Events: AltBuild Is Coming

Explore the future of sustainable design at the tenth annual AltBuild conference next week in Santa Monica. Image courtesy Alt Build.

It has been 10 years since the first Alternative Building Materials & Design Conference. Since then, it has gotten bigger and better, growing to become the largest and most-respected green design and building expo in Southern California. Next week, AltBuild, presented by the City of Santa Monica, returns to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for two days of exhibits—featuring innovative new products and trends, including multiple SoCal debuts—and thought-provoking programming, with speakers and panelist drawn from across industries. 

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Supercession: Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools

Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools (Photo Courtesy of Sibylle Allgaier, Heliphoto)David Goodale of Gonzalez Goodale Architects and Scott Johnson of Johnson Fain are teaming up with LA Forum to present "Supercession" this Thursday at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. The lecture is the second from the "On the Map 2012" series, which focuses on urban infill and redevelopment in Los Angeles. 

Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools (Photo Courtesy of Sibylle Allgaier, Heliphoto)The campus is located at the former site of the Ambassader Hotel, which was demolished in 2005. Gonzalez Goodale built the compound to relieve underperforming and overcrowded schools located in the historically underserved neighborhoods of Pico-Union and Koreatown. Unique features of the campus include the Cocoanut Grove Theater, Paul Schrade Library, state-of-the-art gymnasium, and several public art installations, including two murals by Judith Baca.

Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools (Photo Courtesy of Sibylle Allgaier, Heliphoto)Each project explored by the series will be presented as a dialogue between the design process and the larger, neighborhood context. Projects were chosen based on their challenges to previous patterns of land use.

Supercession is Thursday August 16th at 7:00 pm. General Admission is $10, Students are $5, and LA Forum members get in for free.

LA's Central City Association Architects Panel Showcases the Evolution of the Architecture Business

By James Brausell, Guest Contributor

The Central City Association today gathered for the monthly meeting of the organization, focusing on architecture in an architectural showcase panel entitled, “Looking Up, Moving Forward.”

The panel may have been more aptly named, “Looking to Integrate, Moving International,” with the panel focusing mostly on opportunities to engage architecture with infrastructure, along with cultural and social institutions, in international cities and domestic locations other than the city and county of Los Angeles. According to Alice Kimm, of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects, the recession requires that architects to ask, “How do we identify ourselves in our work in the world out there?”

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