O.C.E.A.N. UK

| Tom Verebes (*1965) | Laure Gimenez (*1970) | Alexander Thompson (*1967)

 

O.C.E.A.N. UK is the original, London-based branch of the O.C.E.A.N. network. It is run today by Tom Verebes (founder member with Michael Hensel), Laure Gimenez and Alexander Thompson. O.C.E.A.N. was foun-ded on a collective basis in 1995 by group of people with many and varied intellectual and geographical outlooks, but all sha-ring a common forum, whose connected synergy would seem to be located in the Architectural Association. Of the founder members, most of them—like the Hungarian-Canadian Tom Verebes, the German Michael Hensel, and the Slovene Bostjan Vuga...—are actually products of AA training. This architectural collective thus brings together, above all, members of a spontaneously international generation, concerned with the global nature of the phenomena of identity and culture, generating a mobility that is at once geographical and disciplinary. O.C.E.A.N. is neither an acronym nor a metaphor : its members are adamant about this. Does it all the same refer to the prophecy made by Robert Venturi, who, in 1968, dreamed of an authentically oceanic form of city-planning? Behind this name, nevertheless, we can detect several images. Above all, horizontality. O.C.E.A.N. is not an agency as such ; its structure is neither hierarchic nor vertical. O.C.E.A.N. is a network, a paradigma-tic form of the contemporary world. It is decentralized, dynamic, horizontally distributed ; it is ramified in geographical and intellectual space. It is now known as O.C.E.A.N.Net, and is organized around six main nodal points: London/O.C.E.A.N.Net, Helsinki/O.C.E.A.N.UV (Kivi Sotamaa and Toni Kauppilaq), Cologne/O.C.E.A.N.Cologne (Michael Hensel), Königs Architekten, Boston/O.C.E.A.N.US (Robert Elfer, Wade Stevens), and Ljubljana Sadar in Vuga Arhitekti. Each centre is run on the basis of at once independent and interdependent studios, acting and interacting, exploring, on a multidisciplinary basis, current practices in city-planning, architecture, design, graphic design, and even art. Based on participation and communication, the intent behind this network is to be the active and operational vehicle of an intellectual project which is bent not only on re-connecting architectural thin-king and doing, but above all on updating models and concepts in a world that is itself being transformed by the development of digital technologies. Alongside its quest for new materials and new buil-ding procedures, O.C.E.A.N.Net is also actively involved in the different forms of the dissemination (publication), transmission (instruction and teaching), and production (university research) of architectural culture. The network structure of O.C.E.A.N. is itself the working hypothesis of a new way of organizing architectural praxis, open to its new tools and its new territories.

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Ocean Membrane
Japon, 1999
Concours O.C.E.A.N. UK : Frank Harding, Alex Thompson, Tom Verebes

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This shoreline membrane project is based on three techniques of pre-stressed polycarbonate tube extrusions, which can potentially be mass produced on any scale : helical tubing, loop-knot tubing and reinforced resin mesh. All the systems can extend infinitely. As the standard units are joined with concealed male/female pin joints. The structural fields operate interdependently, as the three systems intertwine excessively, achieving structural stability while maintaining continuous dynamism. The generic structural systems interact with numerous dynamic conditions of tidal (downwells, upwells, rip tides, near-field waves, far-field waves, wave diffraction and refraction, etc.) and wind forces (laminar, strata, turbulent coastal interaction, etc.). The technological experiment has also manifold potential programmatic implications of construction over, on and under water : industrial (water separation for fisheries and for desalination plants), infrastructural (a bridge/tunnel), leisure (fresh water pools, climate controlled pools in salt/cool water). Interface, modulated by contextual flows, the membrane does not separate exterior and interior, but opens an osmotic medium that depends on material conditions of the structural system rather than formal, or optical shape for their operations.

 

Jeil's Hospital for Women
Séoul, Corée du sud, 1996
OCEAN UK : Michael Hensel, Tom Verebes, Andrew Wai-Tat-Yau, Vike Koskelo, Eva Castro
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The Jeil's hospital for women combines Gynaecology, Obstetric, Fertility departments and a 24 hour pharmacy. The 2000 m2 building incorporates a ground surface public garden, 60 cars parking spaces in a mechanical parking tower and a horizontal level within the interior of the building. The hospital employs all the sectional space as a space between two visually permeable surfaces, integrating the visual and spatial public space of the city and the private territory of the building. A double-skinned building envelope is comprised of an orthogonal curtain wall and slab system. The accumulation of variable opacities of the two louver systems maintains views out of and into the building. Both systems reveal and veil the interior spatial sequence and are mechanically adjustable to accommodate a gradated variety of privacy and lighting conditions. The space between the building and urban surfaces of the exterior is continued into the main entrance and folds up and into the building.

 

Museo Costantini
Buenos Aires, Argentine, 1997, Concours
OCEAN UK : Michael Hensel,
Tom Verebes, Toni Kauppila

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Four diagrammatic systems accumulate to form the volumetric configurations of the Costantini Museum proposal. An urban configuration of two rectangular volumes envelopes the interior space of the museum. The massing of the museum hovers above the ground that flows continuously from Peru Square. Gradual undulations of a continuous ground plane grants pedestrian and public access to the museum. The light ambient space of the continuous landscape surface at ground 0 level accomodates a variety of non-programmed activities, with landscape bands, themed as an instillation of floral and mineral landscapes, selected from a variety of ecological regions of South America. A new curatorial potential is engendered via several circulation loops, entering the museum with ease of access to the bookshop and café. An evolving flow of inter-connected surfaces projects a loop logic of circulation, enabling several possible routes through the temporary and permanent exhibition spaces. The spatial effect is one of heightened lack of gravity, unfolding a new curatorial order. The museum is to enable a cultural space as an extension of the civic space in a tectonic/curatorial site landscape strategy.

 

Shanghaï Residential
Design 2000
shanghaï, Chine, 1996
Concours O.C.E.A.N. UK : Tom Verebes, Michael Hensel, Eva Castro, Andrew Wai-Tat Yau

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Cette proposition définit 8 prototypes d'organisation, en coupe, qui relient en douceur l'espace extérieur urbain à l'espace intérieur en créant ainsi un environnement fluide sur plusieurs couches. Le projet développe une organisation nouvelle où un flux aquatique continu d'espaces ouverts paysagers s'articule autour de transitions douces entre les centres de gravitation des territoires privés et publics. Des séquences continues distribuent les espaces résidentiels, commerciaux et de loisirs autour de cours intérieures, en unifiant et diversifiant simultanément le champ urbain. Les volumes bâtis et les espaces ouverts permettent de créer une organisation cohérente par la fusion des catégories de bâtiments, de routes, de parcs et de jardins. L'aménagement paysager relie le plan d'eau au jardin urbain central. Ces deux zones paysagères fluides serpentent perpendiculairement à travers, au-dessus, au-dessous et à l'intérieur de ces deux zones. Un socle urbain accueille des flux piétonniers et cyclables à des niveaux multiples. La circulation routière est interdite sur toutes les surfaces piétonnes publiques et paysagères. Huit accès aux voies de desserte permettent de gérer un flux déterminé de véhicules vers les tours. Une nouvelle liaison de transport public et un nœud commercial intégrent le site à la nouvelle station de métro.

 

TumbleweedTM
Projet de recherche de mobilier, Phase 1 : 2000
O.C.E.A.N. UK : Tom Verebes, Nate Kolbe

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The initial phase of TumbleweedTM research intends to collate, re-nominate and transform categories of existing historical typologies of furnishing. A broad selection of 20th century furniture sections are sampled as a genetic code in the generation of them. The initial profiles emerge subverted and hybridised via radical exercises of abstraction and reconfiguration. They can be configured in a variety of scales. Extruded polycarbo-nate or aluminium tubing follow trajectories that generally describe highly lineated surfaces achieved from the accumulation of lines. The organization of the tubes follows three directions that converge in structurally necessitated laminations, and re-orient to shift to adjacent laminated tubes. The surfaces of Tumbleweeds provide opportunities to be filled with foam, or sheathed with a loose inflatable skin, or wrapped in a taught skin. Tumbleweeds aim to revise modes of production, consumption and codes of utility of furnishing objects. Devoid of fixed orientation, Tumleweeds roll with force exerted by the user, with differential states of stability. The occupant engages with TumbleweedTM in unfamiliar tendential patterns, always on the verge of finding new ways to use the object.

 

O.C.E.A.N. UK

Tom Verebes (1965)
Diplômé BSc [Arch], B [Arch] McGill University (Canada) ; AA Grad. Dip. (Londres)
Tom Verebes enseigne actuellement à l'Architectural Association School, Londres

Laure Gimenez (1970)
Diplômée DPLG (Grenoble) ; CEA (Paris) ; DESS ; M.A Arch. M.E.S.A. (Londres)

Alexander Thompson (1967)
Diplômé de l'Ecole d'Architecture Harrot Watt (Edimbourg)
1995 — Création à Londres de la branche londonienne du réseau transdisciplinaire O.C.E.A.N.

O.C.E.A.N. est également présent à Helsinki, Oslo, Ljubljana, Cologne et Boston

Principaux projets et réalisations

2000 — "Tumbleweed™ Furniture" (projet)
1999 — "Ocean Membrane" Shoreline membrane design, Japon (concours) ; "Four Residential Extensions / Conversions" Londres (en cours) ; "Times Square Ticketing Booth Competition" New York "Operation Interface Installation" CCA, IFA www site ; "Hamptons Intern. Estate Agents" Londres (réalisé)
1998 — "Dolce Vita : Couture clothing shop" Londres (réalisé) ; "Verde 2000" Timisoara (projet) ; "Europan 5" Jeumont, France (concours) ; "Flat Conversion" Londres (réalisée)
1997 — "Urban Surface" Installation publique, Jyväskylä, Finlande (projet) ; "Costantini Museum" Buenos Aires (concours) ; "Lasipalatsi Media Square" Helsinski (concours) ; "Future Vision for Kyoto" (concours) ; "Kuala Lumpur Multi-Use Complex" Malaisie (concours)
1996 — "Jeil's hospital for Women" Séoul, Corée (projet) ; "Bucuresti 2000 - Active Urban Projection" (concours international) ; "Shanghaï Residential Design 2000" Sectional Prototypes (concours) ; "Pusan High Speed Railway Complex" Pusan, Corée (concours)
1995 — "Arabianranta" urban design, Helsinki (projet)
1994 — "Yokohama Port Terminal" Japon (concours)

Bibliographie sélective de O.C.E.A.N. UK

1999 — "Hybrid Space : New forms in digital architecture" Peter Zellner, éditions Thames & Hudson, Londres ; "Urbanisations" Michael Hensel & Tom Verebes, O.C.E.A.N. UK, Serial Books, Arch. & Urbanism 3 Black Dog Publishing Limited, Londres ; RIBA Journal (fév.); Architecture d'Aujourd'hui (sept.) ; Wallpaper
1998 — De Arkitekt
1997 — "The Creative City" IUAH (Finlande) ; "Practice Profile" Urban Design Quaterly (UK) ; "After Geometry" Architectural Design (UK) ; Architectural Profile Magazine, Thaïlande ; AA Files (n°33); Arch+ ; AB, arkitektov bilten (Slovénie)
1996 — "Gateway II : Managing Urban Change" UIAH, Finlande
1995 — "New Approaches in Contemporary Urban Design" Arttu ! (Finlande) ; Space Magazine (Corée) ; Art 4D (Thaïlande) ; "The Architecture of the Jumping Universe" Ch. Jenks, Academy, Editions, London)