I arrive at Ball-Nogues Studio in downtown Los Angeles ten minutes early. Benjamin Ball is still on the phone with a client, which I take as a green-light to snoop around the office — a spacious room decked with suspended shapes and colorful projects-in-progress. Against one wall, a small library points to the ‘reference medley’ Ball and partner Gaston Nogues bring to their practice. Art and architecture represent in the titles, of course, but no less so than, say, Constructivist theater. I find this fitting for a young design and fabrication firm whose varied projects give way to many hyphenations: “architecturally-integrated”; “digitally-hand-crafted”; “lightly-weighty.”

by Katya Tylevich




Ball gets off the phone to find me surveying thousands of treated strings hanging from the ceiling. A mock-up for Feathered Edge, he tells me; on display at MOCA through November 15. There’s a long story behind the piece — not to mention a making-of video worthy of a sci-fi Emmy (watch the video below). Really, the project is a product of machines and hand-labor, A.K.A methods that don’t intuitively go together. Ball Nogues is good at that: Creating unexpected meeting grounds. A habit with roots in the studio’s biography. Throughout the course of an early afternoon, Ball and I delve into those memoirs of a (nearly) five-year practice, discussing various ways in which opportunity knocks, enters, then demands therapy.

Katya Tylevich: In the beginning. What brought you and Gaston together?

Benjamin Ball: Gaston had been working at Gehry Partners for 11 years, and I was doing various things — I worked for architects, I’d been an art director, a set designer for movies, I worked for an artist, a graphic designer; different kinds of things. Gaston and I have very diverse backgrounds in terms of professional trajectory. He had worked for one person; I had worked for, maybe, 50. But it began in 2004 with a particular project: Maximilian's Schell, Materials & Applications . That project was successful, we started getting other opportunities, I left my job before the project was finished, and he left after. We haven’t stopped working since.

KT: That sounds remarkably fortuitous. Did you have to go after the opportunities, or did they really just start trickling in?

BB: They started trickling in. People started contacting us. We weren’t really out looking for conventional architecture projects, so a lot of people in unconventional venues started contacting us. Frank Gehry helped us get our second project — an event for Tiffany & Company [Tiffany & Company Gehry Jewelry Launch] . From there, we had just enough projects to barely sustain a living. We were — and still are— constantly fighting to keep afloat.


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Tiffany & Company Gehry Jewelry Launch , Beverly Hills, CA, 2006

KT: When your studio began to really take shape, did you have to create a unifying credo?

BB: The approach we have has been codified through working, rather than some kind of manifesto. It’s not our style. Opportunities arose, we evaluated them, some of them we took, some of them we didn’t, and through that process we started to recognize what we were. We could then steer the ship a bit more. [Pause.] So, the answer is: no. [Laughs.] No. It’s come through working and through building.


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Rip Curl Canyon , Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX, 2006

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Rip Curl Canyon , Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX, 2006

KT: Is there a particular project you regard as a “big break”?

BB: I really feel lucky. I think almost every project we’ve had has been a terrific opportunity. Either it’s our first international project, or our first permanent public artwork, or our first permanent building. Everything thus far has been a “first,” and has expanded our repertoire.


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Maximilian's Schell , Materials & Applications, Los Angeles, CA, 2005

KT: That said, your works typically feel like an event or “an experiment.” Do you see your projects in the context of life’s more mundane environments?

BB: The thread that runs through our projects is that they are “a happening,” “a spectacle.” But the notion of designing for the “every day” is something we’re exploring in a couple new projects. That we haven’t done these types of projects in the past is not by design; it depends on available opportunities.

KT: Is it too early to ask for an example of one such new project?

BB: Well, we’re doing a project in upstate New York for a private client, which will be our first “building” structure — a permanent kind of shelter. It’s based upon some of our previous works; namely, the project we did at P.S.1 [Liquid Sky ] and Maximilian's Schell . It’s an advancement of the techniques we were using in those projects, adapting them to a permanent setting. There’s a difference between doing something that’s meant to last years versus months. [Laughs.]


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TEEPEE , Woodstock, NY, competition 2010

KT: Is there anxiety about designing a project meant to last years? Do you need to alter your approach?

BB: Not really. Not really. We try to define how a project has to perform in detail. We tailor the design to those criteria and parameters. So making something permanent versus something temporary might require more risk — a different process with respect to liability and legality on the business side of things — but in terms of our design process, no. We still try to define what it is the space needs and how it needs to perform.


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Ball-Nogues Studio in Downtown Los Angeles

KT: What is your process while making those definitions? I notice your office has no private enclaves. It leads to the romantic idea that you guys are extremely cohesive and collaborative in the decision-making process.

BB: Well, that’s more a matter of circumstance than design. We’ve only been in that space for about six months. Before that, we were in a three-car garage in Echo Park. We had three spaces we were working out of, and it was pretty inefficient for our process. We would be working at the computer in one space, doing work with tools in another space, assembly in another space, storing things in another. It was hard to keep a tight grip on what was happening with multiple people working for us. The new office is a huge step up for us — we’ve quadrupled the amount of space we have and the location is incredible.

KT: Has the dynamic between you and Gaston changed with your surroundings?

BB: Yes, it’s less stressful. [Laughs.] Well, it’s less stressful in that the stress is less induced by the challenges of the space; the stress is induced by the number of projects we’re working on simultaneously. Something that wasn’t happening before. We’re now working on, say, seven projects in the same amount of time it used to take us to do one project at one-tenth the cost. So, it’s a quantum leap in the scale of our production. But I’ll take this stress any day. I’d rather have too much on my plate. Actually, it’s never too much. We find a way to deal with it and a way to make it work. So many things have changed for us so quickly, that we’re in a constant state of adjustment to new situations.

KT: Ever have an “I rue the day” moment?

BB: No. We wished this upon ourselves. I don’t think we’ve ever had delusions about what is required to do the kind of work we want to do. We’ve had to make huge sacrifices. I mean, our lives changed tremendously since 2005. Everything became work. I’m trying to find a balance, because it’s sort of unhealthy, but we knew what we were getting into. There’s no resting on your laurels. You’re in constant “you’re as good as your last project” mode. We throw ourselves into it, body and soul. For better or worse. Probably for worse. [Laughs.]


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Elastic Plastic Sponge | Students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Collaboration with Ball-Nogues Studio | Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, 2009
(previously featured on Archinect )

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Elastic Plastic Sponge | Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, 2009
(previously featured on Archinect )

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Elastic Plastic Sponge | Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, 2009
(previously featured on Archinect )

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Elastic Plastic Sponge | Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, 2009
(previously featured on Archinect )

KT: Is there such a thing as your ideal project?

BB: I think that has more to do with the person commissioning the project and the kind of dialogue we have with that person. It’s the exchange with the individual. We could get involved with something that, on the surface, seems like an ideal project, but if there’s no negotiating the right solution, nobody’s happy.

KT: In other words, you guys moonlight as psychologists.

BB: Absolutely. You know, I feel very fortunate that we’re able to walk a line between art and design. I suppose one thing that defines being an artist is that you don’t have the constraints of catering to a particular individual. That’s not the case with commissioned works. So people always say to us — “you guys are just artists!” [Laughs.] Well, when you do public art it’s more being an architect than it is being Robert Rauschenberg drunk in a studio. You have contracts, you have liability, you have engineering, you have negotiations.

I’ve always had to deal with clients and commissioning agencies, regardless of what I was doing. Working in film, you’re dealing with directors and producers; in architecture, you’re dealing with the client; in art, you’re dealing with commissioning institutions, municipalities, or an individual.

But I don’t think it means the same thing until you’re actually, ultimately the one responsible. I would be thrown into those situations when I was younger by my bosses, but at the end of the day, if I fail, they’re the ones who take the heat. Now it’s different.


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Liquid Sky , PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens, NY, 2007

KT: You’re approaching that five-year-mark, which many regard as critical. Are you aware of your practice’s age?

BB: I’m constantly in a state of anxiety about projects because I do feel they’re gifts. You can’t take them for granted. But in terms of a “critical period,” in some ways I went through that already, when I worked freelance on and off for 15 years. I do feel we’ll be around in a few years. It would be more likely that something would blow out from within than without.


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CRADLE , Santa Monica, CA, completion 2010

KT: You do have a lot going on. Do your former projects inform your new ones?

BB: We try to work an idea until we exhaust its potential, until we feel we can’t work with it anymore. With all the techniques we’ve developed, I feel like we haven’t really exhausted any of our ideas, yet. They’re still pretty fresh. I mean: 4 years, it’s not very much time.

For example, there’s a project we did for John Hopkins Children’s Hospital that grew out of an interest in catenaries and developing software that enables us to use catenaries to occupy space by way of thousands and thousands of simple chains — to create a sense of volume without actually making “solid” things.


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John Hopkins Children’s Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 2008, unrealized

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John Hopkins Children’s Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 2008, unrealized

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John Hopkins Children’s Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 2008, unrealized

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John Hopkins Children’s Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 2008, unrealized

For our latest project at MOCA [Feathered Edge ], which uses string, we developed a machine that enables us to paint the string in very specific locations. It’s really the only way we were going to be able to do it, and it allowed us to introduce on top of the geometry of the strings, this other spatial component: color. You can take a computer model of a classical nude and put it in there, to hang in this array of strings.


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FEATHERED EDGE , digital model

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FEATHERED EDGE , digital model
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FEATHERED EDGE , concept video

KT: A nice mash-up of manual labor and digital technology.

BB: Digital technology is not our first interest — we don’t, like, geek out on this stuff. But we try to find ways of applying digital technology to things within our control. Sometimes that means using it to inform how our hand works. Not as a kind of “Oh drat, we can’t afford the machines so we’re going to do it by hand.” Rather, your hand brings that which your machine can never offer. I think there’s so much potential in that. It empowers you. It’s empowering for the average guy.


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INSTA-LLATOR 1 WITH THE VARIABLE INFORMATION ATOMIZING MODULE | 2009 (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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INSTA-LLATOR 1 WITH THE VARIABLE INFORMATION ATOMIZING MODULE | 2009 (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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INSTA-LLATOR 1 WITH THE VARIABLE INFORMATION ATOMIZING MODULE | 2009 (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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INSTA-LLATOR 1 WITH THE VARIABLE INFORMATION ATOMIZING MODULE | 2009 (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

When we just started, we said: “Let’s see if we can be experimental. We won’t get paid, but we won’t leave all our work on paper, either.” We’re trying that different way of being experimental. Our work doesn’t just culminate in “paper.”


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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE , fabrication and installation (Photo: Benjamin Ball)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Brian Forrest)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Brian Forrest)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Brian Forrest)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Brian Forrest)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Brian Forrest)

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FEATHERED EDGE | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, July 26–November 15, 2009 (Photo: Ayodh Kamath)
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The Making of FEATHERED EDGE . Filmed in the weeks leading up to the exhibition. Video by Peter West.

Katya Tylevich is a contributing editor for Mark Magazine . Her works appear in Frame Magazine (forthcoming), The Onion A.V. Club , Russia! , and others.

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