Open Form Architecture Blog

Here are two vi­deos in re­la­tionship with our re­search on the Image, Iden­tity and In­te­gra­tion in the Los An­ge­les hou­sing de­ve­lop­ment. The Rain­bow Apart­ments is a sig­ni­fi­cant pro­ject, de­sig­ned by Michael Mal­tzan Archi­tec­ture, for the ho­me­less com­mu­nity in Los An­ge­les. Ac­cor­ding to the Ins­ti­tute for the Study of Ho­me­less­ness, an es­ti­ma­ted 254,000 men, wo­men and chil­dren ex­pe­rience ho­me­less­ness in Los An­ge­les County.

This buil­ding goes well be­yond the kind of pro­ject that would be de­ve­lo­ped for this kind of com­mu­nity — the ho­me­less. With this pro­ject Michael Mal­tzan breaks the tra­di­tio­nal pa­ra­digm of what af­for­da­ble hou­ses are and chan­ges its dy­na­mic. “The Rain­bow apart­ments set up a new mo­del not only for a buil­ding, but for an en­tire com­bi­na­tion of so­cial en­ter­pri­ses, and not only pro­du­ces a new pa­ra­digms just for Los An­ge­les, but the pos­si­bi­lity of crea­ting a new na­tio­nal mo­del,” says Mal­tzan. Be­si­des, the pro­ject ad­dres­ses how to coun­te­ract the in­su­la­rity and her­me­tic na­ture of the inha­bi­tants’ daily li­ves and con­cerns over sa­fety and se­cu­rity, in­tro­du­cing open­ness, so­cial spa­ces, and ena­bling a rein­te­gra­tion of their li­ves into pu­blic life as a whole. Arran­ged in a par­tially open U-shaped con­fi­gu­ra­tion, five floors of re­si­den­tial units cradle a cen­tral court­yard on top of a socle of par­king and ad­mi­nis­tra­tive func­tions on the ground floor. A chain of pu­blic spa­ces and ex­te­rior gathe­ring areas are car­ved out or ex­tru­ded from the mass to erode the building’s ap­pa­rent so­li­dity, crea­ting var­ying depths of con­nec­tion and views bet­ween the in­ter­nal life of the court­yard and the world outside.

OFA’s co­lla­bo­ra­tor, Ch­ris­tophe Platt­ner, wrote us, while vi­si­ting his home town in Ba­sel, Swi­tzer­land, about this new pro­ject of Zaha Ha­did Archi­tects, the Stadt­ca­sino, to in­form us that the new city ca­sino was re­jec­ted at the urn by a clear ma­jo­rity, not only be­cause the ci­ti­zens found it too large and ex­pen­sive, but also be­cause they felt not enough in­for­med by the autho­ri­ties. Here is an ani­ma­tion, by Neu­tral, which in­ves­ti­ga­tes the buil­dings in­te­gra­tion into the archi­tec­tu­ral and cul­tu­ral fa­bric of Ba­sel — a new short­cut con­nec­ting two ma­jor squa­res de­ter­mi­nes an archi­tec­tu­ral lands­cape to ac­cess the old and new parts of a mu­sic ve­nue — and de­mons­tra­tes the inc­rea­sing con­ver­gence bet­ween mo­tion graphics and the built environment.

Vi­deo by Brooklyn Di­gi­tal Foundry

Here again, we ea­sily dis­tin­guish REX’s ope­ra­tion to comb, con­so­li­date, and iden­tify a set of pro­gram­ma­tic clus­ters de­sig­ned with dif­fe­rent pur­po­ses: a 5,000 m² con­tem­po­rary art cen­tre; 3,400 m² of stu­dios, glass shop, and ga­llery for the Uni­ver­sity of Louisville’s Mas­ter of Fine Arts pro­gram; a 250-room Wes­tin Ho­tel; 98 lu­xury con­do­mi­niums; 117 lofts; 25,000 m² of of­fice space on 13 floors; 1,860 m² of res­tau­rants and shops; un­der­ground par­king ga­rage for 800 cars.

The fi­nal re­sult is a 214-meter-tall, 62-story skysc­ra­per, dis­pla­ying another dis­tinc­tive and ico­nic fi­gure which par­ti­ci­pa­tes in what Koolhaas desc­ri­bes as: “an archi­pe­lago of ci­ties in the city”. One might see a co­llec­tion of tra­di­tio­nal skysc­ra­pers pla­ced on top of each other above a tra­di­tio­nal ur­ban pat­tern, but in rea­lity, even if the Mu­seum Plaza doesn’t re­vise the su­per­po­si­tion of floors in the ty­pi­cal Ame­ri­can high-rise –in the same way as the Seattle Li­brary– this pro­ject is a beau­ti­ful and in­ven­tive va­ria­tion on the clas­sic skysc­ra­per; a new vi­sion of skysc­ra­per. The Mu­seum Plaza will doubt­less re­de­fine the Loui­siana sky­line and cer­tainly change the way archi­tects, ur­ba­nists, and en­gi­neers shall think about tomorrow’s new high-rises and the pro­cess of urbanization.

Ima­ges by Pugh+Scarpa Architects

In De­cem­ber 2006, Brad Pitt con­ve­ned a group of ex­perts in New Or­leans to­brains­torm about buil­ding green af­for­da­ble hou­sing on a large scale to help­vic­tims of Hu­rri­cane Ka­trina. Ha­ving spent time with com­mu­nity lea­ders and­dis­pla­ced re­si­dents de­ter­mi­ned to re­turn home, Pitt rea­li­zed that anop­por­tu­nity exis­ted to build hou­ses that were not only stron­ger and healthier, but that had less im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment. Af­ter dis­cus­sing the hurd­les as­so­cia­ted with re­buil­ding in a de­vas­ta­te­da­rea, the group de­ter­mi­ned that a large-scale re­de­ve­lop­ment pro­ject fo­cu­sed on green af­for­da­ble hou­sing and in­cor­po­ra­ting in­no­va­tive de­sign was in­deed pos­si­ble. Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Brad Pitt an­nou­ces vi­sion for Lo­wer Ninth Ward’

Ne­vada House 1, by Mar­mol Rad­zi­ner Prefab

Af­ter the big suc­cess of the De­sert House, a pre­fab home de­sig­ned by Mar­mol Rad­zi­ner Pre­fab, here is their new arri­val: the Ne­vada House 1. This pro­ject not only com­bine the be­ne­fits of a cus­tom re­si­den­tial de­sign with the ef­fi­ciency of factory-built hou­ses, but also clearly ex­press this change in the way hou­ses are now thought and bought. Be­fore Thanks­gi­ving, Mar­mol Rad­zi­ner Pre­fab ins­ta­lled the thirty five mo­du­les of Ne­vada House 1 in just th­ree days without a glitch. Check out their new vi­deo for a glimpse of the ex­ci­ting de­li­very and installation.

Nearly-completed mo­du­les arri­ved at the Las Ve­gas site with pre-installed ca­se­work, win­dows, doors, fix­tu­res, and wood si­ding. A crane set the mo­du­les on the foun­da­tion to create 8,100 square feet of in­te­rior li­ving space and 3,400 square feet of co­ve­red deck for indoor-outdoor living.

Ne­vada House 1 is Mar­mol Rad­zi­ner Pre­bab first two-story pre­fab home. At the same time as their fac­tory was fa­bri­ca­ting the mo­du­les, the site foun­da­tion was being pre­pa­red. The foun­da­tion inc­lu­des a sun­ken auto court and sub­te­rra­nean bas­ket­ball court, wine sto­rage, and me­dia room to create more usa­ble spa­ces be­low grade.

Af­ter se­ve­ral years of de­ve­lop­ment, the archi­tect, Mar­mol Rad­zi­ner Pre­fab, de­mons­tra­tes that it is pos­si­ble to make sty­lish and sus­tai­na­ble pre­fab hou­sing rea­lity while suc­cee­ding to un­ders­tand the cul­ture of buil­ding in Southern California/Nevada — to take ad­van­tage of indoor/outdoor living.

Pro­cess

Few months ago, I got the chance to in­ter­view the archi­tect Law­rence Scarpa, prin­ci­pal of Pugh+Scarpa, on the im­pact of sus­tai­na­ble de­sign on the fi­gure and in­te­gra­tion of his own house, the So­lar Um­bre­lla, in Ve­nice. Ins­pi­red by Paul Rudolph’s Um­bre­lla House of 1953, the So­lar Um­bre­lla pro­vi­des a con­tem­po­rary rein­ven­tion of the so­lar canopy—a stra­tegy that pro­vi­des ther­mal pro­tec­tion in cli­ma­tes with in­tense exposures—using pho­to­vol­taic pa­nels to pro­vide 100% of the home’s energy needs. Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Che­ro­kee Lofts Breaks Ground?, Pugh+Scarpa Architects’