OPTIMUS SPACE AT CASA DA MÙSICA
At the invitation of Rem Koolhaas & Ellen van Loon, Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram with Nuno Rosado have in collaboration designed a new event space and flagship store at the travertine base of Casa da Música for OPTIMUS, Portugal’s most innovative mobile telephone operator.

Opened to the public in 2005, Casa da Música designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture invigorated the traditional concert hall with its faceted exterior, daring interior forms and innovative use of materials and established a radically-new cultural icon and vibrant public space for the city of Porto.

The design of the OPTIMUS SPACE allows customers and visitors to experience the full breadth of content and mobile phones on offer through the OPTIMUS network; not through empty advertising but through hands-on, spatial and visceral experience. At night, an INTERACTIVE FAÇADE fills the entire front of the OPTIMUS SPACE facing Avenida Boavista, Europe’s longest straight road within the limits of a city.

OPTIMUS SPACE AT CASA DA MÙSICA
The design for the project calls for a technology savvy environment for experiencing music and media, moving all shopping functions into a single device. The EXPERIENCE BLOCK slots into the centre of the 200 m2 space, allowing unimpeded views of the sweeping concrete forms making up both the external walls as well as the raised plaza forming the foundation of Casa da Música.

OPTIMUS SPACE AT CASA DA MÙSICA
The recent evolution of the mobile phone has caused dramatic changes to the experience of public space. The mobile phone has become man’s indispensable companion, occupying a complex, central position in the lives of customers, conveying social status and continually altering both physical gestures and community models.

Mobile phone operators offer an ever increasing variety of services, media and applications for download anytime & anywhere. However, until now all mobile phone brands have essentially conveyed the same physical and content message in their stores. The OPTIMUS SPACE at Casa da Música breaks with existing mobile phone shop typologies, emphasizing the deep wealth of digital content on offer.