Archinect - News

Four contemporary Los Angeles media studios by Relativity Architects: Your Next Employer?

2023-03-21T11:00:00-04:00

Following last week’s visit to New York City-based Workshop/APD, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series to Los Angeles this week where we meet Relativity Architects.

Founded in 2013 by Tima Bell and Scott Sullivan, the practice now operates offices across Los Angeles, Colorado, and Spain. With a stated ambition of “materializing inventive solutions into influential, evocative, and functional design projects,” the studio has built a diverse portfolio from residential and commercial to institutional and creative studios.

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring for several positions across their Los Angeles office. For candidates interested in applying for a position, or anybody interested in learning more about the studio’s work, we have rounded up five media and technology studios by Relatively Architects that exemplify their pursuit of “culturally relative architecture.”

Capture Studio

For their Capture Studio project, Relativity Architects remodeled an existi...

OFFICE KGDVS designs new headquarters for Belgian broadcaster VRT

2021-06-24T15:06:00-04:00

Belgian architecture studio OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen (KGDVS), in collaboration with Jaspers-Eyers Architects, has won a competition to design a new headquarters for Flemish Radio and Television (VRT) in the future Media Park in Brussels. The project is the result of a year-long competition, developed by a collective of firms dubbed VRT Morgen, which also includes: Bureau Bas Smets, Tractebel, CES, Ideal Acoustics, Willemen Construct, Jan De Nul Group, and EEG.

The competition, launched in February 2020, was part of the transformation of the Reyers district and the realization of mediapark.brussels. Seven construction teams submitted proposals. The VRT Morgen team was awarded the contract with a maximum construction cost of approximately $159 million.

The new VRT headquarters will span 65,000 square meters, with 40,000 square meters of that above ground. It is set to open in the summer of 2026. The new media house focuses on flexibility and cooperation, with spaces fo...

University of Houston's new Advanced Media Technology Lab set to open in 2020

2019-08-30T14:45:00-04:00

The University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design is set to debut a new media and technology lab that aims to "develop the next generation of structural materials, digital fabrication, and sensor technologies."

The school's Advanced Media Technology Lab is scheduled to open during the Spring 2020 semester and aims to "take experiential learning to the next level" by providing students with the tools they need to prototype new approaches to materials research, building envelope design, social design, and prototyping for mass production, according to a university website. According to a press release, the lab will focus on "digital fabrication, robotics, 3D printing/additive manufacturing, advanced computation and parametric design, as well as advanced visualization and simulation." The 8,500-square-foot research lab is currently under construction adjacent to the college’s Keeland Design Lab.

The new $5 million media lab is funded partially by a $1 mil...

Three new public projects by Dominique Coulon & Associés show off the firm's commanding use of form and color

2018-03-01T17:16:00-05:00

Dominique Coulon & Associés, based in the east of France, is famous for its masterful use of color. The firm recently completed a sports hall, a performing arts center, and a media library all in France. Check out these stunning public projects below:

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

The 'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, was recently completed in December 2017. The center consists of a sports hall, a multi-purpose hall, changing rooms, an infirmary, and staff accommodations.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: David Romero-Uzeda.

The sports center was built in conjunction with a local school created to serve international civil servants working in the city. The two halls were built to accamodate multiple sports and serve as a venue fo...

Get a peek inside Pratt's new Film/Video Department building by WASA/Studio A

2015-07-10T19:58:00-04:00

After occupying a lower-level space in one of Pratt Institute's athletic buildings, prospects are looking bright and shiny for Pratt's Film/Video Department as it settles into its new home on 550 Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. The 15,000 square-foot facility was fully gutted and redesigned by WASA/Studio A, whose project team happens to include Pratt alumni like Jack Esterson as lead architect; senior associate Sebastian Touzet as partner-in-charge for design; and project architect Brian Dobrolsky. The $4.5 million renovation began last July.

Built using free-span trusses, the new space has 23-foot ceiling heights and no internal columns. Pratt Architecture Professor and artist Haresh Lalvani created a series of perforated metal panels that wrap around the entrance lobby and cover the walls of the first and second floors. The customized panels display Lalvani's signature eye-popping patterns that are typically seen in his sculptural works.

Formerly known as the Prattstore building, the ne...

KCRW radio station breaks ground on new Media Center in Santa Monica

2014-06-12T17:33:00-04:00

KCRW, the NPR-affiliated public radio darling of Southern California, broke ground yesterday on its new 35,000 square-foot Media Center, located on Santa Monica College's Academy of Entertainment & Technology campus. For the past thirty years, KCRW was run out of a basement underneath the campus, while producing top-notch music and journalism programming that balances local flavor with international news. Now they'll have much more room to breathe, with spaces devoted to community socializing and performance alongside expanded operations.

Home to such popular podcasts as "DnA: Design and Architecture" and news digest "To the Point", KCRW also produces content outside of the studio, by hosting events around Los Angeles. With the Media Center, the station will have a homespace for its own events, to concretize its role in the local culture.

Designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects, the Media Center also meets LEED Silver Certification standards, and is slated to open by early 2016.