Obra Architects

USA

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PROFILE

Obra was founded in 2000 in New York by Jennifer Lee and Pablo Castro, who had previously worked for Steven Holl and Simon Ungers. 'Architecture could be anything, but not everything could be architecture,' they state, adding paradoxically that they are both intuitive ('to give the unconscious a chance') and 'discriminatingly inclusive', taking care to avoid an over-reliance on technology. They also claim to suffer from 'anxiety of influence – we try to avoid looking at what others are doing too much.' In practice, this means they are alive to new possibilities, as evinced by their invitation to contribute to the Ordos 100 project in Mongolia. Other residential work is underway in the US and Costa Rica.

TWISTED TOWER

A proposal for infill housing in New York's Hell's Kitchen, the Twisted Tower is a project that has grown out of the city's particular situation. 'In-fill housing has a significantly different urban function and meaning in New York,' the architects say, 'low rise infill would not only be out of character but also amount to an unconscionable waste of limited resources.' Hence Obra has built up, pointing out that the city is a 'pretty much made up of all kinds of disjunctive juxtapositions.' The Twisted Tower explores New York's 'singular urban poetry of the tall and the uneven.' Set adjoining the Amtrak lines running into Penn Station, the proposal is for three 14-storey apartment towers, slender twisting forms with south-facing walls of steel louvers over a concrete structure. The way the towers integrate with the ground creates external space for the building's occupiers, while the northern outlook engages with the 'kinetic panorama' of high-speed trains leaving the city.


http://www.obraarchitects.com

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