Open Form Architecture Blog

There is another great event co­ming in Ca­na­dian his­tory, our 150th birth­day in 2017. This is es­pe­cially a chance to re­de­fine what Ca­nada is and where the country is hea­ding. As archi­tects and ur­ba­nists, it is a chance to de­fine our vi­sion for ci­ties in our nor­dic cli­mate and vast geo­graphy, and to con­si­der the ur­ban im­pli­ca­tions of our new de­mo­graphic cha­rac­te­rist from years of con­ti­nual im­mi­gra­tion. An ins­pi­ring and thought pro­vo­king call-to-action from Pe­ter Mac­Leod (vi­deo) at MASS LBP at TEDx To­ronto is worth watching.

I think that this is a great op­por­tu­nity for Ca­na­dian de­sig­ners to chan­nel ef­forts into rec­rea­ting and re­freshing a vi­sion to our society.

Vi­deo show­ca­sing Hol­ger Schubert’s Ma­se­rati Ga­rage in Los An­ge­les, CA

Ear­lier this year, Ma­se­rati and Archi­tec­tu­ral Di­gest ma­ga­zine to­gether in­vi­ted in­di­vi­duals who ap­pre­ciate fine de­sign in ge­ne­ral and cars in par­ti­cu­lar to join in a com­pe­ti­tion tit­led “De­sign Dri­ven.” Two ca­te­go­ries — Exis­ting and Con­cept — as­ked en­trants to sub­mit a ga­rage de­sign that inc­lu­ded a no­ted archi­tec­tu­ral ele­ment, uni­que­ness and in­di­vi­dua­lity, while pro­vi­ding a com­ple­men­tary en­vi­ron­ment for a Ma­se­rati car. Hol­ger Shubert’s exis­ting Los An­ge­les ga­rage, as well as the de­sign of Ch­ris Alt­man, of Stubbs Mul­drow He­rin Archi­tects of South Ca­ro­lina, in the con­cept ca­te­gory de­mons­trate that the au­to­mo­bi­les con­ti­nue to create the or­ga­ni­za­tio­nal lo­gic of Los An­ge­les. Cars re­main ine­ra­di­cably as­so­cia­ted with Los An­ge­les. All en­tries can be vie­wed at De­sign­Dri­ven.

Will’s Bar pro­ject, Dra­wing (what I re­mem­ber of it)

Bri­tish archi­tect, Will Al­sop, of­fe­red a vi­brant lec­ture at the Ca­na­dian Cen­tre for Archi­tec­ture in Montréal, pre­sen­ting his de­sign pro­cess and a va­riety of crea­tive works (sho­wing every­ting from con­cep­tual mo­dels to pain­tings, dra­wings, pho­to­graphs and di­verse ani­ma­tions). Here is one dra­wing for the Will’s Bar pro­ject that ex­plo­res the idea of crea­ting an unu­sual buil­ding to at­tract peo­ple; to make them cu­rious about the space.

The exhi­bi­tion Will Al­sop: OCAD, An Ur­ban Ma­ni­festo will be, fea­tu­res Will Alsop’s pre­pa­ra­tory work for the Sharp Cen­tre for De­sign at the On­ta­rio Co­llege of Art & De­sign (OCAD) in To­ronto and re­veals spe­ci­fi­cally the role of pain­ting in his de­sign process.

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

Stock­man Re­si­dence, © Ro­ger Ku­rath, Designer

Lo­ca­ted in Santa Mo­nica, the Stock­man Re­si­dence sits on a tight cor­ner lot, at a very busy street in­ter­sec­tion. The house is su­rroun­ded by tall apart­ment buil­dings on the south side and a mo­dest park with dense treed areas on the east side. “Within this con­text, the tra­di­tio­nal house ty­po­logy with front yard, front porch and back yard is ill-suited and de­mands to be re-imagined so to bet­ter res­pond to its su­rroun­ding,” says the de­sig­ner, Ro­ger Ku­rath.
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Stock­man Re­si­dence, Los Angeles’

Thom Mayne, archi­tect, and 2005 Pritz­ker Prize lau­reate, in in­ter­view with Char­lie Rose

This is the re­sult of a study with Mathe­ma­tica on the way to “pro­duce” an enor­mous pos­si­ble range of sha­pes. This tool that we’ve made allows us to create any shape by set­ting re­gu­lar or irre­gu­lar boun­da­ries. then the soft­ware com­pu­tes and gi­ves born to some alien ba­bies. This is all pa­ra­me­tri­cal and ba­sed on mathe­ma­ti­cal func­tions. Mathe­ma­tica is a po­wer­full soft­ware that Open Form will use ef­fi­ciently from now on.

These are the re­sults of one of our pro­ject at the sum­mer school of New Kind of Science.

Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Trac­ta­ble Shape II’

POPULATION GROWTH VS HOUSE TYPOLOGY
Los An­ge­les con­ti­nues to inc­rease in den­sity and there is now an ur­gent need for more peo­ple to find a place to live in­side the city. Ho­we­ver, the de­sire of the inha­bi­tants who al­ready live within the ur­ban areas is to con­ti­nue kee­ping the cu­rrent low den­sity which re­sem­bles that of a su­burb. Con­se­quently the re­sults of this ten­sion dis­turb not only the form of the ur­ban lands­cape of LA, but also be­gin to se­ve­rely trans­form both the shape and iden­tity of its do­mes­tic ty­po­lo­gies. Ro­ger Sher­man of Ro­ger Sher­man Archi­tec­ture + Ur­ban De­sign sta­tes that to­day “Los An­ge­les needs to build more within its exis­ting size, within its exis­ting foot­print.”
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘3-in-1 House (Schab-Sherman Residence)’

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Con­cept Diagram

Fun­da­men­tally the house is our shel­ter, but it is also a place of ap­pro­pria­tion, where we create our iden­ti­ties and our me­mo­ries. An in­ter­face with the world, the home is a de­vice in which we fil­ter our en­vi­ron­ment and trans­fer in­for­ma­tion about our­sel­ves to others. Our pro­po­sal for the plan-less house seeks to create a sim­ple sys­tem of mo­va­ble ele­ments which to­gether yield al­most an in­fi­nite com­bi­na­tion of spa­tial con­fi­gu­ra­tions. The idea of the home is no lon­ger a plan dia­gram in­di­ca­ting a hie­rarchy of di­vi­sions, but a set of va­ria­bles which crea­tes a fle­xi­ble sys­tem adap­ting to the user. Now a more in­te­res­ting and com­plex exchange and in­te­rac­tion can oc­cur, one in which the inhabiter(s) can cons­tantly re-appropriate, re-territorialize space as nee­ded. The house con­cep­tually be­co­mes a stage set, in which many ac­ti­vi­ties and story­li­nes take place si­mul­ta­neously in the same “space” and can also be re­con­fi­gu­red for dif­fe­rent “sce­nes.” A mu­ta­ble code for li­ving, the plan-less house ful­fills the need for the spa­tial com­ple­xity which our li­festy­les de­mand.
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Plan-Less House, OFA’

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In 2006, I par­ti­ci­pa­ted at the NKS Sum­mer School, which was a de­fi­ning ex­pe­rience. The to­pic of my re­search was THE SPACE BETWEEN THE CELLULAR AUTOMATA: Re­wor­king the Spa­tial Di­vi­sion in Archi­tec­ture. Du­ring the last year, I con­ti­nued to ex­plore this idea and used it in va­rious in­ter­na­tio­nal archi­tec­tu­ral com­pe­ti­tions en­tries, such as the Plan-Less House (Ja­pan) and The Stockholm Li­brary (Sweden).This sum­mer, I will par­ti­ci­pate for a se­cond time to the NKS Sum­mer School at the Uni­ver­sity of Ver­mont, Bur­ling­ton, Vt. Du­ring this year’s pro­gram I will ad­vance my re­search by ex­plo­ring Net­work Struc­tu­res in architecture.

As Ste­ven Wol­fram ar­gues, “Space is a giant net­work of no­des” we see that, as op­po­sed to the me­tro­po­li­ses of the twen­tieth cen­tury, con­tem­po­rary so­ciety pro­du­ces Net­works of Ci­ties. These ci­ties work si­mul­ta­neously on their in­ter­nal re­no­va­tion, inc­rea­sing their ef­fi­ciency from within, while they or­ga­nize them­sel­ves te­rri­to­rially in the form of a NETWORK OF CITIES.
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Net­work Struc­tu­res in Architecture’

Lo­ca­ted on a cor­ner site at 17th and Hope streets in down­town Los An­ge­les, the pro­ject pro­po­ses a 6-story apart­ment buil­ding that inc­lu­des ap­pro­xi­ma­tely 87 ef­fi­ciency units of se­nior af­for­da­ble hou­sing, com­mu­nity rec­rea­tion room, com­mu­nal di­ning room, kitchen, laundry, and ad­mi­nis­tra­tive spa­ces. The site is ad­ja­cent to a free­way on-ramp con­nec­ting to the 10/110 Free­way in­terchange and is within blocks of the Sta­ples Con­ven­tion Cen­ter to the west and the Ca­li­for­nia Hos­pi­tal Me­di­cal Cen­ter to the north. The tran­si­tio­nal cha­rac­ter of its lo­ca­tion at the edge of down­town and ad­ja­cency to the free­way re­qui­res the pro­ject ad­dress en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors such as sa­fety, noise, and pri­vacy.
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘New Car­ver Apartments’

(John­son House street facade)

THE EVOLUTION OF LOS ANGELES
The image and iden­tity of Los An­ge­les archi­tec­ture, es­pe­cially its hou­sing ty­po­logy can best be un­ders­tood th­rough the evo­lu­tion of the city as a cul­tu­ral entity.

Los An­ge­les al­ways has been a me­tro­po­lis with great dis­tinc­tions and as Michael Webb has sta­ted: “Los An­ge­les has lu­red the strug­gling and the am­bi­tious from all around the world.” For archi­tects, the city is a uni­que te­rri­tory to test news forms, pro­grams and arran­ge­ments as well as to ex­plore au­da­cious and ec­cen­tric buil­ding design.

Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘John­son House, John­son Fain Architects’

Im­pos­si­ble to ex­press in plan due to the cons­trai­ned size of the site, this 2400sf re­si­dence di­ver­ges from the pre-established res­ponse to front and back yards by ba­lan­ced ar­ti­cu­la­tion of the skin on all fa­ces in the ver­ti­cal di­rec­tion.
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Ver­ti­cal House, Lor­can O’Herlihy Architects’

THE CONTEXT OF LOS ANGELES

“When I first arri­ved in Los An­ge­les, I was sur­pri­sed by the size and den­sity within the re­si­den­tial lots,” says Swiss-born archi­tect Ro­ger Ku­rath, of Cul­ver City’s De­sign 21. It is not unu­sual to see se­ve­ral single-family hou­ses pla­ced on one long, na­rrow site. This type of den­sity is of­ten the re­sult of the inc­rea­sing po­pu­la­tion Los An­ge­les is experiencing.

(Du­plex with a se­pa­rate of­fice, Santa Mo­nica)
Con­ti­nue rea­ding ‘Reitz Residence’