Archives: Projects

For Cloud, we explored the universal symbol of the human hand.

Commissioned by the City of Santa Monica, Cradle is situated on the exterior wall of a parking structure at a shopping mall – originally designed by Frank Gehry.  The site is near the beach, and is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles. An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture functions structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle – the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives in Hollywood films. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls. The whole array reflects distorted images of passersby.

Aside from the Newton’s Cradle reference, we wanted the overall shape to elicit things that we thought might be slightly provocative when inserted into the glitzy Santa Monica urban landscape.  On one hand the installation resembles a big banana hammock (the type worn by unashamed men at the beach) and on the other it suggests the female reproductive system. Sometimes we think of it as a giant fly eye with hundreds of little lenses and at others its like sea foam or coral. Sometimes it resembles an urban scaled wall sconce and at others, a kind of imaginary awning for an invisible storefront. Regardless of what it looks like, it was an opportunity to develop a new kind of building system.

Cradle is as much a sculpture as it is an approach to making experimental structure in the post-digital era. We were interested in exploring ways of producing large scaled self-organizing structures. Cradle is comprised of an “informal” arrangement of parts; the relationship between each cannot be accurately modeled with digital software. The work is, however, an outgrowth of digital technology.

A key technical concept for Cradle is “sphere packing” – the phenomenon where multiple balls squeezed together and self organize under the effect of gravity, a process we could only approximate, at best, using computer modeling. Software was useful for visualizing Cradle and for designing the overall shape of the formwork used to make it but not for predicting where the spheres positioned themselves in the physical world.

The fabrication process was a bit like the process of slip casting ceramics except instead of pouring ceramic slip into a mold we “poured” hundreds of spheres.  To our knowledge, this was the first time this technique has been used.

Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues

Project Manager and Lead Fabricator: James Jones

Custom Software Design: Ayodh Kamath

Project Team: Benjamin Jennett, Rachel Shillander, Alison Kung, Daniel Morrison, Jielu Lu, Amador Saucedo, Ron Shvartsman, Lawerance Shanks, Norma Silva, Andrew Lyon, Tim Peeters, Will Trossell

Structural Engineer: Buro Happold, Los Angeles. Matthew Melnyk lead engineer. Kurt Komraus

Table Cloth is a new performance space in the courtyard of Schoenberg Hall at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in Los Angeles. Ball-Nogues Studio designed and fabricated the installation. The project is a result of ongoing research into the reuse of temporary structures and installations.

A collaboration between the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, the Herb Alpert School of Music, and the UCLA Design Media Arts; Table Cloth serves as an integrated set piece, backdrop, and seating area for student musical performance and everyday social interaction.  It is made of hundreds of individual low, coffee-style tables and three legged stools.   Each of these household items is a unique product (no two are alike), fabricated specifically for the installation by Ball Nogues. The public can take home the tables and stools after the run of the installation. The tables and stools link together collectively to form a “fabric” that hangs from the east wall of the courtyard. When the Table Cloth meets the ground, it unrolls to form an intimate “in the round” performance area. Visitors can sit on the tables and stools within this area.

“Tables are places for social interaction,” explains Ball-Nogues. “Dining tables, specifically, facilitate organization and communication within the typical American home. We see this project like the cloth adorning a dining table; however, at Schoenberg it will adorn the courtyard, an important social hub, and will facilitate community at the scale of the University.”

Used for a variety of activities, from musical practice to performance, dance to lectures, and from casual conversations to academic discussions; it will embellish the courtyard throughout the summer of 2010. Because of the work’s size and the materials used, its presence within the space helps to reduce reverberation and alter other acoustical phenomena.

The processes of designing manufacturing, assembling, and dismantling the performance space are examples of a unique design and manufacturing methodology that moves beyond and constructively critiques the three “R’s” of sustainability – recycling, reuse, and repurposing, processes that typically down-cycle material into less valuable states. After the structure has served its function as a performance space, the components comprising the installation will be dismantled to become smaller scaled household commodities, – tables and seating. This process, referred to as “Cross Manufacturing” by Ball-Nogues, is an integrated design and manufacturing strategy that harnesses digital computation and fabrication technologies to make architectural scaled installations that become collections of smaller scaled products. The items will be immediately available and given away as consumer goods, once the installation is dismantled. This approach moves beyond recycling and reuse

By using a consumer good as its basic building block, the project expands and critiques notions of “green” architecture. As a visual concept, the installation serves as a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a poetic reminder that the buildings and temporary pavilions we construct are impermanent: frozen moments in an ongoing flow of products and materials. Outside of its environmental considerations, the Table Cloth dramatically re-contextualizes consumer products – symbols of mass consumption and standardization– into alternative gestures of hope and one of a kind manufacturing.

Table Cloth will be the site of performances hosted by the Herb Alpert School of Music through the summer of 2010. Please see the Herb Alpert School of Music Website to confirm dates and start times.

Project Theory:

Spatial installations represent a growing phenomenon within our culture. There is a new demand for “instant” architecture.  We see this in entire environments which become advertisements, like subway platforms; stage sets; window displays; and event spectacles.  They have become forums for the production of architecturally scaled structures and spaces that exist for only a limited period. Our installation explores the making of structures which produce very little waste when their usefulness as architecture is complete. While there is an increasing interest among artists architects in recycling and repurposing their urban scaled creations, our project moves beyond this approach to consider life cycle through the development of a “cross manufacturing” strategy. Cross manufacturing is a design and production approach that considers objects as part of a continuum. After the structure has served its use as a performance space, the components comprising the installation will be dismantled to become smaller scaled commodities, immediately available as coveted products – in this case tables and seating. Unlike recycling, which down-cycles material into a less valuable state, this scenario foresees small products made from the parts of a larger product (the installation itself).

“Diversified series” is a fitting description for the resulting products rather than the “standardized series” that typically results from a mass production approach. Each of the tables and seating elements will be fabricated using industrial methods but will still be unique, contrasting the anonymity inherent in most industrially manufactured goods. At the end of the life of the installation, the approximately 500 tables and stools, no two alike, will be given away to the UCLA community.

By using a consumer good as its basic building block, the project expands and critiques notions of “green” architecture. As a visual concept, the installation serves as a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a poetic reminder that the buildings and pavilions we construct although seemingly timeless, are actually impermanent: frozen moments in an ongoing flow of products and materials. Outside of its environmental commentary, the installation dramatically re-contextualizes consumer products – symbols of mass consumption and standardization– into alternative gestures of hope and one of a kind manufacturing.

It is made possible by generous support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the UCLA Arts Initiative.

Principles in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues

Structural engineering and analysis by Buro Happold Los Angeles. Matthew Melnyk lead engineer

Software Development: Ayodh Kamath

Project Team: Benjamin Jenett, James Jones, Jonathan Kitchens, Alison Kung, Deborah Lehman, Brian Schirk, Rachel Shillander

Created for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) off-site gallery at the Charles W. White School, Double Back-to-Basics is comprised of brightly colored letters constructed using paper and assembled in a form suggestive of a monumental arch scaled to the size of a child. Viewed from the gallery entrance, the monument has characteristics of a wall; when seen from the opposite side it resembles a heap or pile – a primitive architectural structure and the most rudimentary form of monument. The letters are the cousins of the magnetized refrigerator variety used to teach children written language. Here, the characters instruct but they also serve as bricks, the most elemental components of architecture. Unlike bricks made of clay, which are solid and heavy, these bricks are hollow and lightweight — in structural terminology they are “shells.” Using a fabrication process developed by Ball Nogues, the letters were formed of recycled paper pulp then colored with natural dyes and infused with wildflower seeds; repurposing what was once waste while generating new life in the form of flora. Rather than conceiving the work as an unchanging installation, the designers view it as a continuum — from unformed material to the constructed monument to dismantling and beyond. When the project is taken down after six months, students will be able to create their own flower gardens using the refuse from the original structure.

The letter is the fundamental unit of written language; the brick is the fundamental unit of architecture, the seed is the fundamental unit of life. Double Back to Basics is a monument to these elements. It is a monument that changes form from stasis to dispersion into the urban environment: its disappearance is as essential as its presence. Double Back-to-Basics is a monument to transformation.

Project Team: Benjamin Ball, Tyler Crain, Martina Dolejsova, Jonathan Kitchens, Alison Kung, Hannes Langguth, Deborah Lehman, Gaston Nogues, Allison Porterfield, Rachel Shillander, Julianne Weiss

On the occasion of the Guggenheim Museum’s 50th anniversary, the Guggenheim has invited approximately 250 artists, architects, and designers to imagine their dream intervention in Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda. A salon-style installation of two-dimensional renderings of their visionary projects will emphasize the rich and diverse range of inspired proposals will take place from February 12 though April 28, 2010.

Serving more one-million visitors annually at the Guggenheim’s New York facility and more than three-million at worldwide at its other facilities, the Guggenheim Museum already presents organized exhibition of precious cultural artifact for the general public’s enjoyment and delectation. These exhibitions, often organized in a linear structure, present the viewer with a complex offering of audio, visual and textural experiences that impart to the visitor a satisfying sense of culture and history. At the end of these exhibitions, visitors are typically directed to the gift shop where they too can acquire weighty tomes and gewgaws which further reinforce the doctrines developed over  the course of the visitor’s experience.

After careful consideration of the Guggenheim Museum spatially and programmatically, Ball Nogues Studio recognized the institution’s unique sequence of inter-connected galleries and ramps as an architectural form well suited for adaptation as an industrial manufacturing assembly line. Seeking to convert the museum’s current cultural production to a more sustainable manufacturing system, Ball Nogues Studio suggests adapting Wright’s masterwork into a contraption for the transformation of raw, organic sugar cane into a delectable candy confection cum art installation and industrial expo that is both easy to eat and delicious. Their proposed re-use is an acknowledgement of the imperative of architects to shape the careful appropriation and preservation of the noted structure while adapting it economically and functionally using new green technologies and systems. That Wright designed the structure, a priori, to suit this pressing, contemporary need is proof enough that form follows function.

Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues

Project Team: Tim Peeters, Andrew Lyon, Nicole Semenova, Benlloyd Goldstein

Graphic Design Collaboration: Jessica Fleischmann of Still Room

Press Release by the Indianapolis Museum of Art

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, The Indianapolis Museum of Art today announced that Los Angeles-based Ball-Nogues Studio will create a site-specific, architectural installation as part of the IMA’s Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion series.  Ball-Nogues Studio’s installation will be on view in the IMA’s main entrance from September 3, 2010 to March 6, 2011.

Bridging the disciplines of art, architecture and design, Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice lead by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. The studio will create an immersive installation titled Gravity’s Loom that explores the space and structure of the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion.  Gravity’s Loom, part of the artists’ Suspensions series, will be composed of an array of vibrantly colored hanging strings that span the entire pavilion and generate the appearance of a softly spiraling gossamer surface. This surfacewill twist, contort, and spiral downward through the atrium, transforming the architectural space and re-choreographing the flow of visitors to encourage new interactions with the museum. Each string in the installation will hang from two points on the oval perimeter of the Pavilion, forming curves that respond to the distinctive features of the IMA building.

In developing Gravity’s Loom, Ball-Nogues has allowed the properties and limitations of a given material—in this case, string—guide their work. When the array of strings is hung in the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, it will take the shape of an inverted dome through which a patterned color composition will be revealed that represents the artists’ take on Baroque embellishment, Ball and Nogues understand the oval shape of the IMA’s Pavilion to be analogous to the dome of classical Baroque architecture, which historically incorporated surface decoration to blur the distinction between what is architectural, sculptural, and pictorial. The strings of Gravity’s Loom will be painted to represent the imagined plan for a traditional Baroque ceiling pattern—a three dimensional volume that will blur into billows of color and then snap into a focused geometry, depending on the viewer’s vantage point.

“Ball-Nogues’ installation will dramatically re-imagine the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion,” said Sarah Urist Green, associate curator of contemporary art. “Their singular approach—integrating concept, design, and fabrication—will yield an unforgettable and all-encompassing environment that intricately relates to the space as a thoroughfare and site for assembly and interaction.”

Ball-Nogues likens their method of fabrication to a 21st century application ofIkat, an Indonesian term for the ancient textile process of resist dye.A labor intensive method, Ikatinvolves the application of vibrant colors to precise locations on individual yarns that, when woven, form a blurry edged pattern. Similarly, Ball-Nogues will color the strings individually in precise locations by using four computer-controlled airbrushes that are part of a programmable machine of their own design. Called the Instal-lator 1 with the Variable Information Atomizing Module, the machine will paint over 30 miles of string and cut it to prescribed lengths determined by an integrated software system. The shape of the thousands of hanging strings will be computed with a mathematical formula, however the piece will be installed at the museum by human hands. Ball-Nogues’ installation will be a remarkable convergence of digital computation, machine fabrication, and hand craft.

“The series title Suspensions refers to the act of disengaging from preconceived notions and intellectual interpretations, if only for a few moments, to apprehend the work with untethered expectation,” said Ball-Nogues. “In the installation at the IMA, there is an intentional duality at play—at one moment the implied surface frames views of the building and then at another obscures it, creating a clouded perspective of the building beyond.”

Ball-Nogues Studio’s sculpture is part of the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion installation series launched in February 2007 and made possible by a $2.5 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Efroymson Fund.  The works are installed on a rotating basis with a new commission from a different artist approximately every six months.  Artists who have previously exhibited in the space include Tony Feher, Orly Genger and Julianne Swartz, among others.

Project team: Benjamin Jenett, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Alison Kung, Deborah Lehman, Jielu Lu, Marine Manchon, Daniel Morrison, Claude Moussoki, Amador Saucedo, Lawrence Shanks, Rachel Shillander, Ron Shvartsman, Eddy Sykes , Julianne Weiss.

Custom Software: Sparce Studio

Temporary spatial installations within urban cultures are a rapidly evolving phenomenon.  Unlike “permanent” buildings, these structures nimbly respond to the accelerated temporality of cities on the move like Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Increasingly they provide the urban spectacles that “signature” buildings aim to deliver.  Like never before, cities are adorned with provisional environments and architecturally scaled events. This situation has been further emboldened by the financial meltdown in 2008 as investors look to spend money on big urban spectacles without the financial commitment of making buildings. Within this economic outlook, the disposable plates of architecture are better investments than a collection of fine tableware. However, an important question looms when cleaning up after the meal: can the plate be composted or should it be colored with crayon and reused as a party decoration?

Built to Wear, constructed for the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism was on view from December 5^ththrough January 23 2010 in the underground exhibition space at the Shenzhen Civic Square.  Invoking the theme of the exhibition – City Mobilization– the construction of the installation activated collaboration between Ball Nogues Studio, American Apparel, the Biennale organizers and a group of 30 volunteers from Shenzhen. This hanging architecturally scaled structure is comprised of 10,000 items of clothing manufactured by American Apparel – operator of the largest garment factory in the United States. Each garment serves the dual role of building component and individual article of clothing. Over the course of the Biennale, the installation will be dismantled and the T-shirts, muscles shirts, spaghetti tank tops, baby dresses, bikinis and g-strings comprising it will be dispersed to visitors. At a time when most US garment production has moved offshore, Built to Wear invites viewers to contemplate the relocation of manufacturing from the developed world to emerging economic powers like China while reconsidering notions of material lifecycle in architecturally scaled structures. By using a coveted consumer good – the garment – as its basic building block the project expands and critiques notions of “green’ architecture while activating public space through consumption.

As a visual concept, the installation served as a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a poetic reminder that the buildings in our cities are impermanent: frozen moments in the flow of products through the tributaries of global exchange. Outside of its environmental commentary, the project dramatically recontextualizes the clothing item – a symbol of mass consumerism – into an alternative gesture of hope.

Principals in Charge: Gaston Nogues, Benjamin Ball

Project Coordinators: Qi Yue Yue, Brianna Gorton,  Ken Tan

Project Team Los Angeles: Norma Silva, Patrick LaTona, Jonathan Kitchens, Ayodh Kamath, Rochelle Gomez

Project Team Shenzhen: Li Huan, Chen Xin, Wang Guo Xian, Wang Yi Le, Wang Dan Chun, Li Ying Xin, Huang Zhu Yan, Lai Ruo Yin, Luo Jia Ye, Ke Ya Wen, Wang Hai Xuan, Liang Ting Ting, Lin Ting, Chen Su Hui, Zhang Zhi Peng, Yang Gao Bin, Xu Xiao Guang, Zheng Jia Wei, Pan Shan Shan, Rong Na Na, Liu Xi, Liu Jia Qiong, Zhuang Jie Rui, Lin Chao, Xu Yi Jing, Zeng Xiao Mi, Daniel Fernándezpascual, José Esparza,

Custom Software: Sparce Studio

Curator: Beatrice Galilee

How do we build something that modulates the space of an existing architectural environment while appearing to be made of almost nothing? How do we suggest volume without building a surface?

The first permanent work in our series of “Suspensions” projects, this hanging sculpture for the new Los Angeles County Building and Safety Permit Office uses approximately two thousand individual lengths of metallic bead chains hanging under self-weight to form a matrix of catenary curves. A combination of sculptural artwork and modular ceiling system, the chains span between custom perforated aluminum panels fitted within the existing acoustical ceiling grid.  Each chain is in precise relation to its neighbors to yield an array that is more a diaphanous metallic vapor than a discrete solid object. The rhythms of the vapor respond to the location of the lighting fixtures and sprinkler heads on the ceiling grid. When viewed from oblique angles, the installation suggests a volume; from other viewpoints, the effect is of a torrent of falling rain. The color of the bead chain “dithers” from cool nickel plated to warm brass across the length of the permit office.

A challenge for the project was to create a design methodology that tightly integrated concept, computation, fabrication and economics. This approach parallels material based explorations in contemporary architectural practice. As a sculpture and as an example of new processes in design, the work will be of interest to both the staff and customers of the Building & Safety Permit Office. It will be at home in the forward thinking architectural environment of Los Angeles.

We designed software to investigate the form, manage the thousands of chains, and expedite cutting. Formal exploration and revisions are fluid and effortless: rather than drawing and measuring the length of each chain, we sketch the qualities of the installation in general terms; the software then automatically generates the thousands of catenaries, computes their lengths, and prepares labels to locate each chain once cut. The design choices and logistics are “front loaded” to save time by reducing on-site management and fabrication complexity, allowing a small team to assemble the project.

Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues

Project Fabrication Team: Andrew Lyon, Nicole Semenova, Elizabeth Timme,  Gaston Nogues, Benjamin Ball, Ayodh Kamath, Norma Silva, Matt Harmon, Tim Peeters, Jonathan Kitchen, Nicole Kell

Custom Software Development: Sparce Studio

Feathered Edge was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The project explores the convergence of digital technology and craft. It is one in a series of installations curated by Brooke Hodge and Alma Ruiz. Integrating complex digital computation, mechanization, and printing with traditional handcrafted production techniques, Feathered Edge explores our desire to alter a space with fluid architectural forms that require a minimal use of material while utilizing a new proprietary technique that yields the effect of three dimensional spatial constructs “printed” to resemble objects hovering in space.

Feathered Edge is comprised of 3604 individual lengths of twine, totaling 21 miles, that have been dyed, cut, and then suspended from mesh scrims installed on the walls and ceiling of the gallery. With the aid of the “Insta-llator 1 with the Variable-Information Atomizing Module,” a machine designed and manufactured by Ball-Nogues Studio especially for this installation, the strings were precisely saturated with solvent-based inks, created by a chemist for the project, using four digitally controlled airbrushes and then cut to varying lengths. Using specialized parametric software developed with a software programmer, we generated a map that was printed onto the scrim to establish the proper locations and lengths of the twine in the space. Each piece was attached to the mesh scrim, and then knotted by hand in a technique similar to that used to make latch-hook rugs. The weight of the string creates a complex system of overlapping catenary curves on which cyan, magenta, yellow, and black  segments were “printed” to yield the effect of ghostly three dimensional objects. Sometimes the objects are visible, at other times they blur to resemble a fluid-like vapor that floats and hovers in the gallery space.

The software used to develop the parameters of the resulting ephemeral spatial condition can yield nearly infinite possible design configurations. While the environment is defined by the string formations and printed “objects,” it is also constructed from the negative space found within the array of catenaries, which allows sight to extend into and throughout the spatial structure. The space is activated by people, movement, and light, creating a continually changing experience.

Computers are great at quickly analyzing large amounts of information, then generating data used for fabrication, but they can’t yet produce fully realized works of architecture. At best they can produce highly accurate components and spatial mappings or systems, this is where hand craft comes in. We use our hands and our knowledge of material as a filter for the digital possibilities and to achieve the final “built” environment; in effect, we use the prowess of the computer to push the limits of the hand.

Feathered Edge is the third in a series of projects we refer to as “Suspensions.” Unseen Current (2008), exhibited at Extension Gallery for Architecture, Chicago, featured 2,500 suspended string catenaries, and Echoes Converge, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008 used string to create intricate patterns inspired by the baroque ceilings of the city’s buildings. These softly structural, open-air spaces encouraged social interaction, enveloping rather than obstructing viewers.

Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Management: Andrew Lyon

Project Team: Chris Ball, Tatiana Barhar, Seda Brown, Patricia Burns, Paul Clemente, Sergio d’Almeida, Jesse Duclos, Matt Harmon, Karlie Harstad, Ayodh Kamath, Jonathan Kitchens, Andrew Lyon, Lina Park, Tim Peeters, Sarah Riedmann, Joem Elias Sanez, Geoff Sedillo, Norma Silva, Caroline Smogorzewski, Beverly Tang, Blaze Zewnicki, Sasha Zubieta, and the preparatory staff of MOCA.

Feathered Edge was on view July 26-November 15, 2009

Rigging: Kelly Jones of Jax Logistics

Custom Software Development: Sparce Studio

Live Video: Peter West