Waterline installation for the San Diego County Operations Center is complete. The opening reception and ribbon cutting was held on August 8, 2012.

Press:  

San Diego Union Tribune

San Diego Architectural Foundation Blog Orchids and Onions

Designo

Project text:  

Waterline resembles a thickened atmosphere of ghostly waves within the double high entryway of Building 204. It is neither solid nor emptiness but has qualities of both. Seventeen thousand segments of painted stainless steel ball chain, totaling over 10 miles in length make up this work. By integrating digital computation with hand production techniques, Ball-Nogues meticulously combined the segments to form an array of “catenaries” that span the ceiling. In mathematics, a catenary is the shape of a curve formed by a chain hanging between two points.

Composed of seven colors, the chains make an intricate system of overlapping curves. The result suggests a three-dimensional abstract painting that looks differently depending on one’s vantage point. From one angle, the viewer sees hard-edged geometric shapes in distinct color; from another angle, she sees the same colors blurred to make a vapor-like composition.

In naval engineering, the term “waterline” refers to the contour made by the hull of a ship meeting water. This Ball-Nogues installation includes a field of magenta color that is parallel to the ground plane catenaries. Analogous to a waterline, this feature becomes reference for gauging the discrepancies between the “theoretical” models generated within the computer and the physical reality of the installation constructed from the data output by the computer.

Ball-Nogues Studio was invited to speak at the Northern Nevada American Institute of Architects conference.

Benjamin Ball will be attending Saturday, September 29, 2012. It will be help at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.

 SCI-Arc Gallery Exhibition Discussion with Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues and Hsinming Fung

 June 25th 7pm in the Gallery 

Southern California Institute of Architecture

960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013 

 Benjamin Ball will be speaking at the AIA LA Design Conference

He will be on a panel on Saturday, June 24th at 2:30pm on New Forms of Practice.

Los Angeles is the preeminent global center for young designers who bridge product design, installation design and architectural design into new hybrid forms of design practice.

 Yucca Crater is a finalist for the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review award.

The full list of winners can be found here.

From artsusa.org:

The 2012 Public Art Network Year in Review Projects Have Been Announced!

Check out the 2012 Year in Review Project List and order the 2012 Year in Review CD-ROM that includes a PowerPoint presentation, project data, and more than 300 jpeg project images. This makes an excellent advocacy and educational tool.

Hear the presentation by curators Jean Greer, Daniel Mihalyo, and Celia Munoz recorded at the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Preconference by ordering Convention On-Demand.

About the Year in Review Program

Since 2000, the Public Art Network’s Year in Review has annually recognized outstanding public art projects through an open call submission and curation/selection process. Each year, two or more public art professionals are selected as curators to review more than 400 project applications of work installed or completed in the previous calendar year and select up to 50 public art projects that represent the most compelling work for the year from across the country. The Public Art Network’s Year in Review program is the only national program that specifically recognizes public art projects. The field is advanced by the commitment of artists to produce exceptional work, public art programs and administrators who facilitate public processes, and the curators all of whom dedicate time and thoughtful detail.

 Ball-Nogues Studio won an international competition to design and build a pavilion with students at the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris. Pavillon Speciale is a competition curated by Matteo Cainer. The pavilion is scheduled to open mid June 2012. Images of the design proposal can be seen on the ‘in progress’ section of our project page.  

Proposal text:

The Pavillon Spéciale is an installation that can be arched and curled at full scale with a small crane to form different types of space befitting the summer program at Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. The installation will create a sense of place while providing a respite from the sun and rain.

The Pavillion is a unique structure. In architecture terminology, the phrase that describes a system whose form is derived from the deformation of its materials under force is “form active.” This type of structure is difficult to study using software. It often requires 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. Students will engage in this iterative design process with Ball Nogues.

The structure is comprised of approximately 200 “cells”, each made from locally sourced plastic tubing that will be bent and curled in custom jigs designed and constructed by students.  To provide shade, each cell will have a locally sourced sheet material spanning between the tubes within it. The cell module is a very effective way of constructing a temporary structure: each can be transported as a flat unit and rapidly assembled on site; when it is time for the structure to come down, dismantling and transportation to a new site is easy.

Description of the competion:

The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture enters its 2^nd edition of the “Pavillon Spéciale”, an annual spring architectural series that gives young emerging architects the opportunity to build with students, a temporary project in the heart of Paris. Once a year from June to October, The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture will become an international theatre for architectural experimentation, making it unique in its kind. The timescale (maximum of 3 months from invitation to completion) will provide a unique model that presents a strong synergy between architecture and education and with talks before during and after construction, it will become a contemporary platform for architects, students and the city itself.

The “Pavillon Spéciale” program is curated by Matteo Cainer. Conceived by the later in the summer of 2010, it is an ongoing programme of temporary structures by emerging international architects. The series is unique worldwide because it not only presents the work of an international architect or design team, but is an on site collaboration with a team of students from the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. Each year a different pavilion will be sited on the school’s inner courtyard, and for five months there will be a programme of public talks, events, performances that will take place in and around the Pavilion.   

Benjamin Ball will be speaking at Ohio State Knowlton School of Architecture’s Winter/Spring 2012 Baumer Lecture Series on May 9th, 2012 at 5:30pm. Information here and flyer here.

  BENJAMIN BALL

“Fast, Cheap & In Control”
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 25
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
 
Best known in Indianapolis for the last season’s brightly colored string installation “Gravity’s Loom” at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Benjamin Ball, is an artist, designer and founder of Ball-Nogues Studio in Los Angeles. Ball grew up in Colorado and Iowa, where his mother’s involvement in theatre proved influential. While studying for his degree at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Ball logged stints at Gehry Partners and Shirdel Zago Kipnis.

Upon graduation, he sought work as a set and production designer for films (including the Matrix series) as well as music videos and commercials with such influential directors as Mark Romanek and Tony Scott. His experience ranges from work on the Disney Concert Hall and small residential commissions for boutique firms to complex medical structures and event design.

Event information

R.S.V.P. 

In Conversation: Lynn Aldrich, Benjamin Ball and Merry Norris with art critic Scarlet Cheng

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 / 6:30pm

Join art critic Scarlet Cheng in a conversation with artist Lynn Aldrich, architect Benjamin Ball and art consultant Merry Norris about their recent public art projects and how they address the role of art in the built environment. 

Seating is limited. To reserve please call (323) 525-0053

Flyer

 The Way Beyond Art3: Architecture in the Expanded Field 

 Thursday, March 8, 6–8 PM

Kent and Vicki Logan Galleries

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin)

San Francisco

The exhibition will be on view in the Upper Gallery March 8–April 7, 2012

Blurring the boundaries between art and architecture, this exhibition explores a broad terrain of installation practices, traversing architecture, sculpture, interiors, and landscape. It includes work by Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta Clark, Olafur Eliasson, Jürgen Mayer H, and Office dA, among others. 

WBA3: Architecture in the Expanded Field is designed and co-curated by Ila Berman, CCA director of architecture, and CCA architecture faculty member Douglas Burnham, principal of envelope a+d, in collaboration with the Wattis Institute. Faculty participants will include Thom Faulders, Mona El Khafif, Craig Scott, Andrew Kudless, Mark Donohue, Jason Kelly Johnson, and Nataly Gattegno.

Visit wattis.org for the schedule. 

All Wattis Institute exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.

Founding support for CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts programs has been provided by Phyllis C. Wattis and Judy and Bill Timken. General support for the Wattis Institute provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Ann Hatch and Paul Discoe, and the CCA Curator’s Forum.