News
Benjamin Ball will be speaking at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning on February 24, 2014.
UC School of Architecture and Interior Design College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning PO Box 210016 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0016
Benjamin Ball will be in Ellensburg for a lecture at Central Washington University for the Department of Art on Wednesday February 12, 2014 at 4pm.
On the same trip, Ball-Nogues will interview for a new project. We were selected as one of 3 finalists from the Washington Arts Commission public artist registry for a work in a new science building at CWU.
One of our two projects for Essex Monarch Group in West Hollywood is complete and the scaffolding removed. It hangs from a wall of the Huxley building near the intersection of Fountain and La Brea.
Almost Anything Goes: Architecture and Inclusivity
On view: January 5 – March 16, 2014
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 4, 6–8 pm
The last 20 years have witnessed a groundswell of popular cultural interest in the field of architecture. Some trace this influence to Frank Gehry’s seminal Guggenheim Bilbao, completed in 1997, which generated such neologisms as “the Bilbao Effect,” “starchitect,” and “wow factor architecture.” Recently, Gehry’s influence and that of other significant West Coast architects was the subject of several important exhibitions and publications via the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, Modern Architecture in LA (1945-1980). With a momentum of ever-expanding interest in the field, the exhibition Almost Anything Goes: Architecture and Inclusivity at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCA Santa Barbara) considers the next generation of architects in Los Angeles.
The architects featured in this exhibition, Catherine Johnson and Rebecca Rudolph, Design Bitches; Doris Sung, DO/SU Studio Architecture; Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, Ball Nogues Studio; Robert Miles Kemp, Variate Labs; Elena Manferdini, Atelier Manferdini; and Ramiro Diaz Granados, Amorphis LA, embrace cross-fertilization, collaboration, and adaptation creating new methodologies for research and implementation. Additionally, these makers, thinkers, and teachers traverse myriad, related fields utilizing an architectural perspective (visual arts, theory, design, and fashion). This spirit of inclusivity owes to a particular set of extant conditions including a dearth of building projects due to the recent recession, new digital technologies, growing ecological concerns, and a renegade spirit of experimentation unburdened by the weight of tradition. On the basis of installations, photography, material samples, textiles, and interactive media, Almost Anything Goes, presents a range of activity produced by some of LA’s most innovative contemporary architects.
Maximilian’s Schell, the project that launched Ball-Nogues and won an AIA award, will be featured at the Material’s & Applications Retrospective opening at CSULB in January 2014
Materials & Applications: Building Something (Beyond) Beautiful, Projects 2002 – 2013
January 25 – April 13, 2014
The University Art Museum partners with the artist-led experimental architecture and design organization Materials & Applications (M&A) to present Materials & Applications: Building Something (Beyond) Beautiful, Projects 2002 – 2013. This exhibition is a capstone to more than ten years of effort on the part of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit to advance new and underused ideas in art, architecture, and landscape.
M&A related activities kick off this fall when local community members are invited to join Oliver Hess, director emeritus of M&A, and students from CSULB Design Professor Heather Barker’s course Environmental Communication Design in a three-part workshop coordinated by Arts Council for Long Beach, which will culminate in a “crowd-sourced” site-specific installation on the CSULB campus in January. The installation is called MatterApp: Pyramidial (MA:P). You can follow the progress of MA:P from classroom, to crowdsourcing at community workshops, to its construction near the Walter Pyramid on campus on the UAM Tumblr page.
About Materials & Applications: Located in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, M&A is an experimental site and community “pocket park.” Begun by Jenna Didier as a collaborative endeavor to advance a vision of architecture and design as social catalyst, she and the M&A exhibitors have striven to raise the conceptual standards of public art by questioning not only what is possible in the built environment, but also who participates in its development. M&A received a Spirit Award in 2009 from the Neutra Foundation. The American Institute of Architects presented M&A with three Design Honor Awards: in 2006 for two installations–the 2005 project Maximilian’s Schell by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues and the 2006 project Here There Be Monsters by Workshop LEVITAS and DidierHess–and in 2007 for Michael Fox and Juintow Lin’s project Bubbles. For ID Magazine’s 52nd Annual Design Review, jurors Michael Arad, Elizabeth Diller, and Lindy Roy honored the Ball and Nogues installation Maximilian’s Schell with the designation “Best Environment.”
Organized by UAM Curator Kristina Newhouse, Materials & Applications: Building Something (Beyond) Beautiful, Projects 2002 – 2013 and the MA:P activities have been awarded a 2013 NEA Art Works: Design grant.
Since its emergence roughly twenty years ago, generative digital design has fundamentally altered the way in which we conceptualize, design, and fabricate architecture. Virtually every aspect of our profession has been radically transformed. These innovations have not been restricted to questions of technology alone, and have fueled a lively debate among leading educators, theoreticians, and practitioners in their respective efforts to understand the larger cultural ramifications triggered by this phenomenon.
The New Normal will investigate how the role of experimentation can continue to contribute to architecture education, design research and practice, theory, and fabrication. The focus of the symposium will be to assess the current state of technology and how researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians incorporate rigorous modes of speculation into their work. In particular, we are interested in how digital tools have allowed for new conceptions of the practice of architecture. We hope to have a dynamic discussion, and encourage participants to discuss recent projects and also speculate as to the future possibilities of generative practice.
Symposium Schedule
Thursday Nov 14
6:30pm Opening Keynote Lecture
Neil Denari
Friday, Nov 15
10am Welcome and Introduction
10:30am Panel 1: New Assemblages
Moderator: Roland Snooks
Francois Roche
Brandon Kruysman
Manuel Delanda
Mark Goulthorpe
Simon Kim
12:30- 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm Panel 2: New Niche
Moderator: Ferda Kolatan
Michael Loverich
Jason Payne
Jonah Rowen
Drura Parrish
3:30-4pm Coffee Break
4pm Panel 3: The Anorganic
Moderator: Winka Dubbeldam
Tobias Klein
Gaston Nogues
Philip Beesley
Chris Sharples
Lydia Kallipoliti
6:30pm Closing Keynote Lecture
Ben van Berkel
Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) is organizing a project of architecture art, which will include a forum in 2013 and an installation in 2014. Ball-Nogues was invited as guest speakers for the forum this year.
The subject of the forum is “Imagination and Experiment of Museum Landscape Space”. It will focus on promoting a fresh and stimulating vision and experiment on architecture in public space. The combination of architecture, art, and environment will be especially emphasized.
Forum on November 9, 2013
Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Benjamin Ball’s Lecture Title: Land Speed Record
Website here: http://www.tfam.museum/TFAM_Event/event_contents.aspx?EduID=1970&PMId=19…
‘Ball-Nogues Studio recently completed Air Garden a monumental sculptural installation that hovers within the North Light Well of the new Bradley West Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. Air Garden creates a moment of serenity and visual repose for travelers amidst the hectic airport environment. More an atmosphere than an object, the colors and shapes of the artwork transform as one moves through the terminal and as the natural light conditions change throughout the day. The artists describe it as “sometimes suggesting an iridescent fog pouring from the sky and other times a translucent three-dimensional painting. “
Weighing approximately 6000 pounds, the sculpture is comprised almost entirely of stainless-steel ball chain. Under development for nearly four years, it is the pinnacle of Ball-Nogues exploration of “extreme intricacy.” Over 175,000 unique segments, totaling over 85 miles, hang in precise proximity to one another to share in the overall composition.’
Catenaries: 7092 Columns: 394 Hangers: 788 Chain ONLY weight total, at #6 Stainless, 12 lbs. per 1000 ft., UNPAINTED: 5433 lbs. Not including cable, hardware, connectors or paint. BEAD CHAIN, BY COLOR -------------- RAW TOTAL_LENGTH (FEET): 95787 CYAN TOTAL_LENGTH (FEET): 82045 MAGENTA TOTAL_LENGTH (FEET): 121918 YELLOW TOTAL_LENGTH (FEET): 153001 --------------- GRAND TOTAL LENGTH (FEET): 452751 GRAND TOTAL in MILES 85.7482955 CHAIN CONNECTORS (and segments), BY COLOR --------------- RAW TOTAL_CONNECTORS: 52852 CYAN TOTAL_CONNECTORS: 47562 MAGENTA TOTAL_CONNECTORS: 35210 YELLOW TOTAL_CONNECTORS: 39917 --------------- GRAND TOTAL CONNECTORS / SEGMENTS: 175541 (Add 14184 CONNECTORS / SEGMENTS if you want to include the little unpainted shorties attached directly to the hangers)
Ball-Nogues Studio has been selected for a commission with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to create a site-specific piece for El Cariso Park in Sylmar, CA. The design will develop over the next six months.
Benjamin Ball will be speaking at the ENVD 5:47 Lecture Series: Benjamin Ball of Ball-Nogues Studio
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Please join the Program in Environmental Design for a free and public lecture by Benjamin Ball of Ball-Nogues Studio. The lecture will start at 5:47pm with a free reception at 5pm. |
http://www.colorado.edu/campusmap/map.html?bldg=ENVD, for additional location information.”>Main Campus – Environmental Design (View Map)
1060 18TH ST
boulder, CO
Room: 134
