Adam Greenfield's written a fascinating piece on Koolhaas/OMA's new Prada store in New York – from a usability perspective. Jakob Nielsen and Miuccia Prada were always likely to prove unlikely bedfellows – the mind boggles – but many of Greenfield's observations about the sheer impracticality and lack of, well, usability hit home, particularly given Koolhaas' casting of his architecture as all-encompassing gesamtkunstwerk and platform for accompanying book(s).
Whilst Koolhaas is arguably more revolutionary than given credit for here …
<aside> Greenfield says Koolhaas "never once challenges the arrangements that result in the world as it is" To me, in the UK, the metropolitan essence of OMA's work is revolutionary in itself – "to investigate what, today, a metropolitan architecture might be" (from Rem Koolhaas: conversations with students, Sanford Kwinter ed.), is a statement which may have differing power depending on your context. From Tokyo, it might seem bland – in the urban-fearing UK, it's near-radical. Moreover, with their emphasis on observation and ethnographic research, OMA's work changes the practise of architecture — sidestep to discussion at AIGA Experience Design Agenda in London last week, and a face-off between the usability-oriented interaction designers and the real bricks'n'mortar architects; listening to 'users' and patterns and building what they say they want vs. educating 'users' to a higher level of experience, coaxing them to want more than they say.</aside>
Where was I?
Whilst Koolhaas is arguably more revolutionary than given credit for here, it sounds like he should have simultaneously thought more about doing less – in terms of avoiding fussyness and increasing durability – and thought more about extending the architectural concerns to include the staff – the cultural life of the building (re-engineering the haughty exclusivity associated with fashion brands). Kottke has a slightly different take – he notes the same things, but I like his pragmatic, iterative approach to problem-solving. Herbert Muschamp, writing for the NYTimes (requires (free) registration), has a more positive view too, rooting the store in Arte Povera and Antonioni, basking in the play of experience "Mr. Koolhaas" conjures. Almost as if Muschamp's dazzled by some Yugop-style Flash, while Greenfield's taking a Nielsen/Norman-led user-testing tour group round the building. I'm being unfair; Muschamp's legendary, and Greenfield's much smarter than a Nielsen-apologist, but the two different conclusions are interesting.
[Adam – please make v-2 articles easily printable! You've just written one of the best recent articles on design culture full stop and I want to read more. UPDATE: v-2 'fixed'! Thanks Adam.]