WA/SA [waldrip architects/ s.a.] [architecture- los angeles]
Alberti, Sandro Thom +; 12 April, 2002 [text13]
Working 9-5, at...
‘WA/SA’, ‘Aloha8’, and ‘Working 9 to 5, at...’
are fictions of fen-om: [www.fen-om.com]
I find it is sometimes difficult to describe events at the A+D. This might be due to the fact that it is so ‘new’ (‘slippery’; ‘ungraspable’?).
Just the other day, months after the museum’s inauguration, a friend still wondered about (‘questioned’?) this inception of a museum without a permanent collection, with exhibits that build upon each other, and linked to an interested and motivated ‘third-party’ management. And then there Thom Mayne offers ‘more’ at Cal Trans. was the fact that the most recent exhibit, ‘LA Competitions part II’, had been laid out as a sort of review of Thom Mayne’s latest proposal, with a cluster of designers vying for 2 other prizes. From the official exhibit description: “The work ranges from architects who are seasoned professionals to virtually unknown designers.” Well, indeed. For the new Cal Trans District 7 Headquarters, Thom Mayne proposes both a ‘light’ and a ‘hyper-loaded’ version. The second is the most interesting, although maybe a bit overdone (perhaps carefully so, hoping to achieve, in the end, some ‘middle ground’). The ‘tripartite’ building, rising from a semiburied garage (loading + auto shop + mechanical), stands on a pair of 6-story ‘legs’ (parking + conferences + daycare + retail + museum), and rises crisply another 8 floors in the form of a slender N-S-oriented tower (offices). The space between the ‘lower stems acts as a tall exterior lobby. This idea of an incorporated ‘negative’ space continues in the top floors, in the form of a uniform light well. Wrapped around the outside, a perforated aluminum screen protects the building from the sun, and provides a “strong, distinctive appearance.” A staggered elevator system would provide access only to every 3rd floor, encouraging “circulation between floors via large, inviting stairs” (this recalls both Portzamparc’s LVHM Tower, with its penthouse elevator arrival at the top of a grand stair, as well as other designers’ various experiments in verticality). Essentially, the difference between the ‘base’ and the ‘pumped-up’ versions includes a more sophisticated, pleated metal sun-wall, a larger (wider and higher, puncturing into the 8th floor) exterior lobby penetrated by multiple
Thom Mayne also offers ‘less’; take your pick.
The grand stairway at the LVMH ‘Magic Room’.
