OMA plays it cool in Dubai

Astragal was lucky enough to enjoy an afternoon with Reinier de Graaf from Rem Koolhaas' firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) last week.

The dapper Dutchman took the assembled audience through his practice's portfolio of work in Dubai. De Graaf described the Emirate state as 'a collection of mutually competing theme parks' where there exists a 'monotony of the exceptional'. So it's a good job OMA decided to design something low key for its Waterfront City scheme in the desert state. No one will really notice a Death Star amid the theme parks anyway…