Fake façade construction can be found all over United States.  The most common and extreme example is the use of surface applied EPS foams underneath the plaster to add classical architecture details, such as column capitals, cornices and moldings.  These details not only lose their connection with their original functions and meanings but are the accomplice for bringing fabricated reality to a place..

Frequently, these fake facades are coupled with an interior or exterior environment that is intentionally disconnected with its urban surrounding, such as the casinos, shopping malls and some work places.  As this practice by developers and business owners become prevailing, we grow accustomed to the disengagement from reality, causing radical change in the way we perceive and understand this physical reality.

Distinctions between the real and fake are no longer made or considered in our mind.; A good example of this phenomenal in Los Angeles area is the Americana Mall in Glendale, CA. Walking around it almost feels like you're in a Roman piazza or a fairytale, with its cobblestone lined streets, trolleys, large fountain, clock tower and constant music. 

Working in tandem adjacent to the Americana Mall is the Glendale Galleria.  This inward facing shopping mall is devoid of any fenestration with programs design to confuse and contain shoppers.  In other word, it’s a Fake Machine, which lavishly employs technology and programs to stimulate and confuse one’s perceptions. All perceptions of the real are replaced by artificial equipment’s, and the connection to the outside is disabled by windowless walls and skylights, where natural light starts to blend with the artificial lights and reality is constituted by nothing but   artificiality.  

The aim of this thesis is to create a rupture to this large scale fake reality which   occupies two major urban blocks.  By inserting an architectural intervention that not only allows shoppers to temporarily remove themselves from the fabricated reality by confronting the mechanisms that enables/encloses the fabricated reality, but offers them an opportunity to interact with the ultimate reality.  

 
My proposed intervention site consists of two existing buildings situated in the    interstitial space between the Americana Mall and the Glendale Galleria.  Currently, one is the AT&T customer call center and the other is a nursing home.  Without     removing these two existing programs, I propose to insert a set of simple programs to allow shoppers to occupy this interstitial space and interact with the occupants of the existing facilities.

 I also propose to create direct connections to both malls for the senior tenants to extend their activity boundary.