Omega Point

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Omega Point

Firm

Vision Included

Type

Residential › Apartment
Hospitality + Sport ›
Cultural › Cultural Center

SIZE

1,000,000 +

‘The
assignment is to generate ideas for an Open Fort that facilitates innovation in
the cultural, social and economic domains. It should be an Open Fort that will
stimulate the continued social, cultural and economic development of Amsterdam
North.’  
Our ideas for the characteristics of ‘the Fort’ are two-fold:  

First, we
agree that, the catalyst potential accumulated in this Fort is mandatory for
initiating successful development. But, this can only function when carefully
placed in, and connected to the site specific routing and surrounding urban
tissue: fort as urban catalyst. 
 Secondly,
the concept of a fort as ‘fortified strategic position’ was crucial in Dutch
history, as a way to colonize and appropriate foreign resources, known as
colonialism. We state that, although we have condemned this practice of global
injustice, we still have an active role in exploiting foreign eco-systems
for one-sided egocentric benefits; fort as eco-consumer. How do we deal with
sustainability?Eco-colonialismEach Dutch
person needs an ecological footprint equivalent of 44,000 m2 worldwide; this
includes croplands, food production, forest, fishing grounds, CO2 compensation
(energy), O2 production and build-up land. Only one quarter of these
requirements can be accommodated in the Netherlands, the remaining 33,000 m2
per person we have distributed outside of our official state boundaries. (1) In the evolution from green
Earth to manufactured landscapes we establish an inefficient process of
eco-detoriation by rapidly devaluating the quality of habitats worldwide.
-
Omega Point
//.. World Sustainability Forum
Amsterdam instigates the
‘World Sustainibility Forum’, a tipping point in global thinking regarding
eco-colonialism. A sphere of thought, of maximum global complexity and
consciousness’. It becomes the only place in the world where the total impact
of our daily live becomes visible.
-The building combines an
outside natural spiral that represents 1 average eco-footprint with an inside
evolution into the manufactured landscape linked with various program chambers
and accumulating in this Forum. The building becomes a meeting ground for all
players in the area of sustainable innovation and ecological development.