History of REX
Based in New York City, REX is a highly recognized architecture and design firm on a global scale. REX challenges and advances building typologies and promotes the agency of architecture because it believes that architecture should do something for its users and communities, rather than just be a representational art. Their goal is to develop creative designs that are so well-suited to their intended use that they inspire admiration. Fast Company has twice listed the company as one of the Top 10 Innovative Architecture Companies in the World.
The company was founded in 2001 by founding principal Joshua Ramus. Joshua was a founding partner of OMA New York in 2001 and served as its principal until 2006, when he rebranded the firm as REX. During that period, he held the position of partner-in-charge for all of the firm’s projects, which included the Seattle Central Library, which was praised as «the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review in more than 30 years of writing about architecture» by Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic for The New York Times.
As evidence of the firm’s superior design, REX and Joshua’s projects have been honored with numerous awards, including multiple AIA New York, Architect/Progressive Architecture, Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Review/MIPIM, Wallpaper*, and two AIA National Honor Awards. They have also been recognized with two American Council of Engineering Companies National Gold Awards, a CTBUH Award of Excellence, Time magazine’s Building of the Year, and inclusion in the prestigious Aga Khan Award and Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize competitions.
Leadership
The studio is composed of thirty designers of varied cultural, social, and educational backgrounds. The leadership team is made up of: JOSHUA, who oversees the diverse professional think-tank of the company and continues to be deeply involved in every aspect of office operations; ALYSEN HILLER FIORE, who is a director at REX and co-manages the office with Joshua Ramus; ADAM CHIZMAR, a senior associate and is currently running the The Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (nearing completion) and two mixed-use towers on Perth’s Elizabeth Quay in Australia (under construction); and RAÚL RODRÍGUEZ GARCÍA, a senior associate at REX currently leading 205 North Quay, a 37-story office tower in Brisbane, Australia; the 4,050 m² (43,600 sf) Necklace Residence on New York’s Long Island; and a luxury apartment in Manhattan, all under construction.
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Joshua Ramus, Founding Principal of REX
Joshua received the inaugural Araldo Cossutta Fellowship and the SOM Fellowship while pursuing his Master of Architecture at Harvard University. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Yale University, where he graduated magna cum laude with distinction. On top of that, he is registered as an architect in the Netherlands, Australia, and several U.S. states. He is also NCARB Certified.
Joshua has held visiting positions at Columbia University, The Cooper Union, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, and at Yale University as the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor and the Cullinan Visiting Professor at Rice University. Joshua presented REX’s design processes at TED and TEDxSMU conferences. He also frequently gave lectures at universities, museums, and symposiums all over the world.
Company Culture at REX
According to REX, the struggle between form and function is superficial and meaningless. The antiquated debate over whether architecture is an art form or a tool no longer defines it. Rather, their attention is directed toward performance, which is a synthesis of form and function customized to the needs of each client and the constraints of each project. Art performs, and tools perform.
Engaged intelligently, project challenges such as site conditions, budgets, schedules, codes, and politics are opportunities that catalyze the most innovative solutions. Architectural concepts that capitalize on our clients’ constraints will surpass any vision that resists intractable realities. We produce specific designs that are highly effective, not universals diluted in application.
Putting aside norms, preconceived aesthetic approaches, or results, they persistently investigate the core issues with «critical naiveté.» Sometimes they find new territory; sometimes they resurrect forgotten territory that has become relevant again; and occasionally they confidently reassert established norms. They aim to create innovative designs that are so functionally specific that they provide inspiring aesthetic experiences, and through this process, they reveal solutions that go beyond those they could have initially or individually imagined.
At REX, they believe that respecting and valuing each person’s distinct experiences and backgrounds is the first step toward ensuring that everyone has equitable access to opportunities and experiences in both their built environment and their line of work. REX requires diversity in the firms they work with, the stakeholder groups they interact with, and their fellow collaborators.
Architect-US is proud to work in close contact with REX and to be able to ensure the firm gets to know and work with amazing young architects like David Manso Pulido, whom we helped process his Visa and get a position at REX through our Job+J1 Visa Program!
David Manso Pulido
David Manso is a Spanish architect who joined REX through our Job+J1 Visa Program as a Trainee. Despite the fact that he did not finish his Master’s, his impressive work experience in the field made his J1 Visa application possible. David will also not be moving alone to the United States, he will be bringing his wife and daughter along!
He studied Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Spain. David’s work experience ranges for a period of over 12 years in the Architecture Industry in Madrid, New York, Sydney and Hamburg. The companies he worked for required him to employ different sets of skills such as: project managing, layout design, MEP, design, 3D modelling and archviz. David is an expert at AutoCAD, Sketchup, 3DStudio Max, VRay, Corona, Lumion, TwinMotion, Enscape, and Photoshop.
David Manso Pulido spent 12 years working at AXIOM Ingeniería, an engineering firm specialized in pharmaceutical plant design, Madrid, where he took part in many different projects like: Laboratories for Takeda in Madrid; 100 apartments in Aluche, Madrid; Oncology Plant in Kazakhstan for Sabb Pharma; and Media center in Toluca, México.
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REX‘s Selected Projects
CLC & MSFL Towers – Shenzen, China
REX presented their plan for CLC and MSFL, two of the biggest banks in China, who decided to consolidate their new corporate offices into one location in Shenzhen’s CDB. Planning regulations allow for tall buildings on the site, but a token tower-and-plinth scheme appears to be required due to the maximum allowable building area and the planned mix of offices and retail. Alternatively, the offices of CLC and MSFL are arranged into two extremely efficient blocks, each having the maximum floor area permitted by code and urban design specifications, an entirely flexible plan without columns, an optimal 9-meter separation between the core and façade, and an efficiency ratio of 80%.
A typical podium on the site would eliminate most of the public space, limit daylight, and compress retail and collective programs into an undifferentiated mass that would lower property value. The retail and collective programs are gathered into two billboards of attractors, giving each program a distinct identity and increased visibility. To further enhance the vibrancy of Shenzhen’s CBD, the greatest amount of pedestrian space is recovered and a brand-new, dynamic urban space is built.
Each building’s pair of concrete cores supports a «launch pad» truss that holds up a typical high-rise gravity framing system and conventional office plans in order to create the desired typological duality in each structure. The lower levels are liberated from the normative structural limitations that come with building high-rises thanks to the launch pad trusses.
Photos by REX
Lindemann Performance Arts Center @Brown University – Providence, Rhode Island
REX has taken it upon themselves to create the «most-automated» performances building in the world. The 101,000 square foot (9,383 square meter) building, known as The Lindemann Performing Arts Center (The Lindemann), is made up of a shoebox theater and a lengthy walkway that resembles a bridge. It is located between Brown University’s main campus and Pembroke College, a women’s college that merged with the main campus in 1971.
The project brief called for combining small performance spaces with student facilities and to create a home for the Brown University Orchestra. To achieve this flexibility, the studio, in collaboration with Brown Arts Institute (BAI), designed a shoebox-style theater with multiple automated features that enable various configurations. Its movable walls, ceilings, balconies, catwalks, gantries, staging, and seats enable the structure to accommodate big and small musical events.
As a learning institution, the Lindemann’s design made automation crucial to the project. It has an easily removable grid iron that allows students to use rigging.
Photos by REX
Museum Plaza – Louisville, Kentucky
Museum Plaza challenges preconceived notions about real estate development. Physically and spiritually, culture is positioned at the heart of the project. A development of more than 141,800 m² (1,530,000 sf) is required to support the capital and operating costs of a 3,700 m² (40,000 sf) art institute. Its uses must be varied to prevent oversaturation of Louisville’s market with a single commercial program; these uses include loft apartments, hotels, offices, retail, and luxury condominiums.
The luxury condos and offices above, as well as the hotel and loft apartments below, are profit machines: the market dictates their areas, plans, and views, optimizing financing and maximizing rents and sale prices. Every distinctive and public aspect of the development, both commercial and cultural, is housed on the Island, as opposed to the «dumb» towers. The project’s uniqueness is contained within the Island, which also helps with issues like security, exiting, and circulation.
A fruitful opportunity to question the typology of a contemporary art institute is presented by the collision of cultural and commercial uses within the Island. Museum Plaza addresses a number of issues that art institutions face, such as procession, gallery flexibility, and the fusion of culture and commerce. So despite their apparent banality, the galleries are made extraordinary by a few remarkable views—one looking up between the towers, another looking down 24 stories to the park below—and an ingeniously designed perimeter wall system.
Culture is typically an afterthought in large developments, something that is added to appease a municipality. Museum Plaza challenges the typology of the art institute by creating the program for and ultimately implementing a vehicle that puts art at its center, both literally and figuratively.
Photos by REX
We will be posting more projects by REX in the upcoming weeks and months, so keep an eye out for more of their incredible work! Every Friday we will be posting a new Featured Company, so join us again next week!
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