Case Study // Inner City Arts

Inner City Arts School

Los Angeles, CA (map) (website)

Architect: Michael Maltzan Architects (website)

[Phase I started 1989 / Phase III completed 2008]

Through a fortunate connection between USC and the design architects I, along with my studio, had a chance to take a private tour of this local campus as research for our K-5 school project.  Our guides - two designers from local firm Michael Maltzan Architects and two school representatives - gave valuable insight into the program needs and design strategies steering the project. I'm really beginning to admire the work of Maltzan's office; it ranges from high-end residential to low-income housing to non-profit, and engages cost-effective realized projects to innovative theory.

The school operates in conjunction with the Los Angeles Unified School District, providing non-discriminatory art education to K-12 students from around the city who have may not have daily access to similar programs in their own schools as a result of severe budget cuts. Students attend 1.5 sessions in various disciplines, from ceramics to performing arts, painting, animation, or graphic design, two days per week for seven weeks. The school hosts plays and musical performances from professional outfits, and also serves as a civic meeting place in one of the most under-privileged neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

The scale of the building is very intimate which facilitates interactive learning. The relatively small spaces cater to children, whose needs are the clear priority of the design strategy; the scale also differentiates the project from many of the more recent and extravagant LAUSD projects that have come under intense public scrutiny. Each individual space is flexible and can easily be converted for multiple uses through the implementation of garage doors, movable partitions and mobile furniture. Walls are left bare as a "canvas" for the work of students. Natural light enters each space through the addition of skylights and light wells; skylights were also added in the Phase I construction, which converted an old 1920's body shop to offices, a painting and dance studio and music room. Windows/glazing are not placed arbitrarily, as one might read them, but rather according to function (for example, ground-level "inverted" clerestories to give working potters a connection to the outside earth, a subtle but profound inclusion) and to provide maximum security from the street.

Really an excellent case study and one that restores some of my lost faith in the architectural profession as an agent of positive change.

[Street View. Much of what is seen here is a former Hudson Auto Dealership.]

[Pottery studio atrium & covered kiln yard.]

[Ceramics tower.]

[Courtyard and giant palm tree.]

[Rooftop parking with a great view of downtown.]

[Phase I construction. Roof trusses & decking from old body shop preserved.]

[New theater reception.]

[Inside of pottery/ceramics tower. Orange to symbolize optimism.]

[Library & one of our studio instructors.]

["Inverted clerestories."]

[Dance studio. Construction intentionally left unfinished as an educational tool.]

Project // School (Updated)

Goin with this scheme...a lot more curvaceous than what I usually do ;) If anyone knows how to get rid of those artifacts in V-ray for the last image, holler.

Video // Colosseum on Fire

Performative architecture of the classical order? Cool.

Discussion // Mode & Motives

Strikingly similar quotes:

The vision is an answer to the fundamental question: what shall we build in any given place, where a project is to be undertaken. This question does not ask how it is organized, how it is designed, what character the architecture has…but simply the most fundamental question of all: what is it? What is going to be there?

In today’s development, this question is asked, and answered, almost exclusively in economic terms. What can pay for itself there? What can make money there?

Of course the projects which are built, in answer to this question, and after the necessary consumer surveys, are machine-like, abstract, lifeless. They are uninteresting, not vivid. They are incapable of exciting us, or moving us, because they are not human in their quality. 

-Christopher Alexander, A New Theory of Urban Design (1987)

The discovery of building as a new paradigm in our work happened at the same time as a change in the situation of the western city, which involved the extensive reformulation of conditions affecting contemporary architecture as a whole : the gradual privatization of the public space of the city. Faced with a complete lack of public funds, cities and local authorities found themselves increasingly unable to play an active role in urban planning developments, and instead sold out to investors, who helped themselves to the biggest and best pieces of the city. It was a game whose end could be predicted: architecture would end up as infrastructure built to maximize the profits of a global economy.

-Wolf D. Prix, Coop Himmelblau - Philosophy

Both of these statements address the following phenomenon: the end of the era of master planning and a renewed interest in the piecemeal / naturally evolving urbanism that preceded the Modern Movement. Just through observation, one can recognize the the traces of corporate interest inhabit nearly every piece of American architecture [which encompasses all building construction] over the last fifty years, save a few exceptional examples. It will be fascinating to see how the relationship between economics and architecture - which at the moment is strained to the breaking point - changes over the next few years.

[Even existing innovative / experimental / controversial buildings like this (Buckhead Library, Scogin Elam & Bray, 1989) are under threat of demolition for economic concerns. Is there room for a shift in values for exceptional cases?]

Discussion // Complexity & Contradiction

(This will an evolving post, so don't be alarmed by the length. I will continue to update it as I notice further relationships.)

The rhetoric over theory vs. practice in architecture is tired and worn out, and if you've ever worked in an office you don't need to be told the differences. But for my generation, there are some new wrinkles in this complicated - and often criticized - relationship that are starting to affect the discipline as a whole. In the traditional model of architectural education and practice, the conflict could be modeled simply as a push and pull between design (form, art, sculpture, independence) and reality (economy, gravity, dependence).

Design < >  Reality

[Sant Elia - Futurist, but still with pen, paper, and straight edge. The forms are recognizable as buildings.]

Now I believe there is a third element to this conflict: technology. More specifically, computers and visualization software. For centuries, since the days when Brunelleschi doodled the famous structure of the dome, the methods of architectural representation remained relatively constant: drawing tool, straight edge, and paper. The use of such devices limited our ability to conceive of form beyond what was structurally possible or referential to some previous typology. Computers, on the other hand, have allowed our imaginative powers to far outrun our ability to practically create, because they not only translate what we think but also generate based on complicated sets of parameters or algorithms. As a result, a new style, or field of research (I don't really know what to call it) of "virtual architecture" has emerged, championed by the likes of Zaha Hadid / Patrik Schumacher, Roland Snooks and others, whose bearing on real architecture has yet to be fully explored or even explained clearly by those who profess it.
 

[Diaz Alonso - what in the world is this without context? How was it made?]

What all this leads to, at least with me since I feel like I'm not brilliant enough to decipher it all, is an incredible confusion as to what architecture - especially in this country - actually is and where I should focus myself in school. Should I look into parametric design simply because it's new and innovative, to broaden my horizons? Should I avoid it if I think it's irrelevant to my own interests? Should I even bother looking at history if the tools of the trade have evolved so much? These are questions I have to deal with even as I'm forced to struggle to catch up with learning new software (I've found out so far I'm very much behind). So now the conflicts in architecture look like this:

Design (Practical) < > Design (Virtual) < > Technology < > Reality < > Generational

Sometimes it's all a bit too much to handle, I'll admit. Now with the conflicts mapped out, I'm going to start keeping a list of contradictions in architectural practice vs. education, the purpose of which is not to completely discount what I learn, but simply to refer it to my ultimate goal of becoming an architect who builds buildings. Sure it's been done before many times, but I think it's healthy for every student of architecture to develop his or her own. I'll start off with a few, feel free to add, contribute, suggest, refute, etc.

1. The Role of the Architect in the Realization of Projects

This one is obvious. In school, you are taught ways of making cities better one building or project at a time, as if you are the spontaneous generator of the need.