This sculpture recalls the histories of textile industry and cargo shipping that once dominated the region, taking the form of steel spheres suspended from tall poles suggestive of the cargo masts that operated at the site. The reflective spheres capture the surrounding landscape and the viewer's own image within their surfaces.

A portrait of the heavens rendered on a catenary dome of fabric, this work depicts the sky above the antipode of Minneapolis. Suspended atop a seven-story glass tower, it functions as an urban-scaled mirror ball, reflecting light by way of more than 500,000 stars made of mirror-polished aluminum.

This site-specific playscape for all ages explores non-conventional uses of material through the technique of the pour. Tinted urethane foam, layered and cast in place, produces monumental structures with smooth, colorful interiors and textured exteriors, balancing control and spontaneity. Winner of the American Architecture Award in 2024

Six fused glass panels depicting olive tree bark line the Olive View Restorative Care Village, honoring the olive groves that shaped the region's agricultural history and the values of healing and reconciliation they represent. The imagery was generated by a digital algorithm designed specifically for the community and fabricated in collaboration with Judson Studios, the oldest family-run stained-glass maker in the United States.

Southern live oaks, icons of the American South, are depicted as they might appear lining an idyllic New Orleans street in this two-sided mural spanning a children's play space. Thousands of transparent acrylic squares function like pieces of stained glass, refracting sunlight and projecting color while drawing children in with a video game aesthetic.

Inspired by Utah's mesmerizing landscapes, this suspended work is based on an aerial image of the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The image is abstracted into a stack of horizontal bands, capturing the essence of the landscape in a layered, suspended form.

Hovering in a building entrance, this work's intricacy yields a visual complexity reminiscent of fluid dynamic systems. Its appearance shifts continuously with the viewer's movement, reading as a solid disk from below, a delicate form of liquid droplets from the exterior, and dissolving between geometry and wash depending on one's vantage point.

Inspired by landscape painting of the American Regionalists, this installation maps a composition of colors from an imaginary Kansas prairie onto over 20,000 segments of painted stainless-steel ball chain. The courthouse and its landscape extend through the negative space between the chains, becoming integral aspects of the work.

Depicting historic streetcars and contemporary trains and buses, this work celebrates the innovation of Los Angeles's transit systems past, present, and future. Comprising over thirty thousand translucent acrylic chips across 83 panels, its colors shift with changing sunlight and viewer perspective, evoking the dynamic and ever-changing nature of the city.

Thousands of segments of chain, precisely arranged in a single gesture cutting through the entry hall, form a monumental installation suggestive of a beam of brightly colored light. Its colors transform with changing lighting conditions and the movement of the viewer, while the negative space between the chains extends views to the ceiling above and the environment beyond.

Distributed across a series of light wells that increase in size as visitors move from parking to terminal, this work unfolds during the passage by foot and is inherently linked to one's journey. The hanging forms create a colonnade that crescendos or tapers depending on the traveler's direction, evoking the experience of moving along a palm-tree-lined boulevard.

Serving as both a functional bench and a commemoration of the life of a local surfer, this work employs manufacturing techniques and aesthetic characteristics unique to the sport of surfing.

Though clearly synthetic, this sculpture of fiberglass rods draws its structure and materiality from biological systems such as the growing tip of a plant, branching networks of capillaries, or the surface of a leaf. The work invites multiple interpretations depending on the viewer and their relationship to the natural world.

Developed collaboratively with university scientists, this installation represents the Phylogenetic Tree of Life, illustrating evolutionary relationships among all organisms across three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucaryota. Comprising five and a half miles of chain in 96 variations, it reflects the iterative nature of scientific understanding and the interconnectedness of all living things.

A kind of urban-scaled graphic equalizer, this installation rigs geophones to the structure of an elevated train platform and outputs the signal to a large screen below the tracks. The system registers the approach and arrival of trains as well as the footsteps of commuters walking on the platform.

Installed in Pittsburgh Market Square, this piece is an abstracted representation of Amsterdam Island, the furthest inhabitable place on earth from Pittsburgh. Visitors are able to look into craters on the surface and view real images from Amsterdam Island.

Both an iconic sculpture and a delicate atmosphere, this work swirls through a building atrium by way of sophisticated algorithmic computation combined with proprietary fabrication processes. The extreme intricacy of the piece suggests breathtaking natural phenomena such as fluid dynamics or aurora borealis.

Created to float as an ambient atmosphere above views of the surrounding mountains, this work shifts between recognizable geometric forms and a fluid-like vapor depending on the viewer's vantage point. Integrating complex digital computation with traditional textile patterning techniques, it reshapes architectural space with a minimal use of material.

Based on the Japanese art of Kintsugi, this project reuses the cracked paved driveways in front of the Barracks buildings as part of the living history of Fort Barry, part of The Commons at Headlands Center of the Arts. The cracked pieces are documented, trimmed, and reunited with colored terrazzo, illuminating repair and decay as moments in the ongoing history of the site.

A meandering line of glass vitrines winds through the lobby of the school, filled with outmoded objects of students' choosing. The work functions as a wunderkabinett, encouraging students to explore questions related to history, progress, and the lifecycle of objects, technologies, languages, and customs.

Located within the garden of an urban hospital, this pavilion provides shade and seating while its intricate patterns of tubes and shadows are designed to captivate the visitor's imagination. Its most important function is creating a place that momentarily transports the mind away from illness, suitable for sitting alone or sharing a moment with another person.  

Produced through an unprecedented process of crushing stainless steel into building blocks, this sculpture reads as both irregular and highly refined. Viewed from the east it resembles an ad hoc stack; from the west, precise industrial cuts yield the strict geometric figure of an obelisk, evoking the geological formations of the surrounding landscape.

Employing a proprietary computational technique with a minimal use of material, this installation yields the effect of ghostly three-dimensional volumes hovering in the entryway.

Hanging in an atrium and made from over 10,000 unique segments of stainless steel ball chain, this color shaft changes throughout the day as viewers move up and down the elevators. It appears to twist, shifting in orientation and color, creating effects reminiscent of animation and natural phenomena.

Faraday Future, an innovative new car company in California, commissioned Ball-Nogues Studio to design the concept for a trade convention exhibit. The project was the backdrop the unveiling of their Zero1 prototype automobile at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2016. The exhibit needed to travel to other events and car shows around the world. Pinnacle Exhibits handled design development, fabrication and install.

These metal panel works blur the distinction between the fabricated and the organic, readable as surface, raw material, and permeable screen simultaneously. The crumpled metal manifests the massive forces used to compact it, while the clean saw cuts of the panel edges place the work in dialog with hard-edge abstract painting. Approximately 25" x 38" x 3" First displayed as part of the 'Constructions' Exhibition at Edward Cella Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, CA

Thousands of sweeping lengths of tinted stainless steel ball chain hang in catenary formations in a three-story atrium, taking cues from theatrical curtain designs. Its appearance shifts with the changing qualities of the skylit space and the movement of the viewer, suggesting brushstrokes on a translucent three-dimensional canvas that dissolve into washes and resolve back into clear strokes.

An architectural experiment in material composites using reclaimed paper, this installation served as a bold, colorful canopy and respite from the sun. A composition of blended paper, water, and pigment was sprayed onto lattices of natural rope, hardening into rigid, self-supporting structures that were diverted from the waste stream. Unlike fiberglass or carbon fiber composites that are polymer based, the Pavilion contained no toxic materials; it could be recycled or composted after the two-week run of the festival.

 

R&D Award, Architect Magazine (2015)

A tribute to the history of the region, where olive groves brought early immigrants, this piece serves as both a play apparatus and a resting area for park visitors. Curved cement pieces precast from a single mold nest together alongside olive sorting bins, a wheel, and a representative press, providing a backdrop for teaching and the annual festival.

This large customizable digital glass clock is programmed to display time and weather using a combination of colored and switchable glass. It can be set to read directly or mirrored in reverse as a projection on the ground, functioning reliably under the high winds, heavy traffic, and harsh weather conditions of the Colorado rail station.

Paying homage to the simpler days of baseball, taking cues from the mythic image of kids catching a glimpse of a ballgame through a knothole in a wooden fence, this work links the ballgame, a playground, and the street. It provides the security of a partition while facilitating coincidental encounters with the game from the sidewalk.

This installation exists as both object and atmosphere, its appearance shifting with the quality of light and the movement of the viewer. Amid the constant motion of the airport, it offers a moment of pause, a place for reflection and daydream.

Pulling the themes of water and fluidity into a two-story interior lobby, this installation resembles a thickened atmosphere of waves that is neither solid object nor emptiness but has qualities of both. Several thousand segments of custom-dyed stainless steel ball chain form an intricate system of overlapping catenary curves that morph in appearance with the viewer's vantage point.

Derived from a photograph that alludes to the spiritual dimension of water and its capacity to be both healing and foreboding, this work comprises over thirty thousand powder-coated pixels rendered as reflected light on brushed stainless steel fins. The quality of the reflections transforms with the changing seasons and the location of the viewer relative to the work.

A body of luminous radiation projecting from the corner of a building, the piece conjures images of the human aura in historical artwork or the effects of magnetic forces in scientific literature. As the viewer moves along the boulevards, the reflection of moving cars and changing lighting conditions transform the appearance of the artwork into effervescent light.

Taking cues from leather biker jackets customized with studs and spikes, this hovering surface of crumpled stainless steel is layered with a field of studs that imbue a unique geometry across its surface. The studs also serve a structural purpose, increasing the weight of the installation to nearly 4,000 pounds to resist uplift from wind loads.

Designed as a single large organism, this park links various interdependent areas through resource sharing and circulation systems including water collection and redistribution. Its design integrates creative learning opportunities into virtually every aspect of the park, educating visitors about natural ecological processes and sustainable practices.

Wall Text:

The boundaries between cultural disciplines are not easy to cross. A guy who studies sculpture and goes on to create furniture will probably never see his work in the MoMA design collection. An architect who refers to her installations as “art” will undoubtedly provoke derision from the ranks within the fine arts academy. In determining a title for this installation, one reason Radiant came to mind is because the figures illuminate the space within which they are situated. Body seemed appropriate because we explored the human figure; and Glob because we developed a process for producing the work in paper pulp – formless oatmeal-like goo commonly used to make protective packaging for consumer products. Each of the three figures in the Radiant Body Globs installation—Figure Head, Come to Mama, and Grandpa Lost his Cane—can be displayed as part of the installation or individually as a sculpture or lamp.

 

Created for the Exhibition Almost Anything Goes: Architecture and Inclusivity at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (2014)

Commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art for an exhibition (Modernist Maverick) surveying the architecture of William L. Pereira, this work is an interpretation of the Transamerica building rendered in stainless steel ball chain.

1,141 catenary chains descend from a suspended elliptical ring beam and return skyward on a new path, forming two shells of pattern and color. Appearing as a translucent three-dimensional painting, the work visually connects several levels and amplifies the aesthetics of light, reflection, and color.

Developed for the Hammer Museum's annual K.A.M.P. (Kids' Art Museum Project), this workshop invited children to make sculptural masks from paper pulp. Standard sheets of paper were blended into a slurry, colored with pigment, and molded into face-like forms using a platen shaped like a head. The dried results were taken home by participants.

For the Music Legs Glob Lamp we adapted materials and processes commonly used in the mass production of packaging to yield a series of lamps. Each lamp is a unique sculptural object. Paper pulp forms an integrated structure and skin, such that the only non-biodegradable components are the bulb housing and cord. A variant of our earlier Glob Lamp 01, which resembles the iconic head of a famous cartoon mouse or an abstraction of male or female anatomy, this series has a wider range of potential shapes. As with the subjective interpretation of clouds, the viewer can read different meanings in the forms of each lamp. Because of the unique fabrication process, no single lamp can be exactly reproduced.

Seventeen thousand segments of painted stainless steel ball chain, totaling over ten miles, form a thickened atmosphere of ghostly waves within a double-height entryway. The work is neither solid nor emptiness but has qualities of both, shifting in appearance with the viewer's changing vantage point.

Cast from a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle and a late 1970s open-top speedboat, this installation transforms everyday objects into tools for fabrication and generators of architectural space. Multiple casts in recycled paper pulp were united into a structural whole, with the negative spaces left by the artifacts forming an occupiable mock tanning booth. The work challenges the contemporary architectural vogue for software-generated form by finding structure and meaning in the suburban landscape instead.

The Pavillon Spéciale is an installation designed and built by students of the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture under the direction of Ball-Nogues Studio. The installation can be arched and curled at full scale to form different types of space befitting the university’s summer program. The installation creates a sense of place while providing a respite from the sun and rain.

Comprising roughly 900 stainless steel spheres, this sculpture forms an abstracted mountain drawn from geological engineering concepts. Its shape echoes the surrounding Edmonton landscape, while its mirror surfaces reflect passing cars, weather, and light, drawing drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians into contemplative interaction.

Located in the barren desert, this synthetic earthwork doubled as a recreational amenity, its form standing 30 feet from rim to low point and depressed ten feet into the earth. Its rough plywood structure, originally formwork for another project, Talus Dome, resembles a basin. Rock climbing holds on the interior allow visitors to descend into a deep pool of salt water, evoking abandoned suburban pools and ramshackle homestead dwellings scattered across the Mojave.

A cascading diaphanous curtain of refractive beads attached to the inside of a glass tower wall, this work produces the effect of cathedral windows by transforming sunlight into light patterns that strike the sidewalk and building. At night it emits a gentle glowing presence, while the space between the chains permits views into the stairwell and to the sky beyond.

Comprised of hundreds of colored translucent plastic hand shapes linking together into chains, this installation continuously transforms the color of sunlight entering the Teen Center. Located directly behind storefront glass, it provides privacy from the street while producing the impression of human gestures through sequences of subtly varied hand forms.

Comprised of more than 300 suspended chains, each link cast in the form of a hand, this installation bathes the lobby of a senior center in reflected colored light. The shape of each hand is derived from video footage and, arrayed in sequences, the hands produce the impression of human gestures.

An aggregation of mirror-polished stainless steel spheres, this sculpture operates structurally like an enormous Newton's Cradle toy. Each ball is suspended by cable and locked into position by gravity and its neighbors, reflecting a distorted image of passersby on the exterior wall of a parking structure.

Hundreds of individual low coffee tables and three-legged stools link together to form a fabric-like surface hanging from the wall of a campus courtyard. After the run of the installation, the components were dismantled to become immediately available commodities, tables and stools returned to everyday use.

Comprising brightly colored letters formed from recycled paper pulp, this installation takes the shape of a monumental arch scaled to the size of a child. From one side it reads as a wall; from the other, a heap or pile suggesting the most rudimentary form of monument. The letters function simultaneously as building blocks and teaching tools, each infused with wildflower seeds so that when the installation was dismantled, students could plant them to create their own gardens.

Constructed solely of sprayed paper pulp, this lamp series takes a minimal approach to materiality, with the pulp forming an integrated structure and skin. The bulbous silhouette invites multiple readings, suggesting the iconic shape of a Mickey Mouse balloon or, conversely, human anatomy. The fabrication process developed for the Glob Lamp initiated a new line of material research that extended into architectural-scale installations.

Commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum's 50th anniversary exhibition, this proposal imagines Frank Lloyd Wright's rotunda repurposed as an industrial assembly line for transforming raw sugar cane into candy. Recognizing the building's sequence of interconnected ramps and galleries as an ideal manufacturing circuit, the design reframes the museum's cultural production as a literal one, with visitors moving through the space as both audience and witness to the process.

Press Release by the Indianapolis Museum of Art INDIANAPOLIS, IN, The Indianapolis Museum of Art today announced that Los Angeles-based Ball-Nogues Studio will create a site-specific, architectural installation as part of the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion series.  Ball-Nogues Studio’s installation will be on view in the IMA’s main entrance from September 3, 2010 to March 6, 2011. Bridging the disciplines of art, architecture and design, Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice lead by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. The studio will create an immersive installation titled Gravity’s Loom that explores the space and structure of the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion.  Gravity’s Loom, part of the artists’ Suspensions series, will be composed of an array of vibrantly colored hanging strings that span the entire pavilion and generate the appearance of a softly spiraling gossamer surface. This surfacewill twist, contort, and spiral downward through the atrium, transforming the architectural space and re-choreographing the flow of visitors to encourage new interactions with the museum. Each string in the installation will hang from two points on the oval perimeter of the Pavilion, forming curves that respond to the distinctive features of the IMA building. In developing Gravity’s Loom, Ball-Nogues has allowed the properties and limitations of a given material—in this case, string—guide their work. When the array of strings is hung in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, it will take the shape of an inverted dome through which a patterned color composition will be revealed that represents the artists’ take on Baroque embellishment, Ball and Nogues understand the oval shape of the IMA’s Pavilion to be analogous to the dome of classical Baroque architecture, which historically incorporated surface decoration to blur the distinction between what is architectural, sculptural, and pictorial. The strings of Gravity’s Loom will be painted to represent the imagined plan for a traditional Baroque ceiling pattern—a three dimensional volume that will blur into billows of color and then snap into a focused geometry, depending on the viewer’s vantage point. “Ball-Nogues’ installation will dramatically re-imagine the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion,” said Sarah Urist Green, associate curator of contemporary art. “Their singular approach—integrating concept, design, and fabrication—will yield an unforgettable and all-encompassing environment that intricately relates to the space as a thoroughfare and site for assembly and interaction.” Ball-Nogues likens their method of fabrication to a 21st century application ofIkat, an Indonesian term for the ancient textile process of resist dye.A labor intensive method, Ikatinvolves the application of vibrant colors to precise locations on individual yarns that, when woven, form a blurry edged pattern. Similarly, Ball-Nogues will color the strings individually in precise locations by using four computer-controlled airbrushes that are part of a programmable machine of their own design. Called the Instal-lator 1 with the Variable Information Atomizing Module, the machine will paint over 30 miles of string and cut it to prescribed lengths determined by an integrated software system. The shape of the thousands of hanging strings will be computed with a mathematical formula, however the piece will be installed at the museum by human hands. Ball-Nogues’ installation will be a remarkable convergence of digital computation, machine fabrication, and hand craft. “The series title Suspensions refers to the act of disengaging from preconceived notions and intellectual interpretations, if only for a few moments, to apprehend the work with untethered expectation,” said Ball-Nogues. “In the installation at the IMA, there is an intentional duality at play—at one moment the implied surface frames views of the building and then at another obscures it, creating a clouded perspective of the building beyond.” Ball-Nogues Studio’s sculpture is part of the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion installation series launched in February 2007 and made possible by a $2.5 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Efroymson Fund.  The works are installed on a rotating basis with a new commission from a different artist approximately every six months.  Artists who have previously exhibited in the space include Tony Feher, Orly Genger and Julianne Swartz, among others. Project team: Benjamin Jenett, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Alison Kung, Deborah Lehman, Jielu Lu, Marine Manchon, Daniel Morrison, Claude Moussoki, Amador Saucedo, Lawrence Shanks, Rachel Shillander, Ron Shvartsman, Eddy Sykes , Julianne Weiss. Custom Software: Sparce Studio

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 was on view from December 5^ththrough 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 Shenzhen. 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 Wear invites 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 served 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: Sparce Studio 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? 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. 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. 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: Sparce Studio

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: Sparce Studio Live Video: Peter West

Drawings created with the same data used to to make the Feathered Edge installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The drawings were exhibited in the same space as the installation.Drawings created with the same data used to to make the Feathered Edge installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The drawings were exhibited in the same space as the installation.

How do the tools we use affect our choices as designers and artists? Rather than just design with an off the shelf 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 with the Variable Information Atomizing Module over the course of eight months. We designed and fabricated this computer controlled machine. It became 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 digitally 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 of strings. The results of this proprietary process suggested holographic images floating in space. As a software and hardware system, the Instal_latoreffortlessly performs and seamlessly unifies four distinct operations - measuring, cutting, and painting string, into one continuous sequence of procedures that would be extremely time consuming and tedious (impossible) for a human to accomplish. 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: Sparce Studio

"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 Custom software:  Sparce Studio Curators: Claire Petetin, Éric Troussicot, Michel Jacques, Francine Fort

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: Sparce Studio

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 was a large scale installation that could 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 provided a respite from the sun by making shade and mist while at night, each “cell” within the Elastic Plastic Sponge supported a fluorescent tube–the tubes shifted in orientation relative to each other to create the effect of sweeping motion. The motion effect was 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 was 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 was 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 could 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 Lighting consultant: Chris Ball Lighting equipment donated in kind by American Apparel.   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 sculpture-like workspace for Edward Cella Art + Architecture (ECAA) gallery formerly located across from LACMA 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

The project is located in a new Se San Diego Hotel. 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: Sparce Studio Installation Team: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues, Andrew Lyon Interior Design: Dodd Mitchell Design

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: Sparce Studio

Curator: Paula Palombo

Unseen Current is sponsored by Extension Gallery, The Graham Foundation, with the designer’s support provided by United States Artists.

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 Renaissance coffered 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 Custom software:  Sparce Studio

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:  Sparce Studios

Structural Consultants: Buro Happold, Los Angeles

Jennifer Caterino, editor of Form Magazine, asked us to feature one of our projects as the centerfold for the January 2008 issue of the publication. We chose Liquid Sky, our winning project for the 2007 Museum of Modern Art, Young Architects Program Competition. For this centerfold, we collaged a number of images of Liquid Sky, combined them over an Alberto Vargas pin-up woman and a do-it-yourself guide to making a model of the Mylar roof structure we used in the pavilion.  All members of the Los Angeles American Institute of Architects received a copy.

From the Museum of Modern Art Press Release:

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

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.

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

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

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 Table V.1.1 June 17, 2013

Overview

In nearly every culture, the table is a symbol of connection between people. Tables make places where people come together. By providing a space for eating, writing, negotiating, or playing games, tables give us a platform to interact with one another. We propose a table for the Greenway that might someday be remembered as the “Big Table.” Big because it meanders throughout the entire length of the Greenway – about 1.5 miles – probably making it the longest table in the world were it to be connected at street crossings during a special event. At approximately 8000 feet in length it could seat 7500 people at once. Comprised of more than 1200-painted picnic tables conjoined into one solitary gesture, it will unite the Greenway’s segmented parks and surrounding communities giving both symbolic and functional meaning to the notion of connection while making an unprecedented spectacle. The Table turns corners and switches back on itself, responding to the physical features within each of the individual parks through which it passes while creating new spaces within its folds that can be used for a limitless number of activities. What was once a slash dividing the City is now a suture; a healing connections between communities that unites a necklace of disconnected green spaces and gives meaning to a space upon which most of the buildings have turned their backs.  

Activate

The Table promises to activate the spaces around it. Formed within its meanders and turns, the Table provides opportunities for creating outdoor rooms and seating for all sorts of urban activities some of which already happen regularly on the Greenway while others will be completely new. From Yoga classes to outdoor concerts, arts and crafts fairs to food truck festivals, public movie theaters to urban lounges, the table will generate opportunities for local organizations to make functional spaces for their public events. This process is reliant upon strategic partnership with local Boston community programs and groups.  For example, if Boston ping-pong club wants an arena for their weekly league matches, they can work with Ball-Nogues and the Conservancy to design such a space within one of the meanders of the Table.  

A Ribbon of Color

The Table will be a spectacle of color weaving through the City. From the buildings above the Greenway it will be appear as a continuous spectral gradation, undulating and shifting -when in fact it is composed of a limited palette taken from a paint chip fan book of a major national paint brand. To achieve this effect, we will use employ the technique of dithering, which according to Wikipedia, dithering is a technique used in computer graphics to create the illusion of color depth in images with a limited color palette (color quantization). In a dithered image, colors not available in the palette are approximated by a diffusion of colored pixels from within the available palette. Color serves two purposes for the Table, not only to create an engaging ever-changing composition suggestive of Op Art or the work of Carlos Cruz Diez, but also to differentiate zones by way of color rather than function. Visitors may indentify different areas of the Greenway by the color of the Table in that vicinity -  “meet me at the purple section of the Table in Dewy Square Park.”  

Adapt

Rather than propose proscribing a specific form, we think of the Table is as an adaptable and scalable system for functioning as a kit-of-parts, re-making spaces within the City. As the design process proceeds, the shape, and size and deployment of the Table can adapt to changing financial conditions and outreach opportunities without sacrificing its power and meaning. The same is true of the table post-installation, it can be reconfigured and reorganized to accommodate these changing needs of the people that use it.  

Reuse

After the Table has run its course, joining, activating and enriching the Greenway, it will be dismantled to its constituent, smaller scaled tables that can be distributed to homes, schools, businesses, or even other parks. Moving beyond recycling, which down-cycles material into a less valuable state, reusing tables means less waste than typically produced by a temporary art projects but perhaps, more importantly, it means that the piece will live on for years to come, reminding us of the connective potential of the Greenway.  This reminder shall remain a powerful symbol long after the Table ceases to occupy the Greenway.

Ball-Nogues won this commission, but project funding was lost. The client requested that we design a “teepee” structure that could serve as a permanent wildlife observation pavilion, a summer party space and contemplative retreat. Advancing techniques we developed for our projects Maximilian’s Schell and Liquid Sky; the assembly is a tensile matrix of interconnected stainless steel tiles stretched over a wooden tripod and a stone seating area. Each tile will be unique, and together form a structure similar to a membrane. Apertures in the surface will let sunlight pass through while allowing seated inhabitants to view the landscape and trees outside. A fire pit will be at the center of the structure. Designers and Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues Project Team: Andrew Lyon, Ayodh Kamath Structural Engineer: Will Laufs of Thornton Thomasetti, New York Landscape Design: Terrain, New York

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, Sparce Studio Custom Software Development: Sparce Studio

In 2008 clothier Issey Miyake approached Ball-Nogues Studio to redesign their store on Madison Avenue in New York. Given a limited budget, the ceiling was of primary interest to the client. Aiming to create a design that grew from a method of production, we conceived a ceiling made of thousands of individual hanging metallic ball chains organized into interweaving “flows.” The ceiling was to have a sculptural presence overhead: at times, the flows drooped downward to become obstacles for shoppers, while at other times, they formed an atmospheric haze. Suspended between the hanging chains was a flexible clothing display system that floated throughout the store. The ceiling was to establish a new identity for the store from the street while drawing shoppers into the boutique to explore. Our design concept, rooted in consideration of the parameters of material and fabrication paralleled Miyake’s interest in clothing designs evolving from their processes of production. Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston NoguesProject Team: Andrew Lyon, Will Trossell, Ben Dean, Mark Bowman, Mike Ferrante Custom Software Development: Sparce Studio

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: Sparce Studio

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