Login
Registered users
The brief called for a robust and adaptable building—a lean, low carbon, zero finishes ‘White Collar Factory’ for the USA—that could accommodate a diverse mix of uses and foster civic life and community exchange. These programs were to be anchored by a publicly accessible ground floor that extended the urban realm inward. Mass timber, steel and concrete structural systems were considered before selecting an efficient post-tensioned concrete frame; to support large spans, maximized floor-to-soffit heights and ensure long-term adaptability. The exterior draws inspiration from neighboring 1930s art deco towers, reinterpreting their verticality and window rhythms through a contemporary unitized aluminum and glass cladding system—a first in Oklahoma City.
The voting session is closed
Situated opposite the Oklahoma City National Memorial, hallowed ground that remembers the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995; the site required a sensitive and contextual design response. The building was conceived as a calm and carefully considered backdrop, respectful of its setting and intentionally restrained so as not to compete with or diminish the solemnity of the Memorial. Its finished height of 168 feet subtly commemorates the 168 lives lost in the attack. The Citizen’s innovation lies in its quiet intelligence—an architecture that addresses complex urban, structural, and contextual challenges through clarity, longevity, and restraint. It reimagines the civic building not as a monument, but as a framework for evolving communities and uses overtime.
Conceived as a 100yr building, The Citizen is designed for durability and adaptability. A robust, exposed concrete frame supports long spans and generous floor-to-soffit heights, enabling change with minimal intervention. The building’s core is placed along the party wall with an adjacent parking garage, freeing the main floorplates and allowing these peripheral spaces to benefit from natural light and views. Vertical circulation is expressed externally, encouraging stair use and contributing to a sense of movement and transparency. A commitment to exposed, enduring materials underpins the project’s architectural clarity. Concrete, glass, and anodized aluminum cladding form the primary palette, minimizing applied finishes while creating richness through proportion, rhythm, and light.
The Citizen contains a diverse blend of functions intended to support and stimulate meeting and engagement. A mix of functions brings people together across boundaries of profession, purpose and background, creating a place to work, stay, meet and gather. At street level, the first floor is deliberately porous, blurring the distinction between inside and out. Its generous volume and transparent façade invite the city in, allowing the public realm to flow deep into the building. Spaces are designed to be clear and legible, with high volumes, daylight, and warm material contrasts contributing to an atmosphere of calm and openness. Circulation flows are intuitive and unobstructed, fostering a sense of ease and spatial dignity. From the ground floor to the uppermost office levels, the building supports a spectrum of uses without privileging one over another. In an uncommon but effective arrangement, AHMM was responsible not only for The Citizen’s shell and core but also for delivering several fit outs of its varied tenancies, including their own OKC studio. This continuity of authorship enabled a high degree of control across design and delivery, ensuring that—even with differing aesthetic approaches—each space aligned with the building’s overarching conceptual vision. The result is a richly layered but cohesive architectural experience, unified in tone and ambition. Its legacy will not be style, but longevity, an architecture that evolves with the city and endures for its people.
“AHMM’s work on the Citizen explores the tension between order and looseness, control and change” – Tim Soar “Citizenship is making a place better beyond your own self-interest. [Citizen] provides is a melting pot that if successful, will benefit our entire community” – Renzi Stone “The Citizen presents a unique opportunity to re-think how people will work and socialize in the future.” – Bond Payne
Established in 1989 with offices in London, Bristol, Madrid, Oklahoma City and Sydney, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris makes buildings that are satisfying and enjoyable to use, beautiful to look at and easy to understand. The practice designs very different buildings for very different people to use in very different ways, making places as well as buildings that work overtime and have lasting qualities intrinsic to their architecture.
Winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize and recipient of many other awards for architecture and design, the practice has received public and media acclaim for its work across sectors. AHMM is known for its reinvention of buildings and places including the Angel and Tea Buildings, Television Centre, the Barbican, and New Scotland Yard, as well as key new commercial, residential and education developments in London, around the UK and internationally.
