OMA Wins International Highrise Award

The winner — the ninth IHA winner — was named today during an online presentation necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Norra Tornen bested four other big-name, high-profile finalists: Omniturm in Frankfurt/Main by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group; Eden in Singapore by Heatherwick Studio; The Stratford in London by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; and Leeza SOHO in Beijing by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Accordingly, the statuette and check were presented "symbolically" to architect and client in a digital ceremony broadcast from Paulskirche in Frankfurt and attended by the award's three organizers: Dr. Ina Hartwig, the City of Frankfurt Deputy Mayor for Culture; , Dr. Matthias Danne, Deputy CEO of DekaBank; and Peter Cachola Schmal, Director of the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM).

Explaining the project in a presentation included in the award ceremony, Reinier de Graaf said their design both follows and disobeys the building envelope given them by the city architect when they came on board in 2012. Creating bays with balconies wrapping the perimeter and flipping every other floor led to its final "beehive" appearance. Both the structure and facade were prefabricated and therefore built fairly quickly: the 36-story Innovationen Tower was completed in 2018 and the 32-story Helix Tower this year.

Norra Tornen was developed by Oscar Properties after winning a land allocation competition held by the City of Stockholm in 2013. The two towers contain a total of 320 apartments (182 in Innovationen Tower, 138 in Helix Tower) plus amenities and ground-floor retail. The towers are the first built project in Sweden by OMA and the tallest buildings in Stockholm.

Visit OMA's profile for more information on the Norra Tornen.