If twenty or so policemen shut down your architecture exhibition, it’s probably a sign that you’re doing something right. Far from the antiseptic tedium that characterizes so many architecture events these days, the second iteration of One-Night Stand LA, "the Rendezvous", was a raucous affair and all the better for it.

Beer flowed from the bar-cum-installation designed and staffed by Happy Hour Agency, a creative agency that hosts a “conceptual cocktail pop-up” every few months in the Highland Park neighborhood. As you waited in line for a drink (or a tube of alcoholic toothpaste), a harlequin face would appear from a hole in the wall and grin at you.

Just down the hall, a major highlight was the installation by Jennifer Bonner and Volkan Alkanoglu, which comprised an “architectural crime scene” replete with taped off floor plans, number tags and description cards. One “victim,” so to speak, was John Hejduk’s Wall House II. The installation worked well both as a one-liner and with more focused study – a rare feat to pull off.

On the same floor, Christine Bjerke’s understated but conceptually-rich installation – a model floating in plexiglass and a mirrored folding screen – was thought-provoking albeit a lot more quiet than most of the installations. Made in dialogue with her research into the world of the FX Beauties Club, an organization of some 8 million Japanese housewives who trade and gamble through the FOREX network, the work was a welcome bit of research in a show largely dominated by formal gestures. Her piece also paired well with a series of diagrams by Andrew Kovacs that lined one of the room’s windows.

A floor below, James Leng installed a row of massive and dramatic faux-concrete columns (you could only tell by knocking – or reason, I suppose). The brutalist intervention into the cheap motel room interior was startling and affecting without making recourse to new tech or complex geometries. In other words, it was a real success. Next door, House of Style made a cast of the bed using thermoformed styrene and automative paint, transforming it into a strangely alluring sculpture. Across the courtyard, adjacent, immersive installations by June + July and Weather Projects were crowd-pleasing and, like with Leng's piece, created an interesting dialogue with the existing architecture.

Further along, long lines of eager attendants prevented me from getting much more than a passing glance at Devin Gharakhanian’s installation. But even that was provocative and made some sense of the long cue. Every surface of the room had been painted a clinical white including an armchair, which, one-by-one, the attendants would sit in as they strapped into a VR headset. The whole scene looked like it was ripped straight out of a dystopian sci-fi.

Among the most successful elements of this year’s event were the works not confined to a single room. Kyle Miller created a series of acrylic door hangers embossed with iconic works of architecture, while the architecture practice Reimagining created a series of bricolage wood-and-concrete furniture that adorned some of the balconies. The rooms also had print-outs available so each attendant could assemble something like a customized zine. Together, these interventions constituted a conjunctive element for the show, which was certainly a missing element in last year’s event.

If the cops hadn’t arrived so early, I would have had more time to focus on each installation. As with any show, some were less successful than others – and I still think the project as a whole could use a good deal of conceptual tightening if they want to approach something like a statement (and I think they should).

But as I fled their flashing lights, all I could think of was how welcome it was to have to flee cops while leaving an architecture event. One thing you can’t accuse One-Night Stand of is being boring.

Check out more images below in the gallery. For more on One-Night Stand LA, check out my interview with the curators of this year's iteration here or coverage of last year's event here.