ROSENTHAL CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, CINCINNATI

The new RCCA is the first free-standing building for The Contemporary Arts Center, founded in Cincinnati in 1939 as one of the premier institutions in the United States dedicated to the contemporary visual arts. What is exciting about the RCCA's mandate is the absence of a permanent collection in favour of various types of temporary exhibitions, site-specific installations and performances.

The degree of unpredictability in the scale and medium of the exhibited artworks is manifest in the design of the spatial possibilities and configurations of the galleries. The fact that public art institutions have wide obligations and functions to fulfil is architecturally embodied in a number of programmatic elements including an education facility (the UnMuseum), offices, art preparation areas, a museum store, a performance theater and public spaces.

LANDESGARTENSCHAU - WEIL-AM-RHEIN 1999

Our exhibition building for the landscape and gardening show is itself conceived in terms of landscape features rather than in terms of geometric order.

The smooth concrete structure emerges from the fluid geometry of the surrounding network of paths. Three of those paths entangle to make the building. Four parallel, partly interwoven spaces are caught in this bundle of paths. One path snuggles up to the south side of the building, another, gently sloping, rises over its back, whereas the third path cuts diagonally through the interior. The main spaces, exhibition hall and cafe, stretch along those routes and allows for plenty of sunlight and views from the exterior. Secondary rooms 'disappear' within the 'root' of the building.

MIND ZONE - MILLENIUM DOME

The "Mind Zone" in the Millennium Dome, completed in December, 1999, is OZH's largest construction so far. Comprising a unique undertaking, OZH have designed both the curatorial aspects and the architectural scheme.

The design represents the dichotomy of the subject matter. How to represent the mind when its physical manifestation of the brain is an inadequate signifier of the complexities of the mind? When the mind is mostly an experiential consciousness, its physicality can only be seen as a host mechanism.

BMW PLANT LEIPZIG - CENTRAL BUILDING

The Central Building is the active nerve-centre or brain of the whole factory complex.
All threads of the building's activities gather together and branch out again from here.
This planning strategy applies to the cycles and trajectories of people - workers (arriving in the morning and returning for lunch) and visitors - as well as for the cycle and progress of the production line which traverses this central point - departing and returning again.

ROME - CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTRE

The Centre for Contemporary Arts addresses the question of its urban context by maintaining an indexicality to the former army barracks. This is in no way an attempt at topological pastiche, but instead continues the low-level urban texture set against the higher level blocks on the surrounding sides of the site. In this way, the Centre is more like an 'urban graft', a second skin to the site.

NEW FERRY TERMINAL - SALERNO

The Ferry Terminal will forge a new, intimate relationship between the City and the Water. Like an oyster, it has a hard shell that encloses soft, fluid elements within. A 'nerved' roof acts as an extended protection against the intense Mediterranean sun. When the passenger arrives at the Terminal, their drift will have begun, and is continued in a swathe of dynamic spaces organized around focal points such as the restaurant and the waiting room. The aquatic topography will offer insistently differentiated spaces, and experience, whilst providing clear orientation.

BERGISEL SKI JUMP

In December 1999 OZH won an international competition for a new ski jump on the Bergisel Mountain in Innsbruck. The new structure is due to be openend in 2001.

Situated on the Bergisel Mountain overlooking downtown Innsbruck, the ski jump will be a major landmark.
It is part of a larger refurbishment project for the Olympic Arena and will replace the old ski jump, which no longer meets international standards.

TERMINUS HOENHEIM-NORD STRASBOURG

The overall concept towards the planning of the car park and the station is one of overlapping fields and lines that knit together to form a constantly shifting whole. Those 'fields' are the patterns of movement engendered by cars, trams, bicycles and pedestrians. Each has a trajectory and a trace, as well as a static fixture. It is as though the transition between transport types (car to tram, train to tram) is rendered as the material and spatial transitions of the station, the landscaping and the context.

WOLFSBERG SCIENCE CENTRE

The Science Centre, the first of its kind in Germany, appears as a mysterious object giving rise to curiosity and discovery. The visitor is faced with a degree of the complexity and strangeness which however is ruled by a very specific system.

Located at a very special site in the town - both endpoint of the chain of cultural important buildings from Aalto, Scharoun and Schweger as well as being a connecting link to the new "Volkswagen-Town" the project closes as an effective urban mass the northern edge of the inner city along the Bahnhofsstrasse.

Z-SCAPE PROTOTYPE SOFA