Civic and Institutional Archives

Guest of Honor Pavilion, FIL

February 12, 2020/in PROJECTS, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

The commission to design the 2009 Guest of Honor Pavilion for the annual Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL) de Guadalajara provided a rare opportunity to create a public, educational installation that celebrates the dynamic cultural life of Los Angeles – not only its celebrated film industry, but the spirit of innovation that pervades the city’s many creative economies and cultures, including its technological expertise in medicine, aerospace and automobile design, as well as in the visual and culinary arts, music, dance, architecture, and of course, literature.

Rather than try to express these qualities in a didactic way, the design displayed them in an atmospheric, interior public “plaza” that provided space for people to gather and relax away from the hectic activity in the rest of the convention center.

The design included two signature elements. The first was a set of large, suspended, pneumatic “idea bubbles,” inflated simply with air and inspired by the speech and idea bubbles found in cartoons. These inflated volumes formed screens for ten commissioned films about LA. The second element was an “author wall” projecting the names of authors who either wrote in LA, or about LA. As the wall’s content is digital, it could be controlled from a large flatscreen on the plaza floor, where the public was invited to control the flow and location of the names, as well as pull up the writers’ biographies and writing clips in either English or Spanish, using an interactive touchscreen panel.

Upon close of the festival, the various seating elements, booths, and “book towers” were donated to Guadalajara for use in its libraries and schools. The digital author wall and the film live on forever, and can be reused over and over again.

LAPD MTD + MSP

February 12, 2020/in PROJECTS, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

Located in Downtown Los Angeles, one block from the Los Angeles Police Department’s new headquarters, this 5-story 300,000 square-foot concrete structure integrates three components that typically stand on their own: an 800 car parking structure for the LAPD’s employees; a mechanics’ garage, car wash, and refueling station for the LAPD’s top brass; and a culturally-oriented retail component along Main Street. Holding all these elements together is an undulating, vertically-banded, stainless steel mesh screen, painted in a pattern of leaf-like forms with two tones of green.

In order to minimize its impact on the developing neighborhood, the mechanics’ garage is located at the rear of the site, a half level below the street. The main volume of the structure is set back from the sidewalk in order to preserve views of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, which until recently was the home of the Archdiocese and now serves as a cultural center. Slated to be an art gallery, the one-story retail component has a glass curtain wall that will allow the art to have an enlivening presence for both pedestrians and passing cars alike.

Koreatown Gateway

February 12, 2020/in PROJECTS, Civic and Institutional, On the Boards/by SAdesignsJFAK

One can argue about the defining characteristics of Los Angeles; however, 3 stand out:

its cultural creativity (most famously generated by the film industry, but also by its artists and artisans);
its technology (as the birthplace of aerospace, as well as home to Caltech, UCLA, and USC); and finally
its cultural diversity (more languages are spoken in metropolitan LA than in any other city in the world).

One of Los Angeles’ most visible immigrant groups is its Koreans, notable for reviving urban life in the heart of Los Angeles. This project, a new urban gateway in the center of “Koreatown”, was conceived as a marker of Korean identity as well as of the longstanding friendship between Los Angeles and South Korea. It is designed to reference Korean cultural traditions without resorting to mimicry.

The beauty and usefulness of this approach is that it speaks to many complex issues. First, it suggests the inevitability of assimilation. Second, it is inclusive, rather than exclusive, of the many ethnic peoples who live and work in Koreatown. Third, it is open to interpretation, and as neighborhood “boundaries” shift, it will remain as a celebration of urban living regardless of who lives there. Finally, its use of programmable LEDs, which can generate any sort of image, exemplifies the kind of technological innovation referenced above – which also speaks to the forces of technology and globalization that unite, rather than separate, this dynamic metropolis.

La Kretz Innovation Campus

February 12, 2020/in PROJECTS, Civic and Institutional, Commercial/by SAdesignsJFAK

Home to the academic powerhouses of Caltech, UCLA and more recently USC, Los Angeles is a powerful center of innovation, and therefore actively engaged in finding technological solutions to the perils of climate change.

Housed in 61,000 square feet of renovated mid-century warehouses, La Kretz Innovation Campus is LA’s latest addition to address that challenge, the home of both a Department of Water and Power Energy Innovation Center, and more importantly LA Cleantech Incubator – a locus of engineers, scientists, and policymakers whose mission is to shepherd start-ups with promising new clean technologies into becoming successful and globally-minded companies.

Preserving the character of the warehouse district in which the facility is located (as well as the existing structures’ carbon footprint), the buildings’ exteriors have primarily been maintained in their original condition, which is also the case in the interior, though its strengthened brick walls and wood trusses are in open dialogue with a collection of dynamic architectural elements such as a waiting area known as the “green room,” jewellike skylight “funnels” that light up the reception area, a series of enclosed offices and conference rooms backed up to the brick walls, open work areas, and other necessary programmatic elements, all joined in a “village” concept with “streets,” a “loop,” and a “plaza” large enough for gatherings of up to 140 people.

Walking the walk, the facility achieved LEED-Platinum as well as WELL-Gold (the first facility in the United States to garner both certifications simultaneously) by integrating advanced sustainability technologies that include a greywater filtration system, bioswales, a microgrid, and a solar photovoltaic canopy over the parking lot.

Academia Moderna Charter School

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

This project involved the full renovation of an existing two-story charter school in the Huntington Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Academia Moderna’s mission is to create life-long learning for students, and inspire them to be inquisitive, passionate, engaged, and independent. The school desired a transformation of their existing warehouse home to cultivate a “school” feeling within the industrial envelope. The project was designed specifically to make a more usable, functional, and lively space that would serve the students in pursuit of Academia Moderna’s mission.

To bring natural light deep within the building, hallways and classrooms alike benefit from the addition of well-placed skylights, reducing energy usage and promoting well-being. Throughout the project, the creative and strategic application of color and graphics creates a truly joyful learning environment for the elementary school students within. Completed on a tight budget, the Academia Moderna Charter School is an example of inspiring placemaking.

Aragon Avenue ES

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

This addition to an existing elementary school in an underprivileged neighborhood in Los Angeles reflects the school district’s commitment to raise the quality of schools throughout the city. Composed of three different structures, the largest is a 32,800 square-foot structure that contains 16 new air-conditioned classrooms and underground parking. Two smaller structures provide a new kitchen and a lunch shelter.

The siting of the new structures creates a coherent campus plan. Adding a wing to the existing L-shaped structure, the new classrooms complete the street edge and define a large, central courtyard. The new kitchen and lunch shelter breaks down this courtyard into a series of smaller spaces. New outdoor bleachers and stairs accommodate the downward progression to the lower play area. One of the defining features of the new classroom building is a tall entry portal that aligns with a slot of space, guiding one’s approach.

The painting pattern takes its cues from the colorful houses in the surrounding neighborhood and acknowledges (without condoning) the popularity of tagging and graffiti. Providing a unique and unexpected element for the school’s students, its cheerful presence is also appreciated by the neighborhood’s residents.

Green Dot E 27th Street Charter High Schools

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

The first LEED-certified charter school facility in Los Angeles was born of the transformation of two manufacturing warehouses into a pair of high schools.

Limited to 500 students, each school has its own separate administration, as well as its own architectural identity. Inhabiting the original brick warehouse, the school called “Animo Justice” utilizes warm, red and yellow hues and is entered from the south side of the shared exterior entry courtyard. In contrast, “Animo Ralph Bunche,” the school housed in the tilt-up concrete structure, uses a cooler, blue and green palette, and is accessed via a dramatic steel stair and second floor roof deck on the north side of the courtyard. While each school has its own circulation system, each has independent access to a shared gym and library situated near the center of the combined facility. Skylights are used extensively to ensure that each classroom has access to natural light and a view of the sky.

Located on the edge of a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central), these facilities offer the promise of a better future to this historically underprivileged area.

UCLA Kinross Recreation Center

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Wellness, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

With the displacement of an existing fitness center geared specifically towards servicing the university’s graduate student population, UCLA opted to take over a prominent off-campus corner at the intersection of Veteran and Kinross Avenues (currently used for parking) and locate a new fitness center there. A series of modular portable buildings was envisioned to be fitted out for this purpose.

The resultant 9,990 SF facility upgraded the graduate students’ existing workout facility and provide a dynamic, light-filled and open environment in which to work out and socialize. The interior opens out to an exterior training area with an overhead canopy structure that provides needed shade. Service zones have been located to create acoustic buffers against the traffic and automobiles in the vicinity.

UCLA Bruin Fitness Center

February 11, 2020/in PROJECTS, Education, Wellness, Civic and Institutional/by SAdesignsJFAK

The Bruin Fitness Center is a 15,000 square-foot facility. It features open-plan cardio, strength, and stretching zones tied together by a central circulation spine for an easy-to-navigate layout.

The fitness center occupies what was once parking and storage for campus housing maintenance staff. Extensive mechanical equipment in the existing space had to be considered, worked around, protected, and at times relocated in order to make this programmatic shift possible. The material palette blends some of the raw materiality of the parking garage’s existing ducts, plumbing, and concrete with the elegant and sustainable material choices of the Carnesale dining hall above.

Since the fitness center is partially submerged with limited access to daylight, the fitness center is oriented towards the major opening of the space: a large, operable glass garage door. The creative use of high quality artificial lighting, graphic wallpapers, and color throughout help to ensure that the facility never feels like a basement.

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