PRODUCTORA

First visit in Mexico City is to the very new practice Productura, established in 2006 by Abel Perles (1972, Argentina), Carlos Bedoya (1973, Mexico), Victor Jaime (1978, Mexico), and Wonne Ickx (1974, Belgium). They came together with individual projects, so that they had a handful as a practice.

The pracice has just won the competition to design a new headquarters for CAF in Venezuela (with Lucio Muniain) and were selected to design avilla for the Ordos100 project in Inner Mongolia.

Productura now emply 6 other staff, and are based in a penthouse pavilion on Av. Insurgentes in the middle of Mexico City. Other projects include the Hookah Bar in Mexico City, a boutique hotel in Tulum for Gruppo Habita, a house in Uruguay and currently a design competition fora new arts centre in Beirut.

The architects do not spend time over-contextualising and intellectualising their work. Instead, rather refreshingly, they just start with form, critique it in the studio, and create great spaces. Victor, Wonne and Carlos outside studio.

The penthouse studio.

Model of hotel in Tulum.

Meeting space with amazing views of the city.

Interviewing Victor and Wonne.

Model of house in Uruguay

Early ideas for social housing.

Working models for arts centre in Beirut.

Winning design for CAF tower in Caracas, Venezuela.

Model-making.

The Productura team (minus Abel)

AT HOME WITH JENS HOFFMAN

A late night in San Francisco.

KIRSTEN PIEROTH

New installation by Kirsten Pieroth at Wattis Institute. Curator Jens Hoffman looks on.

NEW ACQUISITIONS AT SF MOMA

On display at SF MOMA are 2 years´worth of acquisitions by Henry Urbach´s Department of Architecture and Design. Highlights include the buildings made of sky.

SCHINDLER

BLOWING UP LAS VEGAS

A young LA artist has designed a new casino for Las Vegas that projects onto its facade the destruction of old casinos. Instead of refurbishing the buildings, condemned casinos are publicly destroyed in a fanfare of fireworks and controlled explosions. This proposal celebrates this final moment and allows the memory of these buildings to live on.

SCI-ARC BAR INSTALLATION

The end of term project for the first year students at SCI-ARC (a hot LA school and student body) is a 1:1 installation for the raised bar. The design process for the on-trend pink/purple plastic forms is displayed along the corridors leading up to the bar, from cardboard maquettes, to colour samples and scale models.





The final installation wraps up the wall and along the ceiling of the bar
Artist Dino Dinco in the bar
View of studios from raised bar

SCI-ARC GALLERY

According to its website, SCI-Arc Gallery is the only cultural institution in Los Angeles committed to exhibiting experimental projects by contemporary architects. Currently on show is the 'Live Wire' installation by Oyler Wu Collaborative, a practice established in NYC in 2001 and now based in LA, that "argues for an expanded relationship between tectonic expression and functional performance". The staircase can be read as a critique of static exhibition spaces, linking the ground and upper level to create movement through the gallery, but the computer generated design divided opionion.

THE COLLECTORS

Cocktails at a house full of art, including a very heavy Louise Bourgeois claw. There was too much to go on the walls. In storage there was everything from Richard Prince to Julius Shulman wrapped up and waiting for a rehang.

CENTER FOR LAND USE INTERPRETATION

This research organisation in Culver City is involved in exploring, examining, and understanding land and landscape issues. The Center employs a variety of methods to pursue its mission - engaging in research, classification, extrapolation, and exhibition. The current exhibition (slideshow) looks at the geographical and social impacts of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.