This is the fifth public meeting of Architecture for Humanity : Los Angeles in 2012. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome. Architects, non-architects, designers, artists, business majors, social activists and specification writers!

We will be meeting at O’Brien’s Irish Pub in Santa Monica, right across the street from the Whole Foods at Wilshire and 23rd.

May 22, 2012
7pm – 9pm

O’Brien’s Irish Pub
2226 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Click Here for a Google Map

This is more of a social event than a business meeting, but please bring your ideas for the kinds of projects and other activities you would like to see the chapter take on in 2012. I look forward to seeing you there!

Click here to download a printable PDF flyer for this event.

Please also consider signing up for the AFH:LA newsletter.

AltBuild 2012

The 9th Annual AltBuild alternative building materials and design expo is taking place this weekend, the 11th and 12th of May in Santa Monica, California. The events are free and take place at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The expo will feature talks by leading experts in sustainability and design such as Brenden McEneaney, Lawrence Scarpa and Katherine Spitz. In addition to other events, there will be several booths with manufacturers and service providers working in the sustainable technology arena. Be sure to also check out the booth for Architecture for Humanity – Los Angeles and learn what the chapter has planned for 2012.

More information can be found on the AltBuild website.
http://www.altbuildexpo.com/

Scott M B Gustafson of MAISON ORION will be there and looks forward to seeing you too. Come find me at the booth for Architecture for Humanity : Los Angeles.

As much as we wish, the El Tiburon was not designed by MAISON ORION.

An ecletic mix by Scott M B Gustafson under the DJ moniker of Emmfour. Recorded live from vinyl nearly a decade ago live on AZSessions.com, the premier electronic music collective in the southwestern United States, this sonic journey crosses musical genres to create an moody atmosphere that collects the complex emotional experiences of urban life. For late night listening only. The perfect companion to a 3 am drive down Olympic from Santa Monica to Montebello.

Featuring MF Doom, múm, Them, cLOUDDEAD, Fugazi, Set Fire To Flames, RJD2, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Octavius, and Dälek.

Listen here:

Scott M B Gustafson aka Emmfour – 27 November 2002 – Deep Illbient

Looking West to the heart of the American Dream

(323) 638-9514

Call now, our operators are standing by.
Llame ahora, nuestros operadores están listos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjd1smWtf7k

A synopsis by the filmmaker:

The injustice of solitary confinement and the transformative power of art are explored in Herman’s House, a feature documentary that follows the unlikely friendship between a New York artist and one of America’s most famous inmates as they collaborate on an acclaimed art project.

With compassion and meaningful artistry, Herman’s House takes us inside the lives and imaginations of two unforgettable characters–forging a friendship and building a dream in the struggle to end the “cruel and unusual punishment” of long-term solitary confinement.

Read more about The House That Herman Built and MAISON ORION’S participation this project.

“Architecture is not simply about space and form, but also about event, action, and what happens in space.”
Bernard Tschumi

The work of MAISON ORION was featured recently on the Apolis website with a Journal entry regarding their flaship store in Los Angeles, the Apolis: Common Gallery. One of the goals of this website is to document and share the design process I utilize to bring a project from concept to concrete reality. Multiple modes of inquiry are explored with analog and digital tools: sketches, photographs, physical models, BIM, and sometimes poetry. I don’t like to be limited by any one tool or overly influenced by it either; this polyvalent working method avoids the pitfalls of a singular approach.

Bernard Tschumi’s quote reminds us that the object of design is not design itself, but creating places for people to live, work, create, dream and share. This project is an office and retail store for the Apolis brand, but it is also a gathering place for the unique community of social activists and advocates that regularly meeting during the keynote events held there. The space becomes an incubator where passionate thinkers exchange creative solutions to some of the toughest problems the world is facing, and make new friends in the process.

Brothers pursue dreams
Weaving lines across time zones
Action brings results

An architectural poem inspired by the Parton brother, Raan and Shea.

View from the corner of Third and Traction in LA's Arts District

The situation in June, 2011

Natural light

Field survey of the existing building

Design goals

The thinking hand...

Study model of the project

The Parton brothers modeled to scale in front of their flagship store

Drawings ready to submit for a building permit

Waiting to begin the plan check process

HVAC work is in progess

Plumbing investigation in the existing walls

Shea Foley inspects the progress

Sandblasting of the steel window frames

No holograms in this operation

The artistic placement of an orange extension cord

Lighting ready to be hung from the rafters

Materials ready for installation

Scott M B Gustafson at the opening night party

The space in action. Image courtesy of Apolis

Mark Koska discusses how he developed the K-1 auto disable syringe. Image courtesy of Apolis

An urban intersection

This is our third public meeting for 2012. Everyone is welcome. Dreamers, drawers, geometers, poets, shaman and healers of the urban scene!

We will be meeting at the KAA Design in Marina Del Rey. This meeting will be a social event like previous two we’ve had, but hosted in the office of a great design firm.

KAA Design
4201 Redwood Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90066

Click here for a Google Map

We will be discussing a new project for the chapter and looking for members to be on the design team. Also, James Rojas of the Latino Urban Forum will be presenting his thesis on Mexican American spatial tactics in East Los Angeles.

Click here to download a printable PDF flyer for this event.

Stay in touch with the organization by signing up for the AFH:LA Mailing List.

http://losangeles.architectureforhumanity.org/

Where others see urban blight, we see domestic opportunity

323-638-9514
Call now, our operators are standing by.

Take the bus.

This is our second public meeting for 2012. Everyone is welcome. Architects, starchitects, designers, raconteurs, jazz bands, community activists and marketing gurus!

We will be meeting at the West Side Tavern located on the ground floor of the Westside Pavilion Shopping Center. Look for friendly people with pencils tucked behind their ears.

Westside Tavern
10850 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90064

Click here for a Google Map

This is meant to be more of a social event than a business meeting, but please bring your ideas for they kinds of projects and other activities you would like to see the chapter take on in 2012.

Click here to download a printable PDF flyer for this event.

Stay in touch with the organization by signing up for the AFH:LA Mailing List.

http://losangeles.architectureforhumanity.org/

By Scott M B Gustafson

Welcome to Los Angeles.
Supercity of the Future.
Metropolis of Southern California.

Architectural critic Reyner Banham explores Los Angeles in this 1972 BBC documentary. This film is a great compliment to his book “Los Angeles : The Architecture of Four Ecologies.” From Watts to Beverly Hills, Hollywood to the Pacific Palisades, Venice, Olvera Street, Century Boulevard, the 405, Santa Monica, Pasadena and beyond, Banham covers it all. In the film it is very interesting to see Los Angeles as it existed in the years before I was born. It seems wilder, freer and perhaps more ready to accept diverse interpretations and developments than it does today.

I am re-reading Banham’s famous treatise, and I will probably revisit Kevin Lynch’s chapter on LA in “The Image of the City“. In a city with great geographic width and (seemingly) little historical depth, I appreciate the views of those writers who came to the city with fresh eyes, unburdened or biased and took a grand survey of what was really happening here. Kevin Lynch’s notion of Mental Maps for understanding the city has certainly been amplified through the advent of technologies like GPS, Yelp, and augmented reality. Los Angeles remains a great social experiment and in my opinion, the cultural capital of the United States.

The man himself and his glorious ode to the metropolis. Image source: KCET

Temple of sport.

Imagined images of the urban situation. Image source Jason Skibo.

By Scott M B Gustafson

Los Angeles is famously a car city, and driving all around the place is a reality of my life here. I do take the bus and the subway from time to time, but its current routes do not always lead to the destinations I am heading to. In order to feel less guilty about the driving I do traveling across the metropolis, I have decided to purchase Carbon Offsets from Terrapass for 2012. A the offset concept is simple. Excess (unbalanced) carbon dioxide emissions are the principal cause of global warming. For each metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted by a my car during the year, Terrapass will fund a clean energy project that effectively reduces carbon emissions by the same amount. I drive about 12,000 miles per year, so according to Terrapass’ formula, I require 8 metric tons of carbon offsets. If I manage to drive less than that, then I will be “in the black” carbon wise since my pollution will be less than the reduction I’m supporting. The money that is to Terrapass is invested in clean energy and other projects that reduce greenhouse gases. A few examples of the kinds of projects Terrapass funds are:

Clean energy
When a wind farm generates power, it displaces electricity generated by conventional sources such as coal and natural gas. Those conventional sources produce carbon dioxide emissions because they burn fossil fuels to spin their turbines, whereas wind farms don’t use fossil fuels at all. They’re virtually carbon-free!

Farm power
Your money helps farmers capture and destroy the methane, a powerful global warming gas which forms when managing animal waste. It supports the installation and operation of anaerobic digesters, lagoon covers, and electricity generators.

Landfill gas capture
The trash we bury in landfills decomposes slowly, producing methane which escapes into the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas – about 21 times as powerful as carbon dioxide – so projects which capture and destroy that gas are of great benefit to the climate. These projects capture the methane from landfills using wells, pipes, caps, blowers and other technology; and destroy the gas by burning it in a flare.

Source: Terrapass

Click here to see a full listing of the projects funded by Terrpass.

Restore the Balance

Colorful tents of LA's homeless dot an empty street in Skid Row

This is our first public meeting for 2012. Everyone is welcome. Architects, non-architects, designers, artists, business majors, social activists and specification writers!

We will be meeting at the West Side Tavern located on the ground floor of the Westside Pavilion Shopping Center. Look for people in black clothing with edgy haircuts and designer eyeglasses.

Westside Tavern
10850 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90064

Click here for a Google Map

This is meant to be more of a social event than a business meeting, but please bring your ideas for they kinds of projects and other activities you would like to see the chapter take on in 2012.

Click here to download a printable PDF flyer for this event.

Stay in touch with the organization by signing up for the AFH:LA Mailing List.

http://losangeles.architectureforhumanity.org/

A MAISON ORION intern updating the G-Code sequences.

Dispatch #008 has now been published.

Read it here and sign up for future newsletters.

By Scott M B Gustafson

For the last several months I have been reading Apartamento magazine, picking it up wherever I can find it around Los Angeles. It fullfills its mission of being an everyday life interiors magazine. It focuses on the relationships people have that get nurtured in the homes they spend time in. There are interviews with artists, musicians, photographers, travelers, architects, designers and storytellers. Their stories are witty, thoughtful and inspiring. I highly suggest you pick up a copy at your next opportunity.

Paz de la Huerta. Image from Apartamento Magazine.

“I arrive to Paz’s tiny, jewel box-like Tribeca apartment on a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon. Her home is as I’d imagined, strewn with vintage memorabilia; items of faded, and non-faded opulence, and there are many gifts from admirers littering the floors. Hers is an aesthetic of old and new; decidedly chic, and eclectically, glamorously Manhattan.”

Home of Victoire and Ramdane Touhami. Image from Apartamento Magazine.

“In April 2008, we set off for Tangier. The initial plan was to stay there for 1 year. I knew nothing about the city, but Ramdane had a good feeling that we would be happy there. One evening in June, together with Noor, I visiting the family home, already being built, for the first time. I could no longer leave.”

The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sagethicket. Vamanos, amigos, he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintscraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

Eli Cash

By Scott M B Gustafson

Yesterday I decided to get out of the city and spend some time in the less populated sections of the county. The weather was brisk; the air clean and refreshing; and the place was quiet save for the sound of horses. Though many of the plants appeared dormant and ready for winter, the colors of the flowers and leaves in the sparse and dry landscape was reminiscent of a Andrew Wyeth painting. Soledad means solitude in Spanish, and far from being a lonely or depressing place, the meditative stillness was a perfect counterpoint to the continuous hustle of the city.

Turnstile gate marks the entrance to sacred ground

Shaded eternal rest

The formula to be avoided. Richness, diversity and chance shall reign.

This image was designed about a decade ago in response to my frustration with the homogenization of the development landscape. There wasn’t much I could do at that time, so young in my career, to affect change in the projects I was working on. Luckily now I have the opportunities to work with clients who want something different, better and more exciting. I stand against formulaic sameness in favor of designs which celebrate rather than denigrate the unique characteristics of a particular place.

By Scott M B Gustafson

Design is a process of analyzing facts, mentally processing concepts and working through solutions by hand. Well, this tends to be my process. Design ideas are always further refined with the benefit of the computer and the precision it brings, but a hybrid analog / digital approach seems to work best. I try to imagine how a space will feel when I see it in my head, but I often don’t feel like I fully know it until I draw it on paper. Unfortunately, it is easy to get enthralled by a seductive sketch that might not actually work because of the inherent inaccuracy of freehand drawing. Maintaining the energy of the sketch while refining the idea is always a balancing act. On the other hand, I try not to judge my sketches when they seem dry or boring at first, because I know that through successive iterations the good ideas will rise to the top. It is actually a really valuable step to review bad ideas, options that do not work or are just not optimal, if for no other reason that to know that you explored every possibility you could think of.

These drawings were made yesterday for a new art classroom building for the Cloud Horse Art Institute near Kyle, SD on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. A digital model is currently in process and energy studies will be performed when the initial model is complete. Information gained from the energy studies will be used to refine or modify the design.

By Scott M B Gustafson

I came across this video today that was put together by a think tank within Microsoft. It showcases some emerging communication technologies with smart networked devices. The main characters in this video are all eco-conscious architects, so it also highlights some gorgeous updates to design software as well as building energy management systems and a really cool update to the daily newspaper.

This video purports to show the world in the year 2019. It is interesting to note for comparison that the dystopian film Blade Runner is set in Los Angeles is November 2019. While Deckard had some similar technologies available to him, the world he works in is considerably less inviting.

Note: The film Blade Runner was required viewing in no less than 3 of my studio classes in architecture school. What were they trying to teach us!?

Cover sheet of the working drawings

Clothing for contemporary activists

Apolis Common Gallery – Los Angeles, CA USA

By Scott M B Gustafson

…we founded Apolis with a simple idea that people can live better lives if they are given equal access to opportunity. Our travels abroad immersed us in personal stories of struggle and survival that inspired us to create a business model that bridges commerce and sustainable development. A model which we call advocacy through industry. Along with our commitment to global advocacy, we also understand the importance of sourcing and manufacturing locally. An average of sixty percent of our product assortment is made in the United States and each of the manufacturers we partner with are part of our goal to empower people through opportunity instead of charity. Since we started, our philosophy has grown into a global community of people from all walks of life who believe that the most valuable practice in creating lasting change is by investing in people. It is people who are the innovators, the advocates, and the revolutionaries. Apolis is a platform for a network of global citizens who are empowering people through opportunity.

Shea Parton, Apolis Brand Director

I was drawn to Apolis (Greek for “Global Citizen”) originally as a fan of their daring blend of capitalism and social entrepreneurship. I recognized a strong link between their design aesthetic and focus on quality, durability, sustainability and community development and the goals I set for MAISON ORION as a design studio. In early 2011 we initiated a dialogue on retail design, authentic experiences, empowered consumers and sustainable development.

I’d been following the company for a few years. I love the blend of activism and capitalism they bring to their collaborations. Early on in the process I mentioned that as their business model is equal parts social and sartorial, any retail endeavor they pursue will need to incorporate aspects of a meeting hall, a library, a speakeasy and of course a shop. More than ever products need to tell a story. Apolis allows their customers to be part of the story by supporting, through their purchases, the lives of the workers they partner with. Shea Parton has said that “Apolis is a brand you join rather than just purchase” speaks deeply about the mission of empowering opportunity that Apolis champions.

Unlike other clients I have worked with, the Apolis team possess numerous skills which make the design process run more smoothly. Visual literacy, construction experience, process management and inspiring insight into brand concepts have been a part of every conversation during the development of the design. Raan Parton, the design director of Apolis, had a very clear vision from the beginning of what kind of retail experience he wanted to achieve with this project. Some designers are intimidated by clients with a strong sense of direction, fearing loss of control in the creative process. I relish the chance to work with energetic people who push me to do my best. If I felt that I couldn’t do excellent work with them I would have not accepted this commission.

These sketches were drawn in early July, 2011. After completing initial code and zoning research and agreeing on a program (the list of rooms and their sizes), I typically start the design process by sketching spatial ideas that get tested and refined in dimensionally accurate computer drawings. When I was younger, I tended to draw in a more elevational format; more frequently now I work in perspective. I start feeling the space and honing in on the scale of the various elements in the design. Between sketches, physical models and 3D computer models and computer drafting (CAD and BIM) and frequent on-site walks, the design takes shape. As process sketches, these drawings do not necessarily represent the final design of the project.

http://apolisglobal.com/

Follow the Common Gallery on Twitter @CommonGallery

Architectural and retail reference images

Los Angeles Arts District

Green foliage frames crisp apertures

A fully re-configurable layout for changing moods

Honoring the bones of the existing building

Apolis lapel pin for Advocates

Check out this excellent film on the history of Apolis by the British production company Lonely Leap Film.

This film was created by Apolis Global, Dot&Cross, David Christenson and editor Adam Kolkman to share the story of turning a renovated industrial space into a locus of social activism. Apolis CEO Shea Parton narrates the film and explains the vision behind this unique retail venue.

If you are in LA this week, check out the Common Gallery’s Official Grand Opening on the evening of Thursday, November 10th during the Downtown Art Walk.

A thought for the week.

“Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large.”

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

By Tamotsu Fujii for Muji

A thought for the week.

“It’s a combination of doing something that people need, balanced with creating design that has no ego. With no ego, there is nothing to prove and no one to persuade. Perhaps that is what design once was.”

Sam Hecht, discussing his work for Muji

Source: Dwell Magazine

// Posted from the field by Scott M B Gustafson //

You move me
You move me
With your buildings and your eyes
Autumn woods and winter skies
You move me
You move me
Open sea and city lights
Busy streets and dizzy heights
You call me
You call me

Rush “The Analog Kid”

Scott M B Gustafson looking sharp circa 2006

The MAISON ORION office will be closed from September 14 until September 21 during a fall trip to the Old Pueblo of Tucson, AZ. I haven’t been in the city of nearly 3 years. I look forward to visiting some of my favorite locations such as the Hotel Congress, Mission San Xavier del Bac, Nogales, Sonora, and the Kon Tiki lounge. More than visting dusty old places, I am looking forward to dusting off old friendships and getting back in touch with some amazing people.

A thought for the week.

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.”

Alan Alda

Source: Values.com

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

Overlooking the Cuvaison vineyard at Carneros, Sonoma, CA - June 2011

“We should all be humble before the sun,
which gives us such beautiful light.”

Paul Cézanne

By Scott M B Gustafson

In mid-June while visiting Sonoma, CA for a wedding, I had the great fortune to pick up a wonderful book for $2.00. “The Splendor of France” by Robert Payne is a compelling history lesson of the country written by a man who has crossed the land and experienced her secrets first hand. He writes in a lyrical style that is intoxicating to read.

Today, while sitting in the fading afternoon sunlight of Los Angeles, I read the chapter on Aix-En-Provence. Payne’s description of his uncle, a peasant farmer wisened by years of living in the land of the Mistral, provides a model for the sensitive understanding of place that every architect should aspire to.

I think of my Uncle Julien, over eighty, red-faced and fat as a barrel, as he stomps through his orchards in the little village of Cote d’Arey near Vienne, and with every gesture he proclaims his sense of community with the earth. Once he asked me to help him gather the pears, and I went about plucking the pears in what I thought was a thoroughly sensible way. Then he came up stealthily and watched me with a look of pity, until he could control himself no longer. “It’s all wrong,” he said. “You should lift the pear gently in the palm of your hand until the stem breaks, and do it gently.” He said “douce-ment, doucement” over and over again, smiling, showing me how it should be done, his enormous feet planted solidly in the earth, caressing the pear like a lover.

Most of all I envied his proud sense of possession, or rather of being possessed by the earth he owned. I have watched him at dusk stooping down and gathering clods of earth in his worn hands, and gazing at the clods as though daring them to speak; and when he let the earth fall back again, he would always do it gently. He drank wine by the bucketful, ate like a trencherman, roared out commands at the top of his lungs, and hugely enjoyed being mayor of the village, which is so small that I have never seen it marked on a map. At night, when the earth is quiet, he would stand by the door of his house and look with a puzzled expression at the dark land. “Well, the earth must sleep too,” he would say, and in his voice and intonation there was the unmistakable realization that the earth was a living thing. One day at dusk I stood beside him while the ghostly white cattle were coming up the slope past the village church. “Watch,” he said. “They will stop by the church. Didn’t you know that the cattle also pray?” He was laughing quietly, and when the cattle came to the gates of the church, mysteriously white and silent in the dusk, they paused and for a few moments it seemed that they were praying. Then they ambled down the village street and were lost in the darkness.

Robert Payne. The Splendor Of France

The Splendor of France can be downloaded in various digital formats from archive.org.

Colin Firth and Jon Kortajarena in Tom Ford's film "A Single Man"

By Scott M B Gustafson

I don’t know if the sky in Los Angeles really looked that color in 1962, but thankfully it doesn’t have that much pollution anymore. No wonder people thought the world was on the verge of nuclear destruction; the atmosphere alone seemed to signaling pain and devastation. While the world is getting more peaceful and the air is getting cleaner, there is still much work to be done until we don’t have to find beauty in awful things.

“Are you a modern architect?”
“No more modern than I should be.”

Stourley Kracklite, The Belly of an Architect.

By Scott M B Gustafson

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with beauty, art, and taste. The notion of beauty perhaps been always problematic, but it keeps getting more and more complex as creative hybrids meld new forms of expression from disparate sources. The name alone of one of my favorite record labels, Hyperdub, points to this supercharged expansion of communication strategies.

Science defines aesthetics as “the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values”. For me, this emphasis on the senses is key. We look at a painting, we listen to a song, we taste a meal and we smell a flower. We experience the world with the inputs we receive from our senses.

No one would deny that the painter has nothing to do with things that are not visible. The painter is concerned solely with representing what can be seen.

Leon Battista Alberti, 1435

While in architecture school I came across the writings of Juhani Pallasmaa and his caution against the ocular bias that has infected architectural design since at least 1435. His pamphlet “The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses” was a shock to me and the trend I had been learning from most of my professors. They were teaching us to make pretty buildings first, solve function problems second and worry about practicality and budget a distant third. It is probably a fine way to operate in the vacuum of academia, but one won’t survive long in professional practice without caring for all three in equal measure. Pallasmaa is perhaps the lead prophet in a strain of contemporary design theory that brings the lesson of the philosophy of Phenomenology in to architectural discourse. These topics have been covered variously by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard and others. Pallasmaa succinctly distills these ideas in a way that non-PdD candidates can understand. Perception plays a foundational role in our understanding of the world; as architects we should aim for creating buildings that delight rather than denigrate our sensational faculties.

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s classic “In Praise of Shadows” was also an influential book on my development towards multi-sensory architecture. He sings the glory of life lived in dim half-light and the ingenuity of the Japanese in using techniques like gold leaf and polished lacquerware to quietly reflect weak sources of illumination. Christian Norberg-Schulz’s book “Nightlands” explores the genius loci of Nordic construction and contrasts the architecture of northern Europe with that of the Mediterranean. Modern architecture has been heavily influenced by the eternal light of Italy, while traditional Nordic architecture made peace with their semi-annual relationship to the sun. Contrast the crisp white structures of Hydra and the obscure dimness of Norway.

Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them. Living in thse old houses among these old objects is in some mysterious way a source of peace and repose.

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

I do not prize darkness and shadow over light and clarity, but rather I prefer to explore architectural solutions in the midst of their context. I prefer warmth and engagement over sterility and distance. This can be expressed with limited means (what I sometimes like to call “minimalisn’t”). Nor is this a limited dichotomy of intuition versus rationalism. The human brain is far to complex to be partitioned off into simple categories. One size does not fit all and every site comes with its own troubles and triumphs. It is the work of the sensitive designer to wrangle these challenges into a handsome outcome. I chose the phrase “Aesthetics As A Way Of Life” as reminder to always aim for designs which engage on several levels.

Throughout his career, Aalto broadcast and rebroadcast his commitments to Modernism and rationalism. He contended that Modernists (by which he largely meant his colleagues in the Congrès internationaux d’architects modernes, CIAM) had “no reason” to dispense with the pursuit of rationalism because rationalism itself was “not wrong.” But he gently suggested that the way in which Modernists conceptualized reason and rationalism was shallow, even wrong-headed. Equating rationalism with the rationalization of the building process or with structural or mathematical logic, these architects violated basic human needs. Rationalism, Aalto declared, “has not gone deep enough.”

Modernist architects needed to expand their definition of rationalism. They needed to analyze, he wrote, “more of the qualities” intrinsic to the architecture they designed. Comparing the array of human needs architecture accommodates to hues on a color spectrum, Aalto contended that architects needed to consider not only architecture’s “visible” colors—program, economy, technology, hygiene, site—but also its invisible “ultraviolet band.” There only the “purely human questions” lurk. Buildings should serve everyday needs.

Sarah Williams Goldhagen “Ultraviolet: Alvar Aalto’s Embodied Rationalism”

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.”

David Bly

Source: Values.com

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

Skid Row - downtown Los Angeles, California

Calling all designers, visionaries, raconteurs, rainmakers, geometers, neuromancers and hermetic alchemists!

Come check out Architecture For Humanity : Los Angeles at our August chapter meeting. The event is free and open to all.

August 29, 2011 @ 6 p.m.
University of Southern California
School of Architecture
Watt Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90089

En route from O’Hare airport to LAX, I had a layover at San Francisco International Airport on Monday evening. I picked up two magazines, Boom and Tricycle. Boom is “A Journal of California” published by the University of California Press and Tricycle is “The Buddhist Review”. The current issue is their 20th anniversary issue and it has excerpts from the previous score of publication. I’ve never read either one before and San Francisco seemed like a great place to enjoy them. After leaving the bookstore, I headed to the organic bakery for a fresh baked pizza and a bottle of Anchor Steam.

Boom got me excited to get out of Los Angeles and experience something new in California, and Tricycle reminded me of Rinzai Zen Monastery in the nearby mountains, the Mount Baldy Zen Center. This monastery is famous for being home of its founder, the centenarian abbot Kyozan Joshu Sasaki and for have been the home of reclusive singer Leonard Cohen during his seclusion in the 1990s. Mount Baldy also has several hiking trails, camping sites and a small ski resort.

Tuesday morning I set out for a drive up the mountain. It was too hot for hiking and I was wearing footware better suited for the beach than for the craggy faces of granite. These photos were taken on my phone through the lens of my Ray Ban sunglasses to give an accurate depiction of the landscape as I saw it.

Looking back to the city from the refuge of the mountain

Oh, the Sisters of Mercy, they are not departed or gone
They were waiting for me when I thought, I just cannot go on
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song
Yes I hope you run into them, you who’ve been traveling so long

Leonard Cohen – Sister of Mercy

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

John Muir

Source: Values.com

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

Colorful sparks at the Mission of Santa Barbara

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instaed of colors, there would be an unbelieveable shrieking in the heart of the night.
Rainer Maria Rilke

By Scott M B Gustafson

I have been a long supporter of Landscape Architecture and have admired architects who have thoughtfully integrated their building designs into the site and aim for the same with my designs. Barragan, Neutra, Williams and Tsien, and Marmol Radziner come to mind. I am an affiliate member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, which means a member who is an allied professional, and I follow developments in the field with regards to sustainable development, water efficiency and the positive health effects of access to gardens.

This Wednesday the ASLA continues its campaign to increase awareness of the practice of Landscape Architecture with a series of continuous nationwide events.

From the American Society of Landscape Architects

What if, for just one day, we all decided to let everyone know what the heck landscape architects do. That we create the very places used to live, work and play. That we connect cities. That we create experience. That landscape architecture is your environment, designed.

08.17.11 is that day. It’s the day the profession reintroduces itself to public. It’s the day where, for only your time spent during lunch, you’ll join the beginning of a new movement – a movement to get out and tell your story to the world.

It’s not too late to get involved. Here’s how:

Use this map to find out what’s happening near you or contact the closest landscape architect representative for further info.

Create your own lunchtime activity. Watch this video to get an idea. Use chalk to mark “Designed by a Landscape Architect” on your favorite landscape architecture project and hand out these campaign materials. This is also a great opportunity to promote your own projects. Email thedate@asla.org to add your activity to the map or for more event ideas.

Post pictures and videos from your event on Twitter, using the hashtags #landarch and #design. On Facebook, share your activities at the campaign page www.facebook.com/theunderstory.

Be there for the beginning. Take one hour to speak with one voice on one day for one profession, ours. Make 08.17.11 a landscape architecture day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9Jj8KrGlg

“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

Leo Rosten

Source: Values.com

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t. ”

Thomas Edison

Source: Values.com

Posted by Scott M B Gustafson

By Scott M B Gustafson

On KCRW Radio I like to listen to a weekly program by Rob Long, TV writer and director, entitled Martini Shot. Rob talks about life in the entertainment business from the writer’s perspective and it has changed the way I think about the creative process, artistic pursuits in an open marketplace and the general state of television and movies made in this town. A frequent topic is how even as a writer, he avoids committing to writing as long as possible, and discusses various methods of increasing focus, productivity and convincing people to pay you up front. Useful information for sure.

In an episode from December 2009 I was introduced to a time management system called The Pomodoro Technique®. The essence of the process is to work in uninterrupted 25 minute segments, called a Pomodoro, with a short five minute break afterwards. After four Pomodoros, you take a longer break. The system was developed in Italy by Francesco Cirillo. At the beginning of the day, you schedule your workload into 25 minute increments, or multiple increments if the task is more substantial, and you cross the tasks off you list as you complete them. It is a great way to help budget your time by thinking in advance how long something should take, trying to accomplish it in a fixed duration, and learning from the experience if it ends up taking longer than you anticipated. To maintain uninterrupted work, you have to turn off your phone, or put it on silent mode and out of your view. It helps to close your email, and even to schedule a time to respond to emails as a separate Pomodoro unit. And if you work in an office, you can ask your coworkers not to bother you while you focus on turning your work into tomato sauce.

The Pomodoro name comes from the fact that Cirillo used a tomato shaped kitchen timer when he was developing the process. You can use any kind of timer, although one shaped like a tomato might be a good reminder to not take work too seriously or with too much stress. There are various Apps for Smart Phones that help you keep track of your Pomodoros, and there are free widgets for the Chrome browser and even a few desktop gadgets for Windows 7. A PDF describing the full program can be downloaded for free from The Pomdoro Technique® website, along with task sheets and other tools.

I have been using this system on and off since I first heard about it a year and a half ago, and the more I commit to focused work free of Twitter, Facebook and Words With Friends, the happier I am and the more I accomplish. It is especially useful when you have uninteresting tasks to complete when any distraction seems more enjoyable than the work at hand. You power through these boring patches and more quickly get back to the fun part of work. I can’t speak for your occupation, but I generally consider what I do to be quite fun and rewarding.

Listen to Rob Long discuss the technique on this archived Podcast from Martini Shot.

Get all the stuff you need to begin from The Pomdoro Technique® website.

“Many people, in fact, affect a love of life in order to avoid love itself. They try to enjoy themselves and “to experiment.” But this is an intellectual attitude. It takes a rare vocation to be a sensualist.”

Albert Camus ‘Summer in Algiers’

By Scott M B Gustafson

Due to circumstances beyond my control, including gorgeous weather, a clear schedule and a brand new swimsuit, the MAISON ORION office will be closed on Monday, August 1st, 2011. I will be available for communication via semaphore and messages sent in bottles. Thanks in advance for your understanding and lack of jealousy.

By Scott M B Gustafson

Frequently while drawing out project ideas in my sketchbook, I will break from design solutions and produce icon doodles somewhat spontaneously but often repeating familiar motifs. The anxiety of facing a blank page is lessened when the pencil keeps moving. The moon and the horns of a bull have long been potent symbols for me. The Moon is lit by reflecting the light of the sun; it controls our tides and contributes to the weather system. In the West we think of bulls as both food and beasts of burden, but in India they are revered as Gods. In Christian religious iconography, Jesus the son is represented by the sun; Mary his mother is represented by the moon. The Virgin of Guadalupe, manifesting the symbols of the New Testament, stands on crescent moon upheld by an angel.

Our Gregorian calendar is based on the actions of the sun and the circuit of the earth around it. Many societies have chosen to follow the moon; the Hebrew and Islamic calendar are based in lunar movements. The moon and sun are like younger and older siblings, each necessary and important in their shepherding of life on earth. Ancient societies developed precise systems for tracking the paths of the moon and sun and other celestial bodies over long periods of time, celebrating the position of these distant relatives in rituals and ceremonies. Despite the vast distances separating object and spectator, they were bound in close relationship.

The world changes, things get better and they get worse, dynamics of power shift hands and new voices drown out those of the past. At times chaos seems to reign, and yet we have powerful reminders of the constancy of the universe appearing across our sky every day. Tonight when you look up, we will be seeing the same moon.

From "Local Code" by Michael Sorkin

Une maison est une machine-à-habiter.

Dispatch #006 has been delivered on time! Check out the studio news at this link – http://eepurl.com/crWCL

Thanks for your support!

We don’t talk about architecture, we just draw beautiful lines.
Alvar Aalto

Here are a few detail photos of my workspace and the things that take up residence on my desk. Unfortunately my current set up does not include a full drafting table with a trusty Mayline parallel bar. Much of my office furniture is in storage since moving back to Los Angeles from Denver bu it will be unpacked and put back in service once I move into a bigger office space. And though all the work is completed digitally, my design process still relies heavily on initial hand drawings and physical models. In the interim I have confined my analog drawings to a portable sketchbook which makes it easier for recording ideas whenever they occur to me – on the bus, eating a bagel or sitting by the pool.

“Your spark can become a flame and change everything.”

E.D. Nixon, American Civil Rights leader

Source: Values.com

// Posted from the field by Scott M B Gustafson //

“He who approaches the Temple of the Muses without inspiration, in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the Maniacs.”

Plato

// Posted from the field by Scott M B Gustafson //

Architect Peter Zumthor talks about his 2011 Serpentine Pavilion in London, England. Zumthor designed the building and the landscape was designed by Piet Oudolf.

Hortus Conclusus

‘A garden is the most intimate landscape ensemble I know of. It is close to us. There we cultivate the plants we need. A garden requires care and protection. And so we encircle it, we defend it and fend for it. We give it shelter. The garden turns into a place.”

Peter Zumthor

“Au milieu de l’hiver, j’apprenais enfin qu’il y avait en moi un été invincible.”

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus

Source: Return to Tipasa (1953) – Lyrical and Critical Essays

Have a happy and safe Independence Day!

// Posted from the field by Scott M B Gustafson //

Exploring details at full scale.

The fifth installment of our monthly newsletter has been sent out. Read it at this link and sign up for future dispatches. First person to correctly identify the architect in this photo will win a MAISON ORION Moleskine sketchbook.

http://eepurl.com/eyQSI

By Scott M B Gustafson

“Life begins well, it begins enclosed, protected, all warm in the bosom of the house.” Gaston Bachelard

The myriad natural disasters of late have destroyed homes and cities across the United States, devasting families and leaving them unsure of the future. As a way to help to those wishing to rebuild, MAISON ORION is offering a 25% discount on our fees for residential design services to anyone affected by these tragedies. This offer is good through the end of 2011 and applies to projects anywhere in the United States and its territories. All inquiries can be sent directly to me at scott@maison-orion.com.

The Observatory at Chichén Itza

Casa Grande National Monument

Will Bruder's masterpiece - the Burton Barr Central Library

By Scott M B Gustafson

After college I spent five years living and working in Tucson, Arizona, a beautiful city in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. Tucson proved to be an excellent base from which to explore the pre-Columbian heritage of the lower portions of North America. John C. Van Dyke’s book “The Desert” was a big influence on my understanding of the desert despite its shortcomings in journalistic integrity. (see my previous post here.) Here I pay homage to three buildings which were influential to me in my early career for their celebration of the sun and the seasons of the year. One modern, two ancient, but in total three amazing buildings which trace a continuous arc across time of architecture firmly rooted in its geography. The contemporary discourse in architecture often focuses staying current with the hyper-linked technology of our age, but a special characteristic of architecture is its stubborn longevity and its ability to remind us of the eternal values which the latest electronic gadgets are seldom wont to address.

So tomorrow, step out side and enjoy the longest day of the year. Think about what has happened in your life since the Winter solstice, 180° away and what you hope for in the remainder of this solar circuit. Take time to renew your lapsed resolutions and rediscover your unfulfilled dreams. Stretch your arms out to the sky and grab hold of the promise which the warm light of summer so easily encourages.

All images are from Wikipedia.org

VDL House II sketch. Source: neutra.org

Please join the Los Angeles Modern Conservancy at the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences. Tour the house, help save one of Los Angeles’s modern icons, meet new and old friends — and show your support for the preservation of modernism worldwide!

Saturday, June 18, 5 – 7 PM
VDL Studio and Residences
2300 Silver Lake Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Click here to RSVP. $20 suggested donation.

Hosted By World Monuments Fund

Drinks sponsored by Knoll / Snacks by Border Grill