oneshotexhibition.org blog

While much of the US economy is trying to survive from the downfall of the real estate market, there is one project that is still going and building with less fanfare but has most of the tourist gawking about is the City Center on the Vegas Strip. It is a City Center (aren’t all hotel casinos a city within itself) along Las Vegas Blvd, near E. Harmon Ave. intersection, with its own zip code that cost 11 billion dollars, consisting designs by world re-known architects: Daniel Libeskind, Ceasar Pelli, Helmut Jahn, Rafael Viñoly, Norman Foster and David Rockwell, having it bill as a world-class city development focusing on art and architecture with an emphasis on sustainable design, being develop by MGM Mirage Company at the cost of 11 billion dollars. It shows what kind of diversity in architecture can bring to Las Vegas at a price.

It was an opportunity to hang out with some friends in last month’s March Madness in New York, New York Hotel and Casino to check out the center. During the day, I could overhear crowds of revelers and tourist commenting the look of the center. A couple with a heavy southern accent commented that they didn’t know what to think about the look of the complex, especially at the Daniel Libeskind design, “it didn’t look pretty, but I think it’s ugly.” In some of the theoretical world of architecture, it is a compliment and reveling in it. It’s weird. Las Vegas, in a whole, is a town that is perceived of being of not knowing what to think.  With all the kitsch, urban sprawl, traffic, lack of water resource and the fact it is in the middle of the dessert. It seems that people like myself escape to an area made out of nothing for something other than the truth and the reality of a sustainable city.

Back to City Center, late in the evening at 4:00 in the morning, I got the chance to really check the center up close while walking to the Sahara Hotel to get to the hotel room. While there were less people on the strip, I found there were no security at the gate and had the possibility of walking inside the complex with no problem. It seems that there resources are running thin, construction is moving in a snail pace and MGM Mirage are trying to get more financial backing to finish the project, the possibility of selling off some of their casino resorts to avoid bankruptcy.

What the problem is with this lifestyle center is the cost and livability in comparison to the rest of the City of Las Vegas; a unit of one can cost up to 23 million dollars. More people are losing their homes in break neck speed. The role of well known architects has been co-opted in designing over the top designs that become a selling point for the exclusive and not for all classes. While mainstream Las Vegas has become a bastion of the absurbity, we could always come to the originator of gaudiness and kitsch is Liberace.

View of City Center w/ Daniel Lebeskind designed building in the foreground (tilting walls).

A closer look @ City Center

The front entrance to City Center

The Dessert night brings comfort, where no secure place has no purpose nor reason that pierces  the conscious mind.

Exposed beyond the surface of doubt.

                                       The true originator of Las Vegas: Liberace

Song of the Blog: Holiday in the Sun by the Sex Pistols in the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here are the Sex Pistols

Recently, there was a competition in regards to the recent voters approval for having mass transit in Los Angeles County, Measure R and Proposition 1A. Sponsor by Sci-Arc and the Architect’s Newspaper, this competition expressed an opportunity to come up with ideals and designs that will take advantage for government’s interest in improving public transit and life, even President Barack Obama is giving billions of dollars for creating a better infrastructure.

The winner of this competition was the group firm Radical Craft led by LA based Joshua G. Stein which proposed a high speed rail that loops around the LA basin at speeds of 100-150 miles per hour (MPH), with a urban corridor development along Sepulveda Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. While the winners were praised for their radical ideas in this format, what really lies is the lack of practicality, shows no certain nuance of the community and does not fix the immediate problems that exist today. It is more conceptual and abstract approach in which the analysis are convincing and insightful, but the end product brings more questions than probable solutions. What should have been an opportunity of a lifetime to bring a cohesive proposal to the public becomes a lost cause for 15 minutes of fame and disclosure. It’s hard to imagine to come up with one clear view where the issues are broad and  diverse that can bring a sigh of hope for a particular community and the rest of the area.

  Transit oriented development winning proposal from Radical Craft along the Sepulveda Blvd in the Sherman Oaks area. (from LA Curbed)

      Site development map along the Sepulveda Corridor of Sherman Oaks in phases. It would eliminate mostly medium-rise apartment complexes and single family residences with civic and commercial development. What about Mix-use development? (from LA Curbed)

                                    Can anybody say Monorail? (from LA Curbed)

This idea reminds of a Simpson’s episode of bringing a monorail into the town of Springfield, rather than improving mainstreet in downtown. Another scenario can be seen in a much smaller scale is Disneyland.

Song of the Blog: What Difference Does it Make? by the Smiths on their Debut Album The Smiths.

Architecture has evolve through history which theories and ideologies moves in a moment of time through technology, history, power, religion and shelter that serves a binding force for different eras of humanity. Some of the best works of Architecture uses metaphors, to convey the feeling and the idea in the art of architecture, which as compelling as the work itself. At times it can be convey relatively and takes a life of its own.

Metaphors like the Bird’s Nest (Bejing National Stadium) by Herzog & de Meuron has a connotative meaning to the Stadium as looking more like bird’s nest. Whether it is negative or positive, it is subjective unless the meaning is lost and disjointed.

One of the most successful in creating metaphors that are representative to the work is taking objects or subject manner found that are elementally recognizable and reinterpreted into a animated object, whether it is art, architecture, sculpture, and film.

Case in point, project that are intrinsically creative and shows the quality of its craft but the words are hard to describe the concept or idea to the viewing public. Frank Gehry designed IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters building in New York derives from a image of sails. It is apparent in its translation that it looks like the sails of the sailboat on the surface form of the building, soaring against the New York skyline.

                        IAC/InterActiveCorp Headquarters by Frank Gehry of Gehry Partners LLP

 Song of the Blog: Sea Legs by The Shins on the CD Wincing The Night Away

The new California Academy of Science Museum at the Golden State Park in San Francisco by the famous architect Renzo Piano of Italy is a crowning achievement towards building a sustainable world. the reason for that acclaim is because the building is design to replace the old science building damaged by the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, but kept remnants of the old building. It is an ecological building the houses the natural history of the world and is a step towards designing and living green in mind.

An In-Depth article about the Science Museum by Metropolis Magazine shows the process of the academy members choosing Renzo for the design, the engineering of the building and the ideals of the living roof. It is one of the most detailed marks of green architecture for some time and the first in this century. It shows the possibility of designing green architecture with aesthetic value and progressive approach.

The best in seeing the whole view of the building is from the tower of the De Young Museum, across from the central garden from the Cal Academy of Science. While you could see the living roof atop with the bulging mounds and the solar panels wrapping around the rectangular shape building, The building seems to frame the backdrop of the city and the view of Twin Peaks Park. It almost blends itself with rest of the natural elements in the area.

The California Academy of Science Museum building is great forword step into the 21st century in building green architecture technology. The hope is for today’s architects and designers will take this to heart and come up with new innovative ideals and designs to sustain the future to enjoy the environment as it intended to be respected and harness.

View of the California Academy of Science Museum @ the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco from atop of the De Young Museum.

  View of the Living Roof on the California Academy of Science Museum (photo by Tim Griffith on Metropolis Magazine)

View of the Solar Cells on the edge of existing facade of the building.

Song of the Blog: Calling All Angels by Jane Sibery w/ K.D. Lang on the Movie Soundtrack Until the End of the World

Straw bale construction is probably the most underestimated material to use in the building industry with all the metallic surfaces, wood-framing and processed materials used in today’s contemporary architecture that increases the carbon footprint. It has not been utilize in ways to explore space and tactility in bigger projects, mostly in mix-use and commercial projects, especially in Los Angeles. There is a lot of potential in which it gives an aesthetic quality and a human tone, similar to the missions of California and the adobe dwellings of the Native Americans in the Southwest, an innate quality that is indigenous to the world.

CASBA (California Straw Bale Association) put out workshops on bale raising and clay plastering seminar. Recently, there was a bale-raising seminar for a charter school in a former military base Fort Ord near Monterrey called the Chartwell School. It is a 16′x22′ typical A-Frame building, separated from the main campus (which is the first LEED Platinum rating for a school), amongst the forest of the Oaks.

Lead by Greg McMillan of Flying M Construction for the Bale raising seminar, it gave most of the participants helpful information on the reason of using straw bales as a alternative material for designing and construction, and the future lies for it. Not a lot went to the preparation because there were some delays, but most of participants enjoy the company and work really hard in raising the bale by the end of the 2 1/2-Day seminar. One was to tie nylon straps on the 4 corners of the building, using a haystack needle to stitch it from separation and movement. All in all, it was fun and informative about building straw bale.

The Chartwell School in Fort Ord, near Monterrey (main campus).

  Site of the Straw Bale workshop, near the main campus of Chartwell School. Note: foundation is already set up with the pressure treated sill plate and the nylon straps attached to it from both sides of the exterior and interior.

Gravel filled between the sill plate prior to raising the straw bale.

Borax is poured on top the gravel to prevent bugs, insects & mold.

Ready to lay the first coarse of the square bales.

  Box framed windows being installed to the straw bale.

Building up with straw bale.

Finishing with the top coarse of the straw bale, ready to put the wood frame box plate for the roof truss installation.

Putting up the box frame plate on top of straw bale.

Plate is nail to the straw bale.

Nylon straps anchor at each corner across to adjust to the building being square (or close to it) by tightening the straps.

  Next time, plastering workshop.

Song of the Blog: Distance Equals Rate Times Time by the Pixies on the Album Trompe Le Monde

An article in the New York Times by architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff on the new exhibition in MOMA called Design and the Elastic Mind presented itself as the new soul for architecture and design, where nature is being derive from computers rather than real organic objects from nature. He believes that synthetic modeling can bring new life and emotional connection towards the future. There is a website pertaining to the Design and the Elastic Mind Exhibition. It gives you a better insight on the exhibition if you are not able to make it to New York.

While there is a great deal of relativeness to what we are heading to as a society, the question in turn is the work and design of the architecture, and the process of making architecture by using algorithms, computations and nano-technology. Generation forms using computers can be tricky business when you are relying variables and arbitrary data to generate a design without no context and clear direction and understanding. The work by Xefirotarch for the Busan Concert Hall Competition is a clear example where scripts and algorithms don’t breed good architecture. It just creates further dialogue to see how far we can go.

In an imperfect world, should we rely heavily on digital technology to create hybrid forms with no connection to history and tradition? Do we need reinvent the wheel? Are we too depended on technology in reattaching ourselves to nature? Is technology replicating nature better than the real thing?

Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and digital visionary who coin the term “Virtual Reality”, believed that technology can advance the way we create things as a tool but in the other hand that we shouldn’t disregard the pure essence of what is known and identifiable from its past and base it as life giving. Being totally dependent on technology to recreate nature does not mean it’s better and soulful but it crosses the line of what is real or unreal. In some ways he interject that people should learn first to play an instrument that was first implemented prior to work with a computer to generate creativity ( i.e. learn to play a piano prior to a computer synthesizer). It’s a level of the human factors that cannot be compared to artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Also, when forms and designs are heavily influence by technology, most times the meaning is loss.

One last note, there was an informal discussion instituted by Qingyun Ma (Dean of the Architecture program @ USC) with Thom Mayne (Morphosis) and Sir Peter Cook of Archigram in the campus of USC to talk to the audience (mostly students from USC) about their perspective and personal journey’s in the profession. You will get a better synopsis of the informal event from Emily’s Post. The most interesting part was the students asking toward the end of the talk. One student (actually 2) asked about the use of computers in creating architecture compared to drawings and model-making. Thom Mayne suggests to the students that most of your work in this profession will be computerize and his office is all computerized. He tells that today’s architectural drawings are 3-D computerization and that he employs 2 scripts writers. We will all do our work in a digital format.

While Thom is right in terms how today’s profession are using CAD files 3-dimensional in order to program and design buildings more efficiently, we started lose the feeling of intimate connection to a project, where human interaction don’t relate to the biomorphic technology and the lines are blur on what is real and unreal (artificial).

I rather take an acoustic guitar over Guitar Hero any day.

Pusan Concert Hall Competition by Xefirotarch (WTF is it?)

Song of the Blog: Even Better Than the Real Thing by U2 from the album Achtung Baby

With all the attention going on with green architecture, some builders are tending to build Straw Bale buildings as a alternative mode of boundness of sustainability but most of the construction and development are located on rural areas.

The metropolitan area of Los Angeles has been a adversary towards Straw Bale Construction. Mostly the green homes are old historic adobe buildings, homes built out of local stone quarries and recycle material (glass bottles and other discarded items).

The only and possibly the first Straw Bale building in the county of Los Angeles is the Santa Clarita Transit Maintenance Facility, the northern outskirts of LA. Designed by Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK), one of the major architecture firms in the world, has created a niche in sustainable architecture.

An article on the website Inhabitat wrote about the facility received the first LEED-certified award in LA county.

Santa Clarita Transit Maintenance Facility w/ a sectional detail of the straw-bale wall

Hopefully there would be more straw-bale construction not only in the county of Los Angeles but the city itself.

Song of the Blog: They’re So Sharp by Eagle and Talon on the EP Eagle and Talon Cares

Racism in Architecture, especially regarding the African-American community, has been a sore subject every time it has brought up ever since the word ever came in the English Dictionary. Today’s climate is even worse. There no African-American Architect relevant in today’s notable field of Architecture.

There is a new journal regarding race in Architecture, Appx, created by Darrell Wayne Fields who is a associate professor architecture at the University of Arkansas which is an interdisciplinary look of black architecture in order to gain a voice and dialogue in which its has been silent. You may consider to look at it at all minorities regarding his approach.

Not since Paul Revere Williams, consider the Jackie Robinson of Architecture, who has made an impact, especially in Los Angeles, to bring race and pride of his work. An important figure and prolific designer that shapes the landscape in Los Angeles and is still standing.

The problem now is there’s not a significant presence of Black Architects, only 1.5 percent of African Americans Architects are licensed in the U.S. and much acknowledgement of the development and design in African American communities or housing are done by other than African American Architects.

In order to increase a significant presence of more minority architects, there needs to be youth programs to encourage them to be architects, especially in communities that are neglected and underserved.

West Adams Preparatory High School near Downtown LA can make a difference with its School of Invention, Design, Engineering and Architecture Department.

Not its time to bust a move.

The Beverly Hills Hotel by Paul Revere Williams

Song of the Blog:  The Reason by Soulstice in the CD Illusion

Where images and computation comes in a fraction of a second, there is so much to process with constant information and so much to be lost in a digital world, filled with constant symbols and numbers to make anyone insane. All the frenetic pace of information that passes through our capacity to adhere and understand, the message shows the world is not absolute.

Do we really need to understand the phenomenon of the digital age as non absolute entity which is a conscious stream of impulses that varies in rhythm and sequences? It this why electronica and looping of samples becomes to an ends in society? What about the nature of sounds, objects and communications that is not catalogue into a computer or a virtual database, analogue things are concrete and absolute where there is human touch and interaction? Is computers a way to make the world insoluble?

Does it make any sense to the layman about the stimulation of virtual entertainment that seduces the viewer or do we just forget about it and ask questions later? You’ll be the judge.

Check-out this guy who digs this stuff. (critic-at-large)

Song of the Blog: Galvanized by the Chemical Brothers in the CD Push the Button

There is a exhibition in the Tate Museum in London about the growing social and climate changes in major cities like Los Angeles which falls in line on what One Shot Exhibition is all about.

Global Cities exhibit looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. Exploring each city through five thematic lenses – speed, size, density, diversity and form – the exhibition draws on data originally assembled for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale. This unique show presents existing films, videos and photographs by more than 20 artists and architects to offer subjective and intimate interpretations of urban conditions in all ten cities done by some world-renown architects (Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid) and artistes who are addressing with their interpretations on the issue of globalization and the environment.

One of the participants, Los-Angeles base architect/artist Fritz Haeg presents an alternative to the consumption of open space. His attempt to stage a diorama of edible plants, such as herbs and vegetables, to replace existing grassed front lawns which cause carbon emissions from gas mowers and other gas-power machines. He calls it Edible Estates. The work he is doing is a paradigm shift to rethink the western theology of land use in a developed communities; to act responsible on the needs of social and cultural change.

Fritz Haeg, “Edible Estates, edition #2: Lakewood, CA”, 2006.

Sang of the Blog: People in the City by Air from the CD 10,000 Hz Legend