Lincoln Arts Center
Collaboration with Amber Grovet
Instructed by Kutan Ayata
Los Angeles is filled with strange yet non-descript buildings. Their strangeness and quirks blur into each other, creating a uniform backdrop of odd objects. The prompt of this project tasked us with creating a public art center, including exhibit and maker spaces, that addressed an exisitng building on the site. We were interested in creating a sister building to the existing one that distorts its older sister, following in the building culture of LA. By turning, folding, and reconsidering the characteristics of the original building, the form distorts like fragments of a mirror.
Lincoln Blvd is supposedly one of the more active thoroughfareof the west side, passing from south venice through to the base of the palisades. Despite this position, the particular stretch of lincoln that our site lands on is quiet and populated mostly with private office buildings (and one Wendy’s). The existing building on the site, considered by this studio as a “half building”, has a limited public face. balconies hide behind tinted glass and the shades are usually closed in the front windows. Combined with the parking lot next door, our project site is 150’ x 150’ and sits in the center of the block.
The programs of this project include private art making spaces, exhibit and performance space, exterior courtyards, a ceramics studio, and more.