials. There is [...] an
element of clarifying things for ourselves.”
Shohei Shigematsu
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 33

44. “Like the tables of models, the books are summaries of
the design steps that make the material trajectory of a
project traceable. They keep some traces of exploration,
and present the results of design experimentation.”
Albena Yaneva
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an ethnography of design, 2009, page 72

46. OMA book machine
http://www.dezeen.com/2010/05/05/oma-book-
machine-at-the-architectural-association/

47. Conclusion

48. 1. Observation 2. Studio
4. Archives
5. Books
3. Models
the OMA idea machine

49. “The biggest part of our work [...]
disappears automatically. [...] But you
can't look at these designs as waste.
They're ideas; they will survive in books.”
Rem Koolhaas
We're Building Assembly-Line Cities and Buildings, Der Spiegel 2011

50. OMA/Progress
Barbican Art Gallery (until 19 February)

51. Made by the Office of Metropolitan
Architecture – An Ethnography of Design
Albena Yaneva

52. Thank you!
Sjors Timmer
@Sjors
Information Architect at SapientNitro ,blog at notura.com