“culture of performance”
& the “performance
of culture”
Co-Founder / Design Partner
Dec. 2009 - Sept. 2016
Our core design principal explores the play between “culture of performance” and “performance of culture.” We feel that these conceptual frames of culture and performance are interchangeable, and are driven by scale, program, global positioning, energy, and material flow. The “culture of performance” and the “performance of culture” creates a catalytic condition which serves as an entry point for our architecture and design interventions. We analyze the historical and organizational structures of culture, the consistencies and inconsistencies of prevailing cultural patterns. We identify strategic design concepts for their ability to adapt with climate shifts and spontaneous cultural growth. The cultural artifacts of space are critical in order to begin to project ourselves into a future where sustainable methods are not just superficial appliqué, but are understood as part of a deeper, holistic design approach that contributes to a very different profession. The design practice was co-founded with Richard Sarrach & Tamaki Uchikawa in late 2009.
Location: Las Vegas NV,USA
36°10′30″N 115°08′11″W
Type: Entertainment Facility
Client: JV Developers
Date: 2012
Form-ula: LV//Eco Gambling
In promising moments of fame, Las Vegas retains little memory, which is evident within its architecture. Time is scaled to the quick fix, the fancy show, and the lucky hand of cards – which are dispersed across a wide expanse of space left by an unsustainable sprawl. We aimed to produce a deeper portrait. Our proposal separates itself from previous commercial and residential projects through the architecture of an all-inclusive and self-sustaining environment, which is the media for a plethora of program accessible within its sediment. By supplanting the casino and residency above and within the golf course, they become stronger together than they are alone. A fluid porosity within the proposal’s structure invites occupation and movement within that juxtaposes the linearity of Las Vegas’s cross section. These moments follow through into the undulation of space on its outer green, where families and friends can escape. By engineering more specifically the interstitial spaces between its amenities, a comfortable and ecologically engineered environment is produced where one enjoys the fruits of Las Vegas not solely within its points of destination, but all the way through – and the architecture benefits.
Location: Louisville KY USA
38º 16’ 02.67” N 85º 36’ 47.90” W
Type: 12 unit Residential Housing
Client: APB/Commercial Property Associates
Date: 2009
Form-ula: Flats / KY APT
Pinches in the landscape. That is where the point of departure lies for the 3 building 12 unit apt complex in Louisville KY. The project uses what we understand to be a fundamental icon of domesticity, the 5 line network that makes up the pitched roof facade. It is in this facade that the idea of the green band that is caped or anchored by brick creating a symbiotic relationship that allows for a climatic balancing of the summer and winter months. We are able to achieve this through a north south orientation of the buildings in conjunction with an extruded brick pattern and a lattice of KY crawler ivy that wraps the building from east to west. By offsetting the brick from the facade it creates a manifold effect in the summer months allowing for protection from the high summer sun and creating an increased surface area that when coupled with the prevailing crosswinds will pull the hot air out of the building using the heat sink effect. In the winter, the lower sun angle is then trapped in this thickened skin, storing and releasing energy into the building throughout the day. The final participant is the ivy that cloak’s the building in an insulating thermal blanket in the summer months and when it recedes in the winter months it exposes the surfaces allowing them to absorb the suns heat. In this case, the formula is using cultural familiarities within a housing typology to think about the potential future of housing systems.
Location: Brooklyn NY, USA
40º 57’ 19.40” N -73º 98’ 22.20” Welev 2m
Type:Religious Facility /Community Center
Materials: aluminum + Glass Block
Client: Not Disclosed
Date: 2011
Form-ula: Brooklyn Mosque: Penrose
The premise for a Mosque in the 21st century are deeply rooted in the idea of transparency. The conversation began with seeking an architectural solution to reveal both the cultural connections and the spatial complexities of religious institutions within this given community. Through site and programmatic extension, The Penrose Project is able to function both as a contemporary religious facility and as a extended community center. The site is situated in a Brooklyn neighborhood of Coney Island. Directly adjacent from a typical corner lot is a triangular park space produced by the intersections of 3 adjacent streets. To insure an open at the ground level prayer space, we interlocked 6 variance scale paraboloids skinned with a traditional folded Islamic star pattern. This bridged and elevated the space with an uninterrupted structure to maximize the total footprint for the prayer session. When occupancies reach above capacity, the canopy door opens to extend the prayer landscape out into the park.In addition to the main prayer space, the program called for female prayer space, kitchen and dining for social events, a library, children’s recreation / learning, and a living quarter for the resident Imam. floor is seen as its own independent tray of program. The combination of the tray segregation and a skin that has a geometrical configuration that produces a low pressure zone between the exterior membrane of the glass block and the inner aluminum skin.
Location: Citigroup Center Atrium
601 Lexington Ave, NY, NY 10022
38º 16’ 02.67” N 85º 36’ 47.90” W
Type: Restaurant
Date: 2012
Form-ula: Sushi-teria
Sushi-teria is a 1000sq/ft sushi restaurant located in the atrium space of the Citigroup Center that utilizes an innovative new ordering technology that combines ios apps with bespoke made to order sushi. With half the spaces allocated to a 14 person staff in the restaurant operation, the strategy was to maximize the remaining spaces through a set of surface textures that were seen to function as cultural signifiers or triggers. Frist wrapping the floor in a hand tooled black kadapa stone, then continuing up the walls with a mirrored polished stainless steel / pre-painted aluminum backing that continues onto a custom hung ceiling. This set of steel and aluminum panels are perforated with a custom pattern that wraps the entire space, invoking the atmospheric effect of both the fog in its expanse of diminishing reflection of mirror, as well as, the fisherman's woven net looming from above. The final surface resides on the wall behind the sushi chef stand, visually framed by the raked reclaimed poplar. Set within white subway tiles, 800 individually cut pieces of clear pine were whitewashed pickled and then finished with a gloss white and pink painted to produce a caustic shimmering effect, much like the play of light on a morning sea.
Location: New York- NY, USA
40º 57’ 19.40” N /-73º 98’ 22.20” W /elev 2m
Type: Government / United Nation
Materials: Corian + Glass Block
Client: Not Disclosed
Date: 2010
Form-ula: F.A.T: / Fluent Adipose Tectonic
We are at a moment in history where post-war architecture is more important than ever. With this project, we began a research effort to explore ways that post-war architecture could potentially be reevaluated within a new cultural model. The current United Nations Headquarters in New York City was the result of a design-by-committee approach, and its new formal proposal continues that tradition. We felt it was important to reach out to sustainable and structural engineers because of the nature of the project, which called for an increase in square footage and for the building to perform at higher thresholds by using its positioning to collect energy. The constraint of not being able to build vertically, forced us to rethink how we could take the building program in a different direction. The sustainable drape, or Fluent Adipose Tectonic (FAT) reconfigures how the UN’s facade can be understood and manifest itself within the current technological and cultural landscape. The multipurpose facade utilizes the idea of a thickened surface to stratify material and performance. The end result is an inflated skin that challenges the conventional role of the facade: to keep exterior forces out. In this case, those undesirable forces are absorbed, transformed, and then redirected into and throughout the building in some form of energy.
Location: Los Angeles CA, USA
40º 57’ 19.40” N / -73º 98’ 22.20” W / elev 2m
Type: Office / Commercial
Client: Not Disclosed
Date: 2011
Electric Plant: Predator BLDG
In our efforts to create a zero environmental footprint for the 300 North LA, we explored many new sustainable technologies. With many of these design practices, the overall objective is to minimize the distance between the occupant and the outside world. This is what interested us most in terms of developing both the overall cross-section of the building, as well as that of the facade. The proposal addresses the lack of daylighting and natural ventilation. Specifically, the smaller proportions of the existing tinted glass and the non-operable windows that equate to poor workspace, dependent on large mechanical systems to keep the space properly lit and cooled.
Our first design decision set the trajectory of the project, which was to maximize the size of the glass panel to produce larger transparency levels. Slumping the glass allowed us to produce structural folds/ deflections within the cross-section of the glass. The structural folds/slump forming provided enough strength to support itself and the sustainable technologies that were integrated in its cross-section.In addition, we incorporated a system for harvesting water for occupant use and building functions. The lack of precipitation challenged us to devise alternative methods to obtain water, inducing condensation and filteringgray/black water via Living Machine.
Location: Chicago Ill. USA
41º 53’ 25.3” N/87º 37’ 25.28” W/elev 179m
Type: Art Installtion Prototype
Materials: Vinyl
Client: Artist: Sheryl Oring + Chicago Tribune
Building: McCormick Freedom Museum
Date: 2008
Form-ula: Arch XXX
The Arch XXX is based on the form of a traditional arch, but deformed to span 30 feet along its longer edge and 15 feet along its shorter edge. This lightweight structure began by considering the structural qualities of vinyl. Weak at first, but when folded into thickened bricks, it can sustain greater compression forces. This project also served as a work-flow prototype that incorporated a virtual awareness in a materialtectonic. We came to understand cell unit (cube-octahedron) geometry and its 3-D position in the world, and we incorporated the vector forces that would subsequently play themselves out on the larger field of the arch. This meant that every component within the set would be different (over 3,000 modules)and the inherent morphology of the thickened brick needed to modulate its shape to perform optimally. In this case,the project allowed us to explore larger questions about digital fabrication and its economy of means of production and installation.
Location: Dallas TX USA
41º 53’ 25.3” N/87º 37’ 25.28” W/elev 179m
Type: Solar Collection & Relief Pavillion Prototype
Materials: Folded Stainless Steel
Client: Sistine Solar
Building: Hotel
Date: 2015
Form-ula: Hot Spot
text to come soon!
