Temporary spatial installations within urban cultures are a rapidly evolving phenomenon. Unlike “permanent” buildings, these structures nimbly respond to the accelerated temporality of cities on the move like Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Increasingly they provide the urban spectacles that “signature” buildings aim to deliver. Like never before, cities are adorned with provisional environments and architecturally scaled events. This situation has been further emboldened by the financial meltdown in 2008 as investors look to spend money on big urban spectacles without the financial commitment of making buildings. Within this economic outlook, the disposable plates of architecture are better investments than a collection of fine tableware. However, an important question looms when cleaning up after the meal: can the plate be composted or should it be colored with crayon and reused as a party decoration?
Built to Wear,constructed for the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism will be on view from December 5th through January 23 2010 in the underground exhibition space at the Shenzhen Civic Square.Invoking the theme of the exhibition - City Mobilization– the construction of the installation activated collaboration between Ball Nogues Studio,American Apparel, the Biennale organizers and a group of 30 volunteers from She
nzhen. This hanging architecturally scaled structure is comprised of 10,000 items of clothing manufactured by American Apparel – operator of the largest garment factory in the United States. Each garment serves the dual role of building component and individual article of clothing. Over the course of the Biennale, the installation will be dismantled and the T-shirts, muscles shirts, spaghetti tank tops, baby dresses, bikinis and g-strings comprising it will be dispersed to visitors. At a time when most US garment production has moved offshore, Built to Wearinvites viewers to contemplate the relocation of manufacturing from the developed world to emerging economic powers like China while reconsidering notions of material lifecycle in architecturally scaled structures. By using a coveted consumer good – the garment - as its basic building block the project expands and critiques notions of “green’ architecture while activating public space through consumption.
As a visual concept, the installation will serve as a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a poetic reminder that the buildings in our cities are impermanent: frozen moments in the flow of products through the tributaries of global exchange. Outside of its environmental commentary, the project dramatically recontextualizes the clothing item – a symbol of mass consumerism - into an alternative gesture of hope.
Principals in Charge: Gaston Nogues, Benjamin Ball
Project Coordinators: Qi Yue Yue, Brianna Gorton, Ken Tan
Project Team Los Angeles: Norma Silva, Patrick LaTona, Jonathan Kitchens, Ayodh Kamath, Rochelle Gomez
Project Team Shenzhen: Li Huan, Chen Xin, Wang Guo Xian, Wang Yi Le, Wang Dan Chun, Li Ying Xin, Huang Zhu Yan, Lai Ruo Yin, Luo Jia Ye, Ke Ya Wen, Wang Hai Xuan, Liang Ting Ting, Lin Ting, Chen Su Hui, Zhang Zhi Peng, Yang Gao Bin, Xu Xiao Guang, Zheng Jia Wei, Pan Shan Shan, Rong Na Na, Liu Xi, Liu Jia Qiong, Zhuang Jie Rui, Lin Chao, Xu Yi Jing, Zeng Xiao Mi, Daniel Fernándezpascual, José Esparza,
Custom Software: Pylon Technical
Curator: Beatrice Galilee
How do we build something that modulates the space of an existing architectural environment while appearing to be made of almost nothing? How do we suggest volume without building a surface?
Our project for the LA County Permit Office will use approximately two thousand individual lengths of bead chain hanging under self-weight (known as catenaries) to yield an array totaling approximately two miles. The chains will span between custom perforated aluminum panels fitted within the existing acoustical ceiling grid. Each chain will be in precise relation to its neighbors to give the resemblance of a diaphanous set of waves rather than a solid object. The rhythms of the waves respond to the location of the lighting and ceiling grid. When viewed from one angle, the installation will suggest a volume; when viewed from another angle, the effect will be of falling snow viewed through the windshield of a moving car. The color of the bead chain will “dither” from nickel plated to brass across the length of the permit office.
A challenge is to create a design methodology that tightly integrates concept, computation, fabrication, and economics. We believe this methodology parallels new tendencies in contemporary architectural practice. As a sculpture and as an example of new processes in design we imagine the work to be of interest to both the staff and customers of the permit office; it will be at home in the forward thinking Los Angeles architectural environment.
We designed software to investigate the form, manage the thousands of chains, and expedite cutting. Formal exploration and revisions are fluid and effortless: rather than drawing and measuring the length of each chain, we sketch the qualities of the installation in general terms; the software then automatically generates the thousands of catenaries, computes their lengths, and prepares labels to locate each chain once cut. The design choices and logistics are “front loaded” to save time by reducing on-site management and fabrication complexity, allowing a small team to assemble the project.
The first permanent work in our series of “Suspensions” projects, this hanging sculpture for the new Los Angeles County Building and Safety Permit Office uses approximately two thousand individual lengths of metallic bead chains hanging under self-weight to form a matrix of catenary curves. A combination of sculptural artwork and modular ceiling system, the chains span between custom perforated aluminum panels fitted within the existing acoustical ceiling grid. Each chain is in precise relation to its neighbors to yield an array that is more a diaphanous metallic vapor than a discrete solid object. The rhythms of the vapor respond to the location of the lighting fixtures and sprinkler heads on the ceiling grid. When viewed from oblique angles, the installation suggests a volume; from other viewpoints, the effect is of a torrent of falling rain. The color of the bead chain “dithers” from cool nickel plated to warm brass across the length of the permit office.
A challenge for the project was to create a design methodology that tightly integrated concept, computation, fabrication and economics. This approach parallels material based explorations in contemporary architectural practice. As a sculpture and as an example of new processes in design, the work will be of interest to both the staff and customers of the Building & Safety Permit Office. It will be at home in the forward thinking architectural environment of Los Angeles.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Fabrication Team: Andrew Lyon, Nicole Semenova, Elizabeth Timme, Gaston Nogues, Benjamin Ball, Ayodh Kamath, Norma Silva, Matt Harmon, Tim Peeters, Jonathan Kitchen, Nicole Kell
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
What does it mean to create an architecturally scaled environment that has a potent sculptural presence but is made of almost no material? What does it mean when we modulate space with volumes that hover on the threshold of absence?
Long BeachEXPOSED is the sixth in a series of projects we refer to as “Suspensions.” Unseen Current (2008), exhibited at Extension Gallery for Architecture, Chicago, featured 2,500 suspended string catenaries, and Echoes Converge, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008 used string to create intricate patterns inspired by the baroque ceilings of the city’s buildings. These softly structural, open-air spaces encouraged social interaction, enveloping rather than obstructing viewers.
A constant desire to push the possibilities of our tools, materials and techniques has led us to develop the “Insta-llator 1 with the Variable-Information Atomizing Module,” a machine designed and manufactured by Ball-Nogues Studio especially for these installations. With the machine the strings may be precisely saturated with solvent-based inks using four digitally controlled airbrushes in discreet areas and then cut to to their varying lengths via computer control. The weight of the string creates a complex system of overlapping catenary curves on which cyan, magenta, yellow, and black segments are “printed” to yield the effect of ghostly three dimensional objects. Sometimes the objects are visible, at other times they blur to resemble a fluid-like vapor that floats and hovers in the gallery space.
Employing these advancements we created Feathered Edge, currently on exhibit at MOCA PDC and Spock's Blocks, for the exhibit INSIDERS: practices, uses, and know-how, currently on exhibit at the Arc en Rêve Centre D'Architecture, Bordeaux. Functioning as an astigmatic lens, Long BeachEXPOSED seeks to absorb light and create a new point of focus in the room.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Team: Ayodh Kamath, Csaba Mester, James Jones, Jonathan Kitchens, Moushira Elamrawy, Sarah Riedmann, Norma Silva, Patrick Latona, Rochele Gomez
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
"According to the principle of Mr. Spock art, the artist presents the audience with an amazing riddle and then with a calculated solution, notable for its lack of ambiguity, which will make everyone say, 'F-A-A-A-Scinating!'" — Diedrich Diederichsen
Diedrichsen’s quote comes from an article he wrote for Art Forum. After we read the article we were inspired to name our project Spock’s Blocks.
Spock’s Blocks is a tribute to the rationality and calm detachment of the First Science Officer of the Starship Enterprise, Star Trek (our apologies to Diedrich Diederichsen). Comprised only of strings and ink, we employed Spock-logic to construct the lightest wall imaginable – an ephemeral architecture that mirrors the modular units of stone at the Entrepôt. The complex system of overlapping catenary curves were cut and printed by a computer-controlled machine—Instal_lator with Variable Information Atomizing Module— that we designed and fabricated to yield “printed” visual and spatial effects.
Principles in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Team Los Angeles: Rochelle Gomez, Jonathan Kitchens, James Jones, Norma Silva. Additional names to follow
Project Coordinator Bordeaux: Wen Wen Cai
Project Team Bordeaux: Boris Sauboy, Nicolas Grawitz, Claude Grace Moussoki, Celine Berra, Joy Demez, Eric Dordan, Brianna Gorton, Alexi Mennel, Milos Xiradakis, Eric Trousicot
Curators: Michel Jacques, Claire Petetin, Éric Troussicot, Francine Fort curators for arc en rêve
How do the tools we use affect our choices as designers and artists? Rather than just design with a CNC device in mind, what does it mean to design your own CNC device . . . .your own robot? Where does the line between hand craft and machine craft get drawn? How do we escape the limits imposed by commercially available software and fabrication methods? How can tooling be an avenue to design? These are some of the questions we contemplated as we designed, manufactured, and tested the Insta-llator 1 over the course of eight months. The technological backbone of our Feathered Edge installation commissioned by curators Brooke Hodge and Alma Ruiz at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the installation was one in a series of MOCA installations addressing the convergence of digital technology and craft. The Instal_lator enabled us to automate the production of the installation while making it more intricate in form and color than would have been possible using human hands as the primary mode of production. The machine eliminated the mind boggling process of cutting by hand 3604 individual lengths of string,
The technological backbone of our Feathered Edge installation commissioned by curators Brooke Hodge and Alma Ruiz at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the installation was one in a series of MOCA installations addressing the convergence of digital technology and craft. The Instal_lator enabled us to automate the production of the installation while making it more intricate in form and color than would have been possible using human hands as the primary mode of production. The machine eliminated the mind boggling process of cutting by hand 3604 individual lengths of string, no two alike, that formed the spatial matrix of catenaries of Feathered Edge, while allowing us to precisely airbrush each string in discreet locations based on data input from a computer. The airbrush processes yield unique three dimensional “prints” of objects within the array strings. The results of this proprietary process were suggestive of holographic images floating in space. We designed, manufactured, and tested this digitally programmable machine over the course of eight months.
As a software and hardware system, the Instal_lator effortlessly performs and seamlessly unifies four distinct operations into one continuous sequence of procedures that would be extremely time consuming and tedious for a human to accomplish: measuring, marking, coloring and cutting to length thousands of individual pieces of string. To achieve this, it has six computer controlled mechanisms: a stepper motor that propels and measures the string, a marking pen driven by a solenoid, four airbrushes driven by individual solenoids, and a pair of scissors driven by a numerically controlled linear actuator.
The Insta-llator 1 greatly expands the potential of our projects that use cordage materials. We will continue to explore this potential in an ongoing series of projects loosely entitled “Suspensions”.
Principals in Charge: Gaston Nogues , Benjamin Ball
Project Team: Andrew Lyon, Nicole Kell, Eddy Sykes, Norma Silva, Jonathan Kitchens
Custom Software and Electronics Development: Pylon Technical
Feathered Edge was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The project explores the convergence of digital technology and craft. It is one in a series of installations curated by Brooke Hodge and Alma Ruiz. Integrating complex digital computation, mechanization, and printing with traditional handcrafted production techniques, Feathered Edge explores our desire to alter a space with fluid architectural forms that require a minimal use of material while utilizing a new proprietary technique that yields the effect of three dimensional spatial constructs “printed” to resemble objects hovering in space.
Feathered Edge is comprised of 3604 individual lengths of twine, totaling 21 miles, that have been dyed, cut, and then suspended from mesh scrims installed on the walls and ceiling of the gallery. With the aid of the “Insta-llator 1 with the Variable-Information Atomizing Module,” a machine designed and manufactured by Ball-Nogues Studio especially for this installation, the strings were precisely saturated with solvent-based inks, created by a chemist for the project, using four digitally controlled airbrushes and then cut to varying lengths. Using specialized parametric software developed with a software programmer, we generated a map that was printed onto the scrim to establish the proper locations and lengths of the twine in the space. Each piece was attached to the mesh scrim, and then knotted by hand in a technique similar to that used to make latch-hook rugs. The weight of the string creates a complex system of overlapping catenary curves on which cyan, magenta, yellow, and black segments were “printed” to yield the effect of ghostly three dimensional objects. Sometimes the objects are visible, at other times they blur to resemble a fluid-like vapor that floats and hovers in the gallery space.
The software used to develop the parameters of the resulting ephemeral spatial condition can yield nearly infinite possible design configurations. While the environment is defined by the string formations and printed “objects,” it is also constructed from the negative space found within the array of catenaries, which allows sight to extend into and throughout the spatial structure. The space is activated by people, movement, and light, creating a continually changing experience.
Computers are great at quickly analyzing large amounts of information, then generating data used for fabrication, but they can’t yet produce fully realized works of architecture. At best they can produce highly accurate components and spatial mappings or systems, this is where hand craft comes in. We use our hands and our knowledge of material as a filter for the digital possibilities and to achieve the final “built” environment; in effect, we use the prowess of the computer to push the limits of the hand.
Feathered Edge is the third in a series of projects we refer to as “Suspensions.” Unseen Current (2008), exhibited at Extension Gallery for Architecture, Chicago, featured 2,500 suspended string catenaries, and Echoes Converge, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008 used string to create intricate patterns inspired by the baroque ceilings of the city’s buildings. These softly structural, open-air spaces encouraged social interaction, enveloping rather than obstructing viewers.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Management: Andrew Lyon
Project Team: Chris Ball, Tatiana Barhar, Seda Brown, Patricia Burns, Paul Clemente, Sergio d’Almeida, Jesse Duclos, Matt Harmon, Karlie Harstad, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Andrew Lyon, Lina Park, Tim Peeters, Sarah Riedmann, Joem Elias Sanez, Geoff Sedillo, Norma Silva, Caroline Smogorzewski, Beverly Tang, Blaze Zewnicki, Sasha Zubieta, and the preparatory staff of MOCA.
Feathered Edge was on view July 26-November 15, 2009
Rigging: Kelly Jones of Jax Logistics
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
Live Video: Peter West
The Elastic Plastic Sponge was created by students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) led by Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues and Andrew Lyon of the Ball-Nogues Studio. The Elastic Plastic Sponge is a large scale installation and can be twisted, arched and curled to form different types of space including a lounge, a theater, or a large sculptural Mobius strip. In the desert heat of Indio, the architectural installation will provide a respite from the sun by making shade and mist while at night, each “cell” within the Elastic Plastic Sponge supports a fluorescent tube–the tubes shift in orientation relative to each other to create the effect of sweeping motion. The motion effect is evident from close-up as well as impactful from across the vast festival grounds–an important asset in an environment of throngs of festival-goers and competing spectacles.
The Elastic Plastic Sponge is a unique structure. In architecture terminology, the phrase that describes a system whose form is derived from its material properties is “form active.” These types of structures are difficult to study using software. They often require architects to explore their designs by testing full-scale mock-ups, and using that empirical information to help inform the process of digital modeling, which is studied in the studio rather than in the field.
The Elastic Plastic Sponge is comprised of 250 cells, each fabricated using custom jigs designed by SCI-Arc students. The cell module is a very effective way of constructing a temporary structure: each can be transported as a flat unit to the Festival and rapidly assembled on site; after the Festival is over, dismantling and transportation to a new site is easy.
From the Festival’s standpoint of an event spanning several days, the Elastic Plastic Sponge can be rapidly reconfigured to create unique spatial arrangements each day; its flexibility allows the designers to adapt to changing crowd, climate and site conditions. From a pedagogical standpoint, the Elastic Plastic Sponge's mutability enabled students to examine its unique structure at full scale; working and reworking its shape as they would a digital model.
Project Team: Joanne Angeles, Benjamin Ball, Phil Blaine, Seyoung Choi, Dina Giordano, Benlloyd Goldstein, Monica Gutierrez, James Jones, William Kim, Anthony Lagunay, Andrew Lyon, Jorge Miranda, Jeffery Morrical, Gaston Nogues, Mandana Ozlati, Tim Peeters
Rock and Roll Fantasy: SCI-Arc at Coachella
The studio, which began on January 19, 2009, required participants to study large-scale art installations, and devise one such structure as a class and then build the temporary architecture installation for the tenth annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Elastic Plastic Sponge, the result of this collaboration between SCI-Arc and Coachella, will debut at this year’s festival, April 17 through April 19 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.
The SCI-Arc studio class began the project by researching legendary rock 'n' roll gatherings including Woodstock, Glastonbury Festival and past Coachella installments. Students also spent time investigating other temporary constructions created for Burning Man, Serpentine Pavilion and the Venice Biennale, among others.
As the studio evolved, the class began to develop various designs in separate teams. Festival promoter Goldenvoice chose one of these designs, which will receive prominent placement at Coachella.
Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues and Andrew Lyon of Ball-Nogues Studio taught the studio with special direction from Coachella’s art curator, Philip Blaine.
About SCI-Arc
SCI-Arc, an independent, accredited degree-granting institution, offers undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. An educational laboratory, SCI-Arc tests the limits of architecture in order to transform existing conditions into the designs for the future. With its location in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in the intensely urban Artist District in Downtown Los Angeles, SCI-Arc provides a uniquely inspiring environment in which to study architecture. It is distinguished by the vibrant atmosphere of its studios, where some 500 students and 80 faculty members—mostly practicing architects—work together in a fluid, non-hierarchical manner, re-examining assumptions and exploring and testing new ideas through making. The institution offers weekly lectures and ongoing exhibitions, which are free and open to the public.
SCI-Arc - Re-imagining the edge: Educating Architects to engage, speculate, innovate.
To learn more about SCI-Arc, visit www.sciarc.edu.
We designed this permanent sculpture-like workspace for Edward Cella Art + Architecture (ECAA) in its newly relocated gallery across from LACMA and adjacent to the new location of the A+D Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The undulating functional object was crafted by hand from assembled layers of industrially cut cardboard and Koskisen plywood. ??Seeking to affect the white cube space of the gallery with minimal use of materials, we utilized the surging repetition and pattern created by stacking two shapes of pre-cut cardboard designed and calibrated on computational software.??Suggesting movement and vitality, the reception counter acts as a fluid yet intermediary object between the public space of the gallery and the gallery's workspace.??Fabricated by our collective team, the workstation reflects the gallery's emphasis on craftsmanship and execution. Embracing the post-gilded age economy, the design's humble materials do not shy from seeking new and dynamic forms.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Managers: Andrew Lyon, James Jones
Design Team: Andrew Lyon, James Jones
Project Construction Team: James Jones, Andrew Lyon, Nicole Semenova, Jonathan Kitchens Elizabeth Timme, Gaston Nogues, Tim Peeters, Nicole Kell
Unseen Current is a navigable billow of fog flowing through Extension Gallery. Three thousand hanging strings or "catenaries" totaling 10 miles in length span between the walls of the gallery in precise arrangements. From a distance, this three dimensional array of catenaries suggests a surface or volume; upon moving to its center, it evokes a rolling fog. To this end, custom software was developed to explore the form of (and generate the plans for) the project. Like a pointillist painting in space inspired by the smoggy sky of Los Angeles, the color of the installation gradates from a rich orange to sky blue.
Architect Philip Johnson's ethereal hanging-chain window treatments at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York also served as inspiration for the project. Ball-Nogues "sample" what was essentially a two dimensional decorative motif for Johnson then reinterpret it for their three dimensional modulations in the gallery.
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Project Team Los Angeles: Ben Dean, Mark Bowman, Michael Ferrante
Project Team Chicago: Christopher Bartek, Lindsay Grote, Jack Donoghue, Kasia Mielniczuk, Pei San Ng, Marine Manigault, Martina Dolejs, Cady Chintis, John Wolters, Ryan Johnson, Dana Andersen, Melodi, Zarakol, Sarah Forbes, Bryant Pitak, Kathryn McRay, Christina Halatsis, Vince Rivera, Kate Cain, Mariga Medic
Software Development: Pylon Technical
Curator: Paula Palombo
Unseen Current is sponsored by Extension Gallery, The Graham Foundation, with the designer’s support provided by United States Artists.
Commissioned for the 2008 Coachella Valley Music Festival in California, Copper Droopscape floated over the expansive festival grounds for ten days, providing both visual spectacle and shelter from the harsh desert sun. Throughout the day, music fans sat, talked, and slept in the dappled pools of colored light and shadow produced by the canopy. At night, Copper Droopscape was lit from underneath–– a shimmering, fiery beacon drawing lovers and dancers from across the 90-acre concert grounds.
Unlike conventional fabric structures designed to resist the force of wind, Copper Droopscape actively engaged the breeze. The complex, 90-foot canopy translated wind energy into sensuous motions that festival goers compared to the sea, or a kelp forest undulating beneath the waves–– both delicious metaphors for a cool sanctuary, given the installation’s unforgiving desert site. The motion of the translucent canopy resulted in a hypnotic effect as light passed through and reflected off the Mylar network. In a light breeze, the canopy made a gentle rustling sound; during gusts, a pronounced clapping sound.
The canopy was supported by rapidly deployable tripods made of untreated California pine. After the festival, the tripods were repurposed by a local builder.
Copper Droopscape was a study in non-standard modularity. While it employed a uniform cell dimension, each of its 864 parts was unique. The standard cell made field assembly manageable, while each part’s non-uniform aspects–– the form and proportions of the hanging tendril–– yielded a rich visual and aural experience.
Ball-Nogues collaborated with Pylon Technical to create custom software to explore the form of Copper Droopscape, control the degree of openness in the canopy, and expedite fabrication. The software made formal exploration and revision fluid and effortless. Rather than drawing each of the unique mylar parts, Ball-Nogues sketched the qualities of the canopy in general terms, and the software automatically generated the hundreds of components making up the unified canopy system, labeled them, and prepared files to drive a computer-controlled cutting machine. The design and logistics were “front loaded” to reduce on-site management and fabrication complexity, which allowed Copper Droopscape to be assembled by a team of 12 people in just ten days.
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Project Manager: Andrew Lyon
Project Design and Development Team: Ben Dean, Andrew Lyon
Project Construction Team: Benjamin Ball, Chris Ball, Jodie Bass, Mark Bowman, Ryan Davis, Ben Dean, Martina Dolejs, Melissa Sophia Drocles, Christine Eyer, Richie Garcia, Eddie Gonzales, Oliver Hess, Josh Levine, Andrew Lyon, Reid Maxwell, Pie San Ng, Gaston Nogues, Charon Nogues, Nick Paradowski, Michelle Paul, Sarah Peyton, Geoff Sedillo, Andy Summers, Elizabeth Tremante, William Trossell, Erica Urech, Johanna Zuckerman
Software Development: Pylon Technical
Structural Consultants: Buro Happold, Los Angeles
What does it mean to create an architecturally scaled environment that has a potent sculptural presence but is made of almost no material? What does it mean when we modulate space with volumes that hover on the threshold of absence?
This installation marries characteristics from two distinct ceiling traditions: the contemporary suspended ceiling (a system that is inexpensive, modular, and easy to install) and the Renaissancecoffered ceiling (a province of exploration into both mathematical tiling systems and opulent visual effects).
In our continuing effort to resist the limiting presuppositions and economic flimflam embedded in commercial software and existing architectural fabrication techniques, we developed two new tools for Echoes Converge: a custom software design system and an automatic cutting apparatus. Using the software, we can explore the form of the installation, then send construction data to a digitally controlled mechanical apparatus -- the Insta-Lator -- which automates the mind-numbing process of cutting thousands of unique lengths of string. As a combined design and production system, these tools enable the installation to function as architecture but also as a made-to-order product that can be rapidly deployed by the designer or owner.
Partners in charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Development and FabricationTeam: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues, Ben Dean, Andrew Lyon, William Trossell, Chris Lin, Martina Dolejsova, David Bant
The project is located in a new Se San Diego Hotel in San Diego. The brief called for a sculptural wall map of the City of San Diego that also marked the location of the hotel. Using software, we transformed an aerial photograph of the City into a three dimensional bas relief. The photographic image became the data set for the CNC milled wall sculpture finished in bronze and polymer resin.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Manager: Ben Dean
Project Design and Development: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues, Ben Dean
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
Installation Team: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues, Andrew Lyon
Interior Design: Dodd Mitchell Design
The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center present an installation in P.S.1's outdoor courtyard by Los Angeles-based firm Ball-Nogues, led by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, winner of the eighth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program. The competition invites emerging architects to propose an installation for the courtyard of P.S.1 in Long Island City, Queens. The objective of the Young Architects Program is to identify and provide an outlet for emerging young talent in architecture, an ongoing mission of both MoMA and P.S.1. This year, five finalists selected by a closed nomination process were asked to present designs for an installation at P.S.1.
The winning installation, Liquid Sky, designed by Ball-Nogues (Los Angeles), will be on view in the P.S.1 courtyard beginning June 21. Liquid Sky will immerse the viewer in kaleidoscopic patterns of color created by sunlight filtering through an array of translucent, tinted Mylar petals that resemble blossoming flowers of stained glass. Together, the petals form a tensioned surface that reconfigures the horizon, cresting above the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard. Six towers constructed from untreated utility poles support the surface while providing discrete spaces at their base for relaxing on enormous community hammocks made of brightly colored netting. For the adjacent outdoor gallery, the team has designed the Droopscape, a slack catenary belly that shifts and flows in the wind, supported by drench towers that periodically soak visitors below with their gravity-induced tip buckets by Fountainhead. The winning proposal was designed in collaboration with Paul Endres of Endres Ware Architects/Engineers and the Product Architecture Lab at Stevens Institute. As in past years, the project will serve as the venue for Warm Up, the popular music series held annually in P.S.1's courtyard.
"Ball-Nogues's exuberant project, Liquid Sky, combines the zest of a joyful event space with rigorous research into new materials and digital fabrication," states Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art. Low-tech assembly is joined with experiment in the latest cutting and fabrication techniques gleaned from the sailing industry. They posit a project whose research will hold resonance and application long after this summer's Warm Up series. Liquid Sky is a rich palette of atmospheric effects and brilliant color with an undertone of the ephemeral circus spectacle.
According to P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss, "To hear five great, young architects present their dream of a temporary pavilion is to fall in love five times. The winner, Ball-Nogues, from the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, gave us a Fellini-esque project: a circus tent whose canvas has been replaced with phosphorescent scales of hallucinogenic colors. This astonishing but low-tech creation cannot fail but to delight viewers of all ages."
Ball-Nogues principals, Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, describe the experience of their installation: "When you step into Liquid Sky, you've set your mind and body free from the weight of the urban environment and are submerged into an atmosphere of soothing exhilaration, subtle stimulation, and inspirational calm. As the installation changes from day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, your expectations create your own unique experience."
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Project Team: Paul Endres, Mark Pollock, Erik Verboon, Corey Brugger
Canopy Membrane Analysis and Formfinding, Structural Engineering: Endres Ware: Paul Endres, Benjamin Corotis, Mary Barensfeld
Parametric Modeling and Scripting: Product Architecture Laboratory, Stevens Institute of Technology: John Nastasi, Mark Pollock, Erik Verboon, Corey Brugger
Canopy Membrane and Structural Consultants: Arup Los Angeles: Bruce Danziger; Arup New York: Matt Jackson, Matt Clark; Werner Sobek New York: Will Laufs
Water Effects Design and Engineering: Fountainhead Water Systems Design, Los Angeles: Jenna Didier, Oliver Hess, Nick Blake
Hammocks: Sheila Pepe
Project Coordinators:: Chris Reins and Elizabeth Lande
Poster Series Curator: Israel Kandarian
Construction Coordination:Ball-Nogues Studio
Construction Team Leaders: Mark Pollack , Justin Capuco, Jed Geiman, Scott Mitchell
Construction Team: Danny Abalof, Andrea Abramoff, Rocio Barcia, Bogyi Banovich, Bridget Basham, Tripp Bassett, Harrison Blair, Lorka Birn, Lander Burton, Maria Camoratta, Steven Chen, Dianne Chia, Malachi Connely, Ceasar Cotta, Jonathan Cottle, Elizabeth Cunningham, Dino, Susannah Dickinson, Erin Egenberger, Kate Feather, Michael Ferrante, Bruce Foster, Hiroe Fujimoto, Owen Gerst, Lee Gillentine, Adrian Grenier, Yarden Harari, Mark Horne, Steve Keene, Keivon Kianfar, Greg Kay, Da Sul Kim, Nicole Kotsis, Michael Lindsey, Margot List, Catherine Lohanata, Sabrina Lupero, Andrew Lyon, Brittany Macomber, Mia Lai, Miles Mercer, Paul Matys, Cristina Milleur, Scott Mitchell, Ry Morrison, Charon Nogues, Caroline O’Leary, Meaghan Pierce-Delaney, Alex Pollock, Raphael Periera, Cindy Poulton, Ardo Pizzi, Jar Rittoral, Todd Rouhe, Larissa Santoro, Karl Schmid, Benno Schmidt, Jess Shirley, Jesse Seegers, Skyler, Rico Suarez, David Wicks, CK Dickson Wong, Tom Wu, Coe Will, and other generous contributors
Special Thanks: Brooke Hodge, Sylvia Lavin, Tripp Bassett, Monica Jeremias, Charon Nogues, Nancy Ball, William Ball, Mario Nogues, Tony Barre, Josh Levine, Meaghan Lloyd, Socrates Sculpture Park, Mark di Suvero, David Jargowski, Hood Sailmakers, Hale Walcoff, John Gluek, Tom Obed, Benjamin Keating, John Drezner, Gary Hummel, Eliott Pattison Sailmakers, Britt Holmes, Tom Majich, Jason Moses, Texas A&M University: Carol Lafayette, International Rigging - Simon Franklyn, Elizabeth Cunningham, John Nastasi, David Bott, Tom Wiscombe, Hardy Wronsky, Southern California Institute of Architecture, Pablo Castro and Jennifer Lee, Susan Hengst, Tracey Tanner, Tasha Lemel, Deagan Day Design, Jamaica Jones, Michael Lindsey Sculpture, Scott Walker
Clothing retailer Agnes b. asked us to design a low budget store window installation that made a connection to our project for the Young Architect's Program at the P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center. We used a flexible scissoring net structure similar to the "Droopscape" structure at P.S.1, but here in a vertical configuration so that the net formed a large-scale chain link fence between Greene Street in Soho and the interior of the store. To make the 390 unique parts, we employed polyester reinforced Mylar cut with a computer controlled system. The cutting system labeled the material with a Sharpie marker to make the "Agnes b." logo and write "P.S.1 Warm Up" on the parts. Posters by various designers from throughout the world appeared in collages in the store. Mimicking the poster concept for the P.S.1 installation, each week a new poster appeared to compliment or obscure the previous week's edition. Israel Kandarian was curator for the posters series.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Fabrication: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Graphic Design and Poster Curator: Israel Kandarian
In summer 2006 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned us to create a one-night installation for the Skin and Bones, Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture opening night fete and annual fundraiser. The event took place in a 12,000 square foot gallery building at the Geffen Contemporary. The development and fabrication time for the project was six weeks.
In literal reference to fashion we used garment related fabrication techniques such as patterning, sewing, folding, weaving, knitting & draping to create an ephemeral structure that would enhance the social setting and create a shared visual memory of the fleeting gala. En-route to dinner, guests were invited to walk a runway through a swirling kaleidoscopic array of last year's T-shirts, flannel pajamas, Polo shirts and all other manner of accouterment.
To create this effect we worked in concert with Endres Ware Engineers to develop an anticlastic minimal surface net structure that became the armature for weaving colorful materials plucked from the conveyor belts of bulk textile recycling companies. We laid the materials flat for flame proofing treatment, sorted them into color categories and then folded them in preparation for weaving. This process served as karmic retribution for years of neglecting to properly do laundry. Working closely with a fishing net manufacturer, we educated ourselves in the deceptively vast intricacies of net building; applying the know-how of an "outsider" industry to create an architectonic structure. Afterward, our net maker told us "it was the most challenging net I have ever made."
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Fabrication: Ball-Nogues Studio
Fabrication Team: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues, Ben Dean, Elizabeth Tremante, Charon Nogues, Monica Jeremias
Structural Engineer: Endres Ware Architects and Engineers
Net Fabrication: Christensen Networks
In the fall of 2005 Tiffany & Company hired Ball-Nogues to create the environment for the gala event celebrating the launch of its line of jewelry and accessories designed by architect Frank Gehry. The happening took place on a closed portion of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. It featured temporary constructions that filled the street, honored the materiality of Gehry's early work, and reinforced the imagery of Tiffany's new "body as landscape" advertising campaign.
Ball-Nogues devised walls, furniture, and bars for the event. One wall structure, half a block long to form an elegant backdrop, curved like the human body and was constructed from 4000 layers of corrugated cardboard sandwiched together. "Peep show" type display windows, inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Étant Donnés, punctuated the wall, framing tightly cropped compositions of live, naked models wearing the Gehry designed jewelry. In addition to creating walls, twenty-four voluptuous ottomans, no two alike, invited the 600 guests to explore playful new ways of sitting.
The assembly processes used to make the natural brown surfaces elaborate on those Gehry employed in his legendary "Easy Edges" line of furniture in the 1970's. These sensuous forms that resembled slices of rolling topography grew from a manufacturing process created by Ball-Nogues. The entire project required laminating over 25,000 strips of curved, industrially cut corrugated cardboard. Incredibly strong and capable of supporting the weight of several people, the cardboard laminates operate more like shells (integrating structure and skin) rather than surfaces - which need the support of a skeletal armature. The pieces reorient the viewer's notions of common cardboard from a raw packaging material to a substance with structural potential at an architectural scale, capable of being used to fashion elegantly refined compound curving forms.
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Project Team: Sam Gehry, Jonathan Ward
Fabricator: Ethos Design
Rice Gallery commissioned this installation in collaboration with The Museum Fine Arts in Houston exhibition, The Modern West: American Landscape, 1890-1950. When the Gallery director mentioned a Modern West tie-in before we had settled on an approach to the project we realized that the notion of landscape and geological phenomena dovetailed with our design for Tiffany and Company’s Frank Gehry Jewelry Launch Gala on Rodeo Drive in 2006. In the Tiffany project, the jewelry maker’s “body as landscape” ad campaign informed our approach to creating laminated cardboard walls and ottomans. At Rice, we expanded the potential of constructing landscapes in cardboard to include the viewer’s physical participation. We invited visitor exploration by extending the casual social terrain of the campus into the gallery, transforming it into a traversable rolling playground. On any given day one might discover a group of gallery goers studying, snoozing, climbing, sliding down the rolling terrain, or making-out in one of the darkened recesses below the cardboard surface.
Rip Curl Canyon was a kind of mythical location in the American West where land and water collide, far from Houston’s flat drained swamps. From its highest point at the rear of the gallery, its steep, crevice-like formations sloped down and gained momentum before breaking apart to form ribbons of curling waves. Like rip currents – narrow, fast moving belts of water – the segments twisted and surged toward the front glass entry wall. The view through the glass provided only glimpses of the unfolding topography beyond and invited the visitor to probe deeper. The steady climbing exploring caused the raw cut cardboard to slowly compress with each footstep…over time this accumulation developed into subtle pathways.
The fabrication processes used to make the natural brown surfaces are in the lineage of those Gehry employed in his legendary "Easy Edges" line of furniture in the 1970's. Expanding on this knowledge enabled us to create architecturally scaled cardboard structures and introduce double curvature. We used the properties and limitations of the material – determined through building full scaled mock-ups during development combined with a parametric digital interface - to shape the cardboard – ribbons.” The project required laminating over 20,000 strips (weighing approximately eight tons) of curved, industrially die-cut corrugated cardboard in twelve days. Incredibly strong and capable of supporting the weight of several people, the cardboard laminates operate as semi-monocoques with an intermediary plywood armature. The armature was made of standard wood materials – 2 x 4s and plywood – individually cut and CNC routered offsite to conform to the varying dimensions and curvature of the undulating cardboard shells. We digitally developed a language of slotting connections so that these non-standard parts came together like a giant puzzle in four days, required very little structural decision making in the field and gave us the freedom to make improvised choices when installing the cardboard.
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Parametric Modeling: Benjamin Ball
Structural Consultants: Arup Los Angeles: Bruce Danziger
Curator: Kimberly Davenport
Made during a workshop with students at the Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria; the site for this tensile installation was in a building erected by the Third Reich during World War II. Using sports netting and bulk quantities of common clothing and sheets recycled for use as rags, we created a delicately balanced tensile network over the buildings’ main staircase. An “egg” made of an enormous wad of clothing diverted the flow of students up and down the staircase, while also serving as a counterweight to shape the network above. En route to class, students could walk around the egg or push it out of the way, as though it were a large punching bag.
Project Team: this installation was a collaborative project conducted as a workshop by Ball-Nogues Studio with students at Kunstuniversität Linz from the space&designstrategies program.
This vortex-shaped, temporary outdoor installation in the Los Angeles exhibition space of Materials & Applications, warped the flow of space with a featherweight rendition of a celestial black hole. Hovering over M&A's courtyard, Maximilian's Schell was a spectacle the size of an apartment building constructed in tinted Mylar resembling stained glass. The piece functioned as a shade structure, swirling overhead for the entire summer of 2005. The interior of this immersive experimental installation created a beckoning outdoor room for social interaction and contemplation by changing the space, color, and sound of the M&A courtyard gallery. During the day as the sun passed overhead, the canopy cast colored fractal light patterns onto the ground while a tranquil subsonic drone from the integrated ambient sound installation by composer James Lumb entitled "Resonant Amplified Vortex Emitter" lightly rumbled below the feet of the viewer. When standing in the center or "singularity" of the piece and gazing upward, the visitor could see only infinite sky. In the evening when viewed from the exterior, the vortex glowed warmly while both obscuring and allowing glimpses of the building behind it. The assembly paid homage to a character played by actor Maximilian Schell in Disney Studio's forgotten sci-fi adventure The Black Hole. Dr. Reinhardt is a visionary tyrant on a monomaniacal quest to harness the "power of the vortex" and possess "the great truth of the unknown."
Ball Nogues invested more than a year into a development process that involved several prototypes, though actual fabrication took only two weeks. The result was an installation that functioned as not only architecture and sculpture but as a "made-to-order" product through a unified manufacturing strategy. The designers achieved their aesthetic effects by manipulating Mylar reinforced with bundled Nylon and Kevlar Fibers on a computer-controlled (CNC) cutting machine. Simultaneously reflective and transparent, the amber-colored film offered UV-resistance through a laminated golden metallic finish. The result was neither a tent-type membrane nor a cable net structure in the manner of Frei Otto, but a unique tensile matrix comprised of 504 different instances of a parametric component or "petal," each cut and labeled using the CNC system. Every petal connected to its neighbors at three points using clear polycarbonate rivets to form the overall shape of a vortex. As though warped by the gravitational force of a black hole, the petals continually changed scale and proportion as they approached the singularity of the piece.
An integration of structure and skin, the vortex behaved as a "minimal surface": prestressed, always in tension, yet definable mathematically. Its lineage is in the soap film surfaces modeled by Otto in the 1950s and '60s; a process now typically accomplished using software that performs "finite element" calculations. After receiving hand sketches and computer models made by the designers, membrane engineer Dieter Strobel digitally crafted and refined the minimal surface model. He quickly and precisely manipulated it during the "form-finding" process while accounting for the distorting effects of gravity and enabling the finished vortex-shaped canopy to be in tension everywhere across its top surface. This gave it a pure and smooth appearance, especially when viewed from the exterior. Seen from the interior, the piece resembled an enormous transparent flower with its petals lightly draping and curling downward with gravity.
Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Construction Coordination: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues
Construction Team: the magnificent volunteers at Materials & Applications
Membrane Analysis: Dieter Strobel
Structural Engineering Consultants: David Bott, Hardy Wronske
Sound: James Lumb
Parametric Modeling: Benjamin Ball
Photography: Benny Chan, Oliver Hess, Scott Mayoral, Joshua White
Curator: Jenna Didier
Special Thanks: Dewey Ambrosio, Miranda Banks, Freya Bardell, David Bott, Siobhan Burke, Scott Carter (the prince of parametric modeling), Malachi Conolly, Ben Dean, Jenna Didier, Stephanie Elliot, Rachel Francisco, Rob Fitzgerald, Linda Graveline, Andrew Hardaway, Oliver Hess, Tony Hudgins, Leigh Jerard, Tim Levin, Jonny Lieberman, Brandie Lockett, Kellie Lumb, Alexandra Isaievych, Alex MikoLevine, Fred Moralis, Jim Miller, Phil Miller, Charon Nogues, pAdlAb: Dan Gottlieb & Penny Herscovitch, Harry Pattison, Joanne Pink-Tool, Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, Edward Shelton, Dieter Strolbel, Joe Sturges, Elizabeth Tremante, Hardy Wronskie, and Bryant Yeh.
The Delaski studio was created within the envelope of a guesthouse, which has undergone several alterations since its original California Modernist beginning as a carport. It is sited within a quiet residential neighborhood. The client requested a mixing room and a live recording room (to also be used for yoga and meditation) where he would be inspired to relax and make his ambient / electronica music. His main aesthetic concern was that the spaces feel like a "lounge."
The existing structure was situated immediately adjacent to the master bedroom within the house. A major challenge was to create an acoustically isolated and tuned "room within a room" while providing plenty of storage for equipment in an envelope that was already far too small. To conserve space we fused built-in storage with lighting and panels that modulate the acoustical character of the rooms. The wall surfaces have unique angles that assist in dampening reverberant sound.
Principal in Charge: Benjamin Ball
Construction: Paul Sercu
Designed for a television commercial advertising the lightweight Audi A6 automobile, our operating narrative for the set design was that it emphasize weightiness by imitating concrete infrastructure construction methods in order to contrast the lightness and innovation embodied in the chassis of the A6. To illustrate the car frame’s lightness, it was hoisted through the set while being lit from above through a diffusion scrim behind a steel grill incorporated into the ceiling of the set.
Director: Mark Coppos
Production Designer: Virginia Lee
Set Designer: Benjamin Ball
Construction: Tribal Scenery
The set design was for the music video Got 'Til It's Gone, a song on Janet Jackson’s 1997 album The Velvet Rope. Our operating narrative for the set design was that it suggest the interior of a “deteriorating public works building in colonial Africa, designed by a mediocre European modernist architect with a big ego.”
Director: Mark Romanek
Production Designer: Virginia Lee
Set Designer: Benjamin Ball
Set Decorator: Michelle Munoz
Construction: Tribal Scenery
In Progress
Screen is an opportunity to blend imagery of the universal symbol of the human hand with techniques borrowed from glass jewelry making. We use the hand image to evoke hard work, cooperation, coexistence, and tolerance. To achieve this we will call on our experience with cutting edge digital design and fabrication technologies. It is our aim to make a work that is inspiring to teens and a composition through the use of color and intricacy that can be appreciated by the casual passersby from the sidewalk.
The “catenary” is a basic form in nature: a chain suspended from two points will always make this shape. Long necklaces are catenaries. Screen, which is directly behind the storefront glass, is like hundreds of chain necklaces with individual links made of hands made with colored translucent plastic. The chains will continually transform the color of sunlight coming into the Teen Center. The work will provide privacy for people within the Center from the busy sidewalk while allowing views of the street from within. Hundreds of different hand shapes link together to make up the chains: sometimes the hands have an open palm, sometimes the fingers are stretched outward, sometimes the fingers curl as if to gently hold an object, sometimes the hands grasp one another. Combining the logic of animation with sculpture, the shape of each individual hand is derived from video footage. Arrayed in sequences, the hands produce the impression of human gestures.
For Cloud, we explored the universal symbol of the human hand and cutting edge digital design and fabrication technologies. The project is decidedly human while reflecting the beautiful complexity of the natural world.
The “catenary” is a basic form in nature: a chain suspended from two points will always make this beautiful shape. Antonio Gaudi used the catenary as a means of studying the forms in his Sagrada Familia Cathedral of Barcelona. Our project, located in the lobby space of the new SeniorCenterat 9th and Jessie Streets in San Francisco, is comprised of more than 300 suspended chains (catenaries); each link in the chains is a hand. There are many different hands that make up the chains: sometimes the hands have an open palm, sometimes the fingers are stretched outward, sometimes the fingers curl as if to gently hold an object, sometimes the hands grasp one another. Combining the logic of animation with sculpture, the shape of each individual hand is derived from video footage. Arrayed in sequences, the hands produce the impression of human gestures.
More like a fog than a solid object, the hanging links form an atmospheric presence over-head and that be clearly seen from the street. The chains reflect colored light on the walls, floor and glass of the lobby space to subtly bathe residents and visitors in their glow.
The 10th and Mission stair tower forms an architectural gesture that has a high degree of visibility along Mission and surrounding streets: its prominence makes it a beacon in the City. It is an opportunity to use art to broadcast Mercy Housing's unique identity to the city-at-large while tying the tower to our vision of Mercy housing's role in the resident community as set forth in our proposals for the Teen Center and 9th & Jessie. This project is entitled Veil.
Veil is a cascading diaphanous curtain attached to the inside of the tower's glass wall system. Cascades of color and form migrate from the bottom of the tower to the top. The transparent tower faces south permitting light to pass through it on three sides while the veil - made of refractive glass beads - produces the effect of cathedral windows by transforming the color of sunlight to create complex light patterns that strike the sidewalk and the building itself while at night, the work emits has a gentle glowing presence.
Veil is not a fabric in the conventional sense: it is an intricate array of hanging chains made of transparent colored beads threaded through thin cables. When a chain is hung from two points it forms a "catenary." A catenary is not an arbitrary shape, it is a fundamental form in nature that is part of our everyday visual landscape: in necklaces and in the telephone and electrical wires that crisscross the city. Because we are using several thousand precisely arrayed catenaries, the combined visual effect will be similar to fabric, however space between the chains that permit views into the stairwell and to the sky beyond.
The temporary installation in the courtyard at Schoenberg Hall will serve as an integrated set piece and backdrop for performance and everyday social interaction. We understand the work as a table cloth to adorn and activate the architecture of the campus. Tables are places of social interaction. Dining tables, specifically, facilitate organization and communication within the typical American home. We see this project like the cloth adorning a dining table; however, at Schoenberg it will adorn the courtyard, an important social hub, and will facilitate community at the scale of the University. It can be used for a variety of community oriented activities, from musical practice to performance, dance to lectures, and from everyday social interaction to academic discussions. It will embellish the courtyard during the spring and part of the summer in 2010. The processes to manufacture, assemble, and dismantle the performance space are sustainable. We have utilized a holistic approach to design, manufacturing and re-purposing of building materials; a process we term "Cross Manufacturing."
The Table Cloth will be comprised of hundreds of individual low, coffee-style tables and three legged stools. Each of these household items will be a unique product in its own right and can be taken home by members of the UCLA community after the project is over. The tables and stools link together collectively to create a “fabric” that hangs from the east wall of the courtyard. When the Table Cloth meets the ground, it unrolls to form an intimate “in the round” performance area. Visitors can sit on the tables and stools within this area.
The installation can be configured in two ways (see illustrations):
- Stage. A small stage platform will be at the center of the crescent shaped seating area. This stage will be 18 inches high and will only be present during organized performances. When one is performing some parts of the stage will stored.
- No Stage. Performances may take place on the ground anywhere within the courtyard. Approximately 25 individual “free floating” stools can be distributed throughout the performance area as desired.
The configurations described above are only suggestions of how an audience and the performers' relationship can be mediated by the installation: the function of the Table Cloth is open ended. We hope that performers, choreographers, directors (to name a few examples) will invent uses and safe abuses for it. Perhaps, some performers will develop programs specifically for the space and will collaborate with other members of the UCLA community to create works showcase there.
This installation may not only serve as a backdrop and marker of a place for performance, but also can be a set or prop in the performance. It can be a neutral backdrop or provocative presence. It creates a context for interaction, perhaps inspiring a creative process from its conception to execution. To reduce liability there is to be no climbing on the Table Cloth, no standing on the seating elements and no standing on the stage unless one is a part of an organized performance.
Because of the work's size and the materials used, its presence will help reduce reverberation and alter acoustical phenomena within the space.
Construction will begin at Ball-Nogues Studio in downtown Los Angeles during March followed by onsite assembly during the break between winter and spring quarters. Within the weeks before the break, campus facility personnel will be onsite to make preparatory alterations to the building. These will include drilling holes in the courtyard floor and welding tabs onto beams above two of the window openings on the east wall. We invite students from the University to help (assuming risk assessment authorities will allow this) and it is our hope that students from the School of the Arts, AUD, DMA, and the Herb Alpert School of Music will contribute. Furthermore, the construction process should help generate anticipation and enthusiasm for the project among students and faculty.
Upon dismantling, the seating and tables will be given away to the UCLA community. Our aim is for the project’s stakeholders to help promote this process by turning it into an event - perhaps accompanied by a performance.
Project Theory:
Temporary spatial installations represent a growing phenomenon within our culture. There is a new demand for “instant” architecture. We see this in entire environments which become advertisements, like subway platforms; stage sets; window displays; and event spectacles. They have become forums for the production of architecturally scaled structures and spaces that exist for only a limited period. Our temporary performance space explores the making of impermanent structures which produce very little waste when their usefulness as architecture is complete. While there is an increasing interest among architects in recycling and repurposing temporary architecture, our project moves beyond this approach to consider life cycle through the development of a "cross manufacturing" strategy. Cross manufacturing is a design and production approach that considers objects as part of a continuum. After the structure has served its use as a performance space, the components comprising the installation will be dismantled to become smaller scaled commodities, immediately available as coveted products - in this case tables and seating. Unlike recycling, which down-cycles material into a less valuable state, this scenario foresees small products made from the parts of a larger product (the installation itself).
“Diversified series” is a fitting description for the resulting products rather than the “standardized series” that typically results from a mass production approach. Each of the tables and seating elements will be industrially manufactured but will still be unique, contrasting the anonymity inherent in most industrially manufactured goods. At the end of the life of the installation, the approximately 500 tables and stools, no two alike, will be given away to the UCLA community.
By using a consumer good as its basic building block, the project expands and critiques notions of “green" architecture. As a visual concept, the installation serves as a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a poetic reminder that the buildings and temporary pavilions we construct are impermanent: frozen moments in an ongoing flow of products and materials. Outside of its environmental commentary, the canopy dramatically re-contextualizes consumer products - symbols of mass consumption and standardization– into alternative gestures of hope and one of a kind manufacturing.
Our winning entry for a public art competition sponsored by the City of Santa Monica; the sculpture is situated on the exterior wall of an existing parking structure at Santa Monica Place – originally designed by Frank Gehry. Near the beach and the Third Street Promenade, the site is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles. An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture operates structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls. As a whole, the balls imply an articulated surface suggestive of foam or sea life. Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues Project Team: Andrew Lyon, Tim Peeters, Will Trossell Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical Structural Engineer: Buro Happold, Los Angeles
Proposals
On the occasion of the Guggenheim Museum's 50th anniversary, the Guggenheim has invited approximately 250 artists, architects, and designers to imagine their dream intervention in Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda. A salon-style installation of two-dimensional renderings of their visionary projects will emphasize the rich and diverse range of inspired proposals will take place from February 12 though April 28, 2010.
Serving more one-million visitors annually at the Guggenheim’s New York facility and more than three-million at worldwide at its other facilities, the Guggenheim Museum already presents organized exhibition of precious cultural artifact for the general public’s enjoyment and delectation. These exhibitions, often organized in a linear structure, present the viewer with a complex offering of audio, visual and textural experiences that impart to the visitor a satisfying sense of culture and history. At the end of these exhibitions, visitors are typically directed to the gift shop where they too can acquire weighty tomes and gewgaws which further reinforce the doctrines developed over the course of the visitor’s experience.
After careful consideration of the Guggenheim Museum spatially and programmatically, Ball Nogues Studio recognized the institution’s unique sequence of inter-connected galleries and ramps as an architectural form well suited for adaptation as an industrial manufacturing assembly line. Seeking to convert the museum’s current cultural production to a more sustainable manufacturing system, Ball Nogues Studio suggests adapting Wright’s masterwork into a contraption for the transformation of raw, organic sugar cane into a delectable candy confection cum art installation and industrial expo that is both easy to eat and delicious. Their proposed re-use is an acknowledgement of the imperative of architects to shape the careful appropriation and preservation of the noted structure while adapting it economically and functionally using new green technologies and systems. That Wright designed the structure, a priori, to suit this pressing, contemporary need is proof enough that form follows function.
Ball-Nogues Studio was runner up in this invited competition to design a monumental gateway to the City of Houston at the Bush Interconentinental Airport in 2008. Dennis Oppenheim won the competition while third place went to Jaume Plensa.
Our Competition Narrative:
Leaving Bush Intercontinental Airport by car along John F. Kennedy Boulevard, one notices an unusual sight on Houston's expansive horizon: three brightly colored rolling hills. A few seconds pass and we can see that our path, like a highway in a pastoral landscape, cuts through these hills. A few more seconds pass and we see that the hills are rising from a field of what appears to be road signs. These ubiquitous pieces of infrastructure have no text on them. They line the street like trees on a grand European Boulevard. A few more seconds pass and they are bending and flowing like prairie grasses swept by enormous gusts of wind. The color of the bright carmine signs is now changing; they are no longer signs; they are growing in size and becoming something less familiar. We are entering the passage between the hills, but we are not between hills made of earth, the “hills” are actually comprised of what appear to be hundreds of giant flowers soaring overhead blossoming in a violet and blue crescendo. In fact, the hills that seconds ago appeared solid are actually supported by a forest of columns; we can see the underside of their top surface. As Dorothy declares upon her magical arrival in The Land of Oz, “we are not in Kansas anymore.” In less than a minute, we the travelers have crossed a threshold between the global network of airports with its crowds, colorless infrastructure, and long waits to a place of boundless possibility.
Bloom is an ambassador welcoming you to the colorful and exuberant City of Houston with a gift of flowers. Bloom is a monumental gateway and time based experience at the Houston Intercontinental Airport near the location of the existing Welcome to Houston sign. The site is within a “pause” in the progression of way finding signage that one experiences coming in and out of the airport. The work will have tremendous impact in this location. It greets us when we arrive and bids us a warm farewell as we depart. Using the speed of the automobile and the dimension of time Bloom creates an animated space reminiscent of an lush field of flowers rising from the ground and blossoming before our eyes.
Each moment is slightly different than the previous to create the effect of transformation from common road signs into an efflorescent field of flowers – perhaps bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. Bloom is similar to its Victorian predecessor, the Zoetrope, but it is decidedly of the 21st Century. Land art meets cinema: the “hillside” is arrayed with hundreds of “movie cells.” Permanently printed onto highway sign materials and supported by CNC shaped tubing, each of the hundreds of “signs” and “sign posts” is slightly different. Cinematic phenomenon also animates the posts. Sometimes their arrangement will create the effect of riding in a car while looking between rows of an agricultural field , at other moments they pitch and sway as if being swept by winds.
The project is “scalable” - the quantity of posts can be reduced or increased according to logistics and budgetary parameters while their location can be easily adjusted during the development process to accommodate the needs of multiple stakeholders. The project can be built in Houston to save costs. We intend to use proven construction materials and methods from the transit infrastructure industry such as galvanized steel tubing, road sign fabrication techniques, grade beams for anchorage, and a rock bed surround to eliminate mowing around the work. Ball-Nogues can consult with transit specialists IBI, a group with whom we've collaborated before, to optimize the various engineering options.
Bloom can be a gateway that will become a symbol of Houston's warmth and welcoming culture while being a spectacle that can attract global attention by fusing metaphors of the Texas prairie with the universal imagery of road signs. Bloom defies expectations of arrival and departure to transform our surroundings from the commonplace to the fantastical. Each time we pass through the exuberant world of Bloom it reminds us of Houston's receptivity and innovative spirit and that all travelers are part of a global community.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Team: James Okamura Andrew Lyon, Ben Dean, David Bantz,
Animation: James Okamura, Pylon Technical
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
How do we take a child’s thoughts away from illness? How to create a work that gives a sense that everything is in its place? How can sculpture engage the theme of children’s literature? How do we make a work that captivates the imagination of a child through narrative and color while engaging adults though intricacy that approaches that of the natural world?
Designed for the new John’s Hopkins children’s hospital, this suspended sculpture addressed the theme of children’s literature through the concept of a “storytelling cloud”. A combination of sculpture and cutout animation, the cloud is comprised of a friendly swarm of silhouette illustrations. When viewed across space and time, the cutout illustrations tell a story of three friends riding on the back of a bird on a journey through the four seasons from departure to a safe return home. Linked end to end, the silhouettes form catenary chains that are suspended from the ceiling.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Team: Andrew Lyon, Will Trossell, Ben Dean, Mark Bowman, Jodi Bass, David Bantz, Chris Lin
Cutout Illustrations: Hsinping Pan
Custom Software Development: Pylon Technical
The client asked us to imagine an installation that evolved over a three week period culminating in a gala event where the new Lexus LS would be revealed to a group of invited guests. The setting was to be a public plaza with heavy foot traffic.
We saw this as a challenge to make something that gradually changed from sculpture to party setting while also communicating aspects of the Lexus brand such as luxury, innovation, refinement and leadership in design.
We envisioned a temporal installation built of bricks. The bricks were to be sensually curving fiberglass ottomans similar in scale to a woman's body and formally reminiscent of a Henry Moore sculpture. The 30 ottoman / bricks would stack to form a single lexus shaped sculpture, approximately 16 feet high and evocative of the hand on a sundial - a reminder of the passage of time. As the three week period progressed, the sculpture would decompose with ottomans individually repositioned to form a perimeter ring - like hour marks on a sundial, while pointing toward the center where the car would be unveiled on the final day.
Project Team: Benjamin Ball,Gaston Nogues, Oliver Hess
