Renewal-Zone：后休斯顿︱OMA作品：旧邮局仓库多功能演变全纪录

2023-04-11 16:58 作者:REARD锐地星设计 0人读过 | 我要投稿

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休斯顿被称为“河口之城”，城市由大片翠绿的地块分隔开来，频发的洪灾阻碍了这些土地的开发。城市中心位于布法罗河与白橡树河两条河道的交汇处，在其北端，核心区域跨越布法罗河道，由20世纪70年代至80年代建成的办公楼、充满活力的剧院区以及主要的市政机构组成。在休斯顿大中央车站的旧址上，坐落着一座混凝土仓库办公楼，面积达50万平方英尺。

改造前 © OMA

这里曾是美国邮局（USPS）在休斯顿的主要中心，建筑由知名的休斯顿太空巨蛋体育场的建筑师Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson在1962年打造。当66000名观众在体育场观看9名运动员的棒球运动时，2000名邮件分拣员正奋战在芭芭拉乔丹邮局，只有少数人在他们上方的“观测通道”中穿行。

Photography by Marco Cappelletti

美国邮局在2015年关闭了该设施，随后这里由美籍台裔开发商Frank Liu收购。其他竞标者都毫无悬念地迅速将这里视作具有开发潜力的空地，而Liu和他的儿子则计划将仓库保留并重新诠释。建筑的尺度和坚固性蕴含着开发潜力，同时也带来了问题和矛盾。如何保护该建筑，并避免其工业特征喧宾夺主？如何在不拆除的前提下，打破建筑与周边环境的壁垒式关系？当这些元素恰好将建筑与休斯顿市中心剥离开时，要如何保留原有的尺度和氛围？如何对其中未经划分的体量进行布局使用，而避免出现闭路迷宫？

Photography by Sean Fleming

建筑师采用了大量保护与干预相平衡的设计手法来解题。为了将这片16英亩的场地融入市中心的城市肌理，而非从中分离，设计专注于场地南侧的连接设施。仿佛农民耕作，建筑师在混凝土的土壤中犁出一系列横向通道，并为每一条通道切割出室内空间。这些切口将自然光线引至深色楼板，并与建筑的三层楼面交汇：首层为商业空间、二层是宽敞办公空间，顶部为6英亩的屋顶公园；同时打造出三个不同的项目区域：文化零售区、食品市场以及协作办公区。

三处区域的中庭分别被命名为X、O和Z。每个中庭的巨大楼梯引导访客至屋顶景观区，将远处的视野带回城市中心。这些楼梯的结构和材料独具特色，致力于鼓励人们进行互动。重复、交错或扩展的楼梯，形成通向屋顶的路径和偶然邂逅的空间，每一处都将人们聚集在一起。

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

在仓库的东翼开辟出的第四个空间中植入了713音乐厅，这是一处可容纳5500人的文化综合体。场地以平坦的大型综合性空间为特色，像灵活的舞蹈厅悬挂着分层座位看台。平坦的地面为诸多活动提供了无限可能。看台提供了较为传统的座位和遮蔽空间，人们可以像学生一样在看台下闲逛，聚集在远离表演的地方。

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

713音乐厅与其他区域一样，需要从原仓库中分隔出一处空间。主建筑的三处中庭引入了自然采光，这处场地的切口在综合大厅上方提供了一处95英尺的无柱空间跨度。新的屋顶支撑起一座都市农场以及一处用于额外大型表演的区域、一处遮阴花园、休闲区和两座用餐凉亭，为休斯顿市中心提供了一座17万平方英尺的新公共空间集合。这座建筑既是门户也是目的地，不仅成为了通向城中新公共空间的纽带，也是与基础设施、商业抱负和自然活力并行的优美风景。

Photography by Scott Shigley

Photography by Scott Shigley

Photography by Sean Fleming

Houston, called the “Bayou City,” is cut through with verdant swaths of land made resistant to development by their propensity to flood. Its downtown sits where two of these bayous, the Buffalo and the White Oak, cross. At the northern end of downtown— across the Buffalo Bayou from the core of 1970s and 1980s office towers, the vibrant theater district, and major civic institutions—a 500,000-square-foot concrete warehouse and office building sits on the site of what was once Houston’s Grand Central Station.

历史图片 © OMA

历史图片 © OMA

Formerly Houston’s main center for the United States Postal Service (USPS), the building was built in 1962 by Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson, the architects of the Astrodome. While the Astrodome housed nine men playing a ballgame watched over by 66,000 spectators, the Barbara Jordan Post Office housed 2,000 mail sorters watched over by a handful of men walking through “spy tunnels” above them.

原貌 © OMA

When the USPS closed the facility in 2015, it was purchased by a local Taiwanese-American developer, Frank Liu. Other bidders had all immediately and unquestionably considered the site a potential tabula rasa, but Liu and his sons planned to keep and reimagine the warehouse. The building’s scale and solidity offered potential, but also posed questions and contradictions. How can we preserve it but avoid fetishizing its “industrial” character? How can we break its fortress-like relationship with its context without dismantling the building? How can we preserve its scale and aura when those qualities are precisely the elements that disaffect the building from downtown Houston? How do we tame the undifferentiated field of columns within it without creating a maze of dead-ends?

Photography by Marco Cappelletti

Photography by Marco Cappelletti

Our approach balanced wholesale preservation with surgical interventions. To integrate the 16-acre site into the fabric of the downtown without dividing it, we focused on a series of connections from the south. Like farmers working on concrete soil, we raked a series of horizontal thoroughfares into and through it. Along each line we cut an interior void. The cuts bring light into the deep floorplates and intersect the building’s three levels: a commercial ground plane; a second level of expansive offices; and a 6-acre rooftop park above. They also establish three bands across as zones for different programs—cultural and retail, food market, and collaborative workspace.

Within the bands are three atriums—named X, O, and Z— each of which contains a monumental staircase that leads visitors up to the roof-scape and vistas back to downtown. The stairs are distinct in character, structure, and material, but all are designed to encourage interaction. Their paths are doubled, intertwined, and expanded to provide not just trajectories up to the roof but places for accidental encounter—each is an instrument to bring people together.

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

Photography by Leonid Furmansky

On the eastern wing of the warehouse we carved out a fourth void to insert the 713 Music Hall, the 5,500-capacity music venue and cultural anchor of the complex. The venue features a large, flat general assembly like those of more nimble dance halls, with a tribune of tiered seating hanging over it. The flat floor allows for limitless arrangements. The tribune provides more traditional seating and a sheltered space where visitors can gather away from the performance, like students hanging out under the bleachers.

Photography by Steve Hyde

Like other areas of POST Houston, the 713 Music Hall required cutting a void into the existing warehouse. While the three atriums in the main building were introduced to bring in light, the cut for the venue allows for a 95-foot column-free span over the general assembly. Its new roof supports a “Texas-sized” urban farm that, together with an additional zone for large performance, a shaded garden, recreation areas, and two restaurant pavilions, will assemble 170,000 square feet of new public realm for downtown Houston. The building is as much a gateway as a destination. It is a link to a new public space within the city and dramatic view out over its juxtapositions—of infrastructure, business ambition, and natural vitality.