Imagine the conditions of Los Angeles—its housing types, its parking, its response to drought—as a series of mini-golf course obstacles. Or, just go to Materials & Applications this June, when the Silverlake-based exhibition space will launch "TURF: A Mini-Golf Project," featuring the contributions of nine designers, including installations Putt-to-Fit by Knowhow Shop, The Electric Palm Tree Turbine House by Ordinary Architecture, and SiNK by Kyle May.

According to Ordinary Architecture's website, "Part wind turbine, part-palm tree and part-residential tower, the object addresses issues of densification + verticality, renewable technologies and sustainability and architectural symbolism.  It plays with images of a future LA that is denser, taller and more environmentally responsible whilst also enjoying the city’s historic iconography." Here's a rendering of The Electric Palm Tree House: 

Kyle May writes on his website that the concept behind SiNK originates in California's complex relationship with water use. "At first glance, SiNK seems easy, even for a beginner; a seemingly flat roadway, free from any physical obstacles, assures a hole in one. But the field is actually fluid, and upon stepping on the surface, the player's weight displaces the topography and shifts the direction of the ball in unexpected turns. Two holes side-by-side allow two users to play at once, their movements affecting both their own course's topography as well as their neighbors' game. Finally, golf isn't a solo sport. To win, players must focus on their shot as well as the unseen, but critical, issue of groundwater depletion."

Knowhow Shop describes Putt-to-Fit as "a mini-golf challenge that uses the plywood tailoring operations developed by Ray and Charles Eames for their iconic leg splint and furniture, applying them on the scale of landscape to tailor a strip of lawn: cutting out darts and stitching it together to create an amplified playing surface that does not rely on obstacles in the landscape to enhance game play, but instead uses the landscape itself. The voids and openings left by the tailoring operations become 'sand traps', exposing an arid and drought tolerant surface below: a landscape more in keeping with the native Southern California ecology than the golf courses and lawns that have been imposed on it. Putt-to-Fit can be seen as altering a landscape that no longer fits, like one might alter a garment, turning a traditional water thirsty putting green into a challenging mini-golf hole surrounded by native landscaping."

A spring model preview of "TURF: A Mini-Golf Project" will be held on March 12th (M&A members only) or March 13th (a public viewing will be held at the Neutra VDL house). If you miss the spring preview, the model versions will be viewable at four public Los Angeles libraries from March 15th-April 12th. Those libraries are: the Atwater Village Branch Library, the Goldwyn-Hollywood Regional Branch Library, the Silver Lake Branch Library, and the Edendale Branch Library.