Leimert Park Center for Narrative and Performance Arts

My project begins by understanding that both architecture and the narrative/performance arts are the arts that have the human at its fundamental center. Architecture shelters the human, while stories display the human experience. Using this, my project tries to turn the cinematic into architectural and the architectural into cinematic.

The idea of journey is deeply cinematic, as it is the plot of the movie, while it can be architecturalized by emphasizing the circulation of the building.

By having the most public programs at the ground floor and the upper cantilevered box, the journey up is an implied necessity in the use of the building. One arrives in an atrium that overlooks Leimert Park and Los Angeles, angled towards afternoon light and the Pacific Ocean. From there, you can access community, exhibition, and performance spaces located in the top two floors.

The skin is geometrically inspired by the projection of the human experience through film. It allows different light conditions to filter into the building and create experiential moments that respond to the program of the spaces it encloses.