Recap of lecture on 10/17/12 - watch video here

Hagy Belzberg: Mitigating Complexity

http://www.belzbergarchitects.com

mitigating complexity – varying programs, clients, budgets that architects must balance

Howser Landscape Installation AWOL

- a host of a local public tv show has a house in the desert, but is paranoid & wanted a fence in the desert to prevent people from coming onto his property
- ship hulls cantilevered out of ground – radiate so much heat that no one would want to come near; performance patterning

Skyline Residence
- part of the set for Crazy Stupid Love
- environmental performance – building is balanced with prevailing winds
- sun shields – environmental patterning, passive architecture
- movies projected onto guest house; viewed from green roof over garage

Walt Disney Concert Hall
- design 12,000 sf inside building
- acoustical isolation critical in many spaces
- restaurant, café, retail, members lounge
- hanging bubbles from ceiling absorb sound, conceal HVAC, emit light
- CNC – relatively new technology within architecture at the time
- proverbial curtain created in wood ripple wall (absent in actual concert hall)
- water jet cut glass stacked bar – again playing on the idea of a ripple

Kona residence, Hawaii
- move away from kitsch architecture common in Hawaii
- formal dance and gift making as icon
- technology is void without a reference to icon
- house – view of volcano and ocean at either end of open gallery that creates axis and displays collection of wife’s orchids
- sustainable design for client who doesn’t want it
- reflecting ponds – volcano clouds; acid rain
- technology & iconography – ceiling pattern is indigenous, not colonial
- entry – upside down basket; been gifted; built in LA & reassembled by island workers

Denver Art Lab entry piece
- architecture had to be signage
- canopy, benches part of a folded skin
- fabricated pieces – lightweight fiberglass transported by truck
- weird tongue sticks out, inviting people in

LA Museum Holocaust
- Holocaust survivors came to LA – first “museum” in country – moved place to place
- build around existing monument in 1972 – surrounded by federal, state, and city land
- concentration camp architecture – not progressive, feels cheap – do away with this language but with huge resistance
- series of rooms – darker and lower, turn and release into light
- donor wanted iconic building, but building pushed below and allowed the language of the park to read – duality of happy park and dark themes
- long ramp down to entry – park and street sounds disappear
- language of connectivity
- 9th grade students in LA are required to learn about Holocaust, so many exhibits are interactive
- designing project while still under construction
- swimming pool contractors used full scale stencils & guide wires to create interior concrete structure
- black cubes with interactive media
- walls with 1.5 mil voids placed near playground – symbolic, haunting deaths of youth, helping young visitors understand magnitude of Holocaust

LA Conga Room
- took pattern from rumba steps – becomes floral
- parts of the ceiling are agitated; absorbed more sound per program
- work closely with acoustic engineers
- shoot horizontal lights across patterns to create multi-faceted affects
- pattern of ceiling brought down into a "head dress" above entry
- each person proceeds under head dress when waiting

9800 Wilshire in Beverly Hills (in progress)

- convinced client not to demolish an old building but to bubble wrap it instead
- slump glass – 4’ x 8’ sheets heated and were allowed to slump in formed pattern
- 3 layers – safety and high performance glass
- during design, the building was sold to a new owner who wanted to do a new Spanish or Mediterranean style building
- pushed instead for mechanically ventilated façade over existing building
- spiderwebbing to clear pattern on glass
- sky canopy to conceal HVAC

Conclusion

making technology relevant – performance based, not just off the shelf