Archinect - News

Carolina A. Miranda thinks Tom Wiscombe's new billboard should prompt a 'reckoning in architecture'

2022-08-25T17:09:00-04:00

Formally known as the Sunset Spectacular, it consists of a trio of massive steel panels that converge at a height of 67 feet, two of their surfaces draped in irregularly shaped digital screens bearing ads for tech overlords Amazon and Meta. If a game designer for “Halo” were to imagine a billboard, this is probably what it would look like. [...] There is an important story embedded in the design of the Sunset Spectacular. It has nothing to do with its forms.

Responding to the New York Times’ recent “puff piece” on embattled SCI-Arc professor Tom Wiscombe’s long-awaited Sunset Spectacular billboard in West Hollywood, critic Carolina A. Miranda offered a rather cutting take on Joseph Giovannini‘s “extra curious” failure to mention what has become a rather viral academic and professional controversy.

Previously on Archinect: Controversy at SCI-Arc over labor practices leads to faculty members placed on leave. Isolated incident or a wake-up call for the industry at large?

Wiscombe was the centerpiece of the recent investigation into student intern labor abuse at SCI-Arc and has been placed on administrative leave as a result of his alleged actions. “To many skeptics, it seemed as if the architectural establishment were intent on scrubbing the record clean,” Miranda wrote, citing the chorus of derision that has swelled on social media. “This whole episode also calls into question how critics (myself included) write about architecture.”

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SCI-Arc launches "The Arc" podcast hosted by History + Theory Coordinator Marrikka Trotter

2019-12-18T16:42:00-05:00

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) has launched its own podcast, The Arc.

The podcast is hosted by SCI-Arc History + Theory Coordinator Marrikka Trotter. Each episode, according to the school, "juxtaposes a contemporary architectural idea or concern with related concepts from other disciplines, ranging from science to sports, in casual, unscripted, and intimate conversations."

So far, two full episodes have been released in the series, including one episode on Scale that focuses on examining the effect of size on architecture, experience, and design thinking. The episode features guest appearances by SCI-Arc Undergraduate Program Chair Tom Wiscombe, neuriscientist Dr. Yawende Pearse, and Bill Boes, a Hollywood production designer and art director.

A second episode, Roughness, interrogates the recent turn in architecture toward texture and alternative or unintended uses for objects, ideas, and conventional forms of practice. The show positions this turn as...

Cryptocurrency mogul wants to turn Nevada into the next center of Blockchain Technology

2018-11-07T14:44:00-05:00

He imagines a sort of experimental community spread over about a hundred square miles, where houses, schools, commercial districts and production studios will be built. The centerpiece of this giant project will be the blockchain, a new kind of database that was introduced by Bitcoin.

Jeffrey Berns, who owns the cryptocurrency company Blockchains L.L.C., has bought 68,000 acres of land in Nevada that he hopes to transform into a community based around blockchain technology. His utopian vision, which would be the first 'smart city' based on the technology, involves the creation of a new town along the Truckee river, with homes, apartments, schools, and a drone delivery system.

The first step will be constructing an 1,000 acre campus that will host startups and companies working on applications such as AI and 3D printing to help bring about the high-tech city. LA firms Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects have been hired to assist in this vision, designing the architecture and masterplan for the future city.

Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects + Tom Wiscombe Architecture.

Called Innovation Park, the designers contend the city will be 'human-centric,' while also planned around autonomous, electric vehicles. Housing types will range fro...

Tom Wiscombe redesigns the L.A. billboard (and is chosen over Zaha Hadid's proposal)

2016-10-20T12:39:00-04:00

Although Los Angeles has had its battles over supergraphics—those painted on advertisements that often stretch multiple stories on a building's facade—the billboard as a concept has received substantially less attention, unless the provocative imagery on it causes fender benders. However, Tom Wiscombe's proposal for digital, vertically aligned, two-sided billboards that allow people to walk inside of them injects new life into an otherwise sleepy structure, making them less car-centric and more about public space.

The proposed billboards, which were chosen via a West Hollywood RFP over designs submitted by Zaha Hadid, Gensler, and the MAK Center, will be placed in public plazas along West Hollywood's section of Sunset Boulevard.

For more on Tom Wiscombe:

Downtown LA has a new museum on the horizon

2016-07-01T17:16:00-04:00

It may not seem as if downtown Los Angeles is in need of yet another arts space. But it is coming nonetheless — and it’s aiming to fill a more locally minded role than some of the institutions around it. The Main Museum will be a non-collecting institution housed in a series of historic early 20th century structures in the Old Bank District. Helmed by Allison Agsten, who previously served as the curator of public engagement at the Hammer Museum, the curatorial focus will be resolutely local.

The Main Museum is being designed by Tom Wiscombe Architecture and will have some 40,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space. There will also be a rooftop sculpture garden and amphitheater.

The opening is still a way off though: the ground floor spaces are expected to open in 2018 an the rooftop should be finished in 2020.

For more on the Main Museum and Tom Wiscombe Architecture, check out these links:

A Liberal Education: Tom Wiscombe on Archinect Sessions One-to-One #14

2016-03-07T17:00:00-05:00

Architect and educator Tom Wiscombe has made major inroads as SCI-Arc's BArch chair to establish a stronger connection to the humanities and critical theory in architecture education, founding the school's Liberal Arts Program last year and bringing in contemporary philosophers and theorists to spark new dialogues. We discuss his role in the southern Californian architecture culture (particularly in regards to MOCA's 2013 New Sculpturalism show), how he prioritizes theory in architectural practice and education, and his ongoing Main Museum of Los Angeles project in the city's enlivened downtown.

Listen to One-to-One #14 with Tom Wiscombe:

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" podcast
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Download: this episode

Special thanks to UCLA for helping coordinate the interview, after Tom gave his Distingui...