Archinect - News

Oliver Wainwright reviews Eric Owen Moss' "menacing" (W)RAPPER office tower

2023-03-20T14:28:00-04:00

The result is a menacing thing, cranking up Moss’s cyberpunk tendencies to new high-octane levels. If ever Hollywood needs a villainous headquarters for a dystopian petrol-guzzling empire, this will be first in line – with a carbon footprint to match.

The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright spies the limits of LA-brand deconstructivism on a visit to Eric Owen Moss’ (W)RAPPER project in Culver City's Hayden Tract, an “eccentric” assembly of low-rise office buildings the critic says he has helped turn into a warped “exhibition of architectural experimentation.”

Image courtesy Google Street View (February 2023)

Moss brags about the rubberband-like steel exoskeleton that wraps the glass in the city’s second-tallest building enabling a column-free interior while enhancing the imposed verticality and is supposedly inspired by William Butler Yeats and Gustave Courbet, among many other crisscrossing intellectual references. Wainwright, unfazed, drops the dime on its poor sustainability bonafide (to which Moss returns “Is that the only measure of architecture now?”) before critiquing the greatly obstructed views and questioning the promise of so-called “creative office” designs.

Related on Archinect: Eric Owen Moss-designed (W)RAPPER tower has t...

Eric Owen Moss-designed (W)RAPPER tower has topped out

2021-10-12T17:07:00-04:00

New images released by Urbanize LA reveal that the Eric Owen Moss Architects-designed (W)RAPPER office tower has topped out.

The 17-story, 183,000-square-foot high-rise stands out with its free-form steel exoskeleton that wraps the structure allowing for column-free interiors. The freshly topped-out building in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, which was originally approved in 1999, stands 230 feet tall. It is reportedly set to be completed in June 2022.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Urbanize LA (@urbanizela)

Eric Owen Moss-designed (W)RAPPER tower: construction update

2020-06-18T16:35:00-04:00

Six months since we last checked in, the curving steel skeleton of the Eric Owen Moss-designed Wrapper office tower is starting to take shape next to Metro's La Cienega/Jefferson Station in Baldwin Hills.

Designed by Eric Owen Moss Architects, the 17-story (W)RAPPER office tower in Los Angeles generated a stir of reactions among Archinect readers when construction started going vertical in December 2019.

The free-form steel exoskeleton, which appears to be wrapping the structure and enables column-free interiors, is currently going up at the site, according to new construction photos published by Urbanize LA.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Urbanize.LA (@urbanize.la) on Jun 18, 2020 at 9:21am PDT

Olympic Tower, a flashy new Downtown LA skyscraper, hopes to leave its mark on the city's skyline

2019-10-21T19:02:00-04:00

Plans for a skinny skyscraper with a clever diamond-paned exoskeleton has won rave reviews from city planning commissioners, who predict it might be beautiful enough to earn a spot as one of LA’s most iconic buildings. [...] If it’s ever built, that is.

The proposal for Olympic Tower, a showy 57-story skyscraper near the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles, has been inching through the planning process for some time now, and as Curbed LA reports, has recently managed to wow the city's planning commission.

Designed by Nardi Associates, the proposed tower sports a steel exoskeleton which could open up the possibility for vertical gardens and an enormous 28-story atrium in the structure's midsection.

View this post on Instagram ANNOUNCEMENT- OLYMPIC TOWER ADVISORY AGENCY PUBLIC HEARING AT LOS ANGELES CITY HALL ON AUGUST 28, 2019. We would like to share these great news on the unanimous approval of the Tentative Track Map and all Technical elements of our design by the Advisory Agency in a public Hearing format; the advisory panel as well as the attending public audience celebrated our design and they look forward to the construction of our project to be located at the corner of Olympic Blvd. and Figueroa St. , ...

Bionic construction worker: robotic exoskeleton coming in 2020

2018-12-14T14:40:00-05:00

An electric exoskeleton that enables the wearer to lift 90kg for extended periods has been introduced by US firm Sarcos, and is due to be commercially available in 2020. [...] The Guardian XO Max has a strength amplification of 20 to 1, making 45kg feel like 2.3kg. The full weight of the suit and anything being carried is transferred through the suit’s structure to the ground.

According to the manufacturer, American robotics firm Sarcos, the untethered suit's batteries last for up to eight hours on a single charge.

Prototype of the Guardian XO Max industrial exoskeleton. Image: Sarcos.