The Materiality of Schools, Sites, and Sheds

The studio investigated the work of the ‘LA School,’ specifically in terms of how materiality and form has evolved in Los Angeles, a city with a history of experimental architecture that has leveraged the misuse and deconstruction of anonymous, industrial, and non-conventional material assemblies to challenge architectural typologies and programmatic relationships. By taking stock of how these architects have leveraged economic and fiscal constraints, the shrewd manipulation and deployment of materials in a slipshod fashion acts as the historical background for the studio’s attitude toward materiality and form. The final project is an adaptive re-use of an industrial shed into a kindergarten, understood as a space that primarily must engender play, as it has been considered as a particular attitude toward material that can be traced throughout the semester, and throughout work by L.A. School architects.