2. Project:
Prada's West Coast Epicenter
Client:
Prada (I.P.I. USA Corp.)
Year:
2000
Status:
Commission
Type:
Retail
Location:
Kearny Market Mason Sutter
District, San Francisco
Site:
On the corner of Post Street
and Grant Avenue, San
Francisco
Program:
Retail location, Prada west
coast headquarters and
penthouse (total area:
4,000m2)
3. The 'Harvard Gsd Guide to Shopping is
a two-year student-based research
project, on the current state and future
implications of shopping in the world,
which Koolhaas carried out in 1999
.
Shopping is arguably the last remaining
form of public activity. The Harvard
Guide to Shopping, made by the
Harvard Graduate School of Design and
OMA, explores the spaces, people,
techniques, ideologies, and inventions
by which shopping has so dramatically
refashioned the city at the turn of the
century
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15. • The new 10 story building in downtown San Francisco [corner of Post Street and Grant Avenue] close to
Union Square will be Prada`s Headquarters on the West Coast. Two floating cubes on top of each other
contain on 39,000 sq. ft both store program and offices, along with showrooms, gallery spaces and a VIP
penthouse at the top. A public viewing terrace and coffee bar separates both cubes on the 6th floor level.
16. • The size of the openings is designed according to the force flow in these structural steel plates, which are able to
absorb all horizontal forces in case of earthquakes and guarantee the structural integrity of the building. What
emerges is a quality totally new to the current condition of shopping: the presence of daylight. The facade is no longer
blocking out all light but filters and distributes it through various translucent materials inside the space:
polycarbonate, colored resin, exclusively developed porous-transparent polyurethane panels etc. Products are
displayed against the light, in x-ray like conditions, or profit in a more classic arrangement from the evenly dispersed
natural glow. In contrast to the notorious blindness of today`s malls and department stores, daylight reenters the
territory of shopping.
• half matter and half air the spongy matter designed for prada, provides a porous artificial background for merchandise
17. • In architectural terms the building is a manifesto on the skyscraper: A series of floor plates with totally
unique characters are stacked on top of each other and wrapped with a mysterious and neutral skin
that reveals a sense of the inner diversity without giving it all away. This facade is made out of
stainless steel panels that are perforated with about 10,000 round holes, windows ranging between 2.5
- 9 inches in diameter.
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19. • The projects for the Italian fashion company Prada span from research on shopping and new concepts for
Prada as a brand to the creation of three big stores in the United states. But beyond restructuring the built
reality of the brand, Prada's virtual presence is simultaneously defined through extensive in-store technology
projects and the creation of a website.
• A series of experiential and service-oriented features enhances both functioning and aura of the stores. The
dressing rooms are equipped with `magic mirrors`: A plasma screen invisibly built into the large mirror
surface that allows customers to see themselves both from the front and the back at the same time. An
integrated time delay can even capture and replay movements.
