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Firm | The Projects Christophe Cornubert may have been more influenced by his surroundings than many other young architects. Born, raised, and educated in Los Angeles, he moved to Rotterdam, The Netherlands after graduating from UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. There, he joined the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), working with that firm's driving force, Rem Koolhaas, and learning the ropes of the architectural field the European way. "In Europe, your name is in circulation," he says. "There's kind of a circle that's aware of projects going on, and you get work that way. In Los Angeles, there's a lot of networking in the classic sense. You get projects based on whom you know." In Europe, Cornubert's name entered circulation because he served as OMA's partner in charge of design for an academic building—the Educatorium—at Utrecht University. The Educatorium is a sort of community center, examination hall and lecture facility all in one building. The university's goal, as well as OMA's, was to have the Educatorium function as a hub for a student body that preferred Utrecht's town center to the University's bland campus of 1950s and 1960s architecture. After completing work on the Educatorium, Cornubert set up his own office in Rotterdam, and was then invited by Neil Denari to teach at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arch). He accepted, and he says, "one thing led to another, and I decided to stay in Los Angeles." In 1999, he set up PUSH, his current practice. PUSH has a collaborative structure, and therefore a varying cast of designers, depending on what projects are in the office. Cornubert likens this set-up to that of a film production studio that which hires on creative partners for each film. Much of the office's current work hinges on ideas of urbanism and community and environment-building. An ongoing project, tentatively titled "Gucci Urbanism" addresses these themes. Cornubert began consider these ideas when he returned to the sprawl of Los Angeles from high-density Western Europe. "Holland has almost too much architecture," he says. "It's everywhere you go. When you're in Los Angeles, you're struck by how architecture is irrelevant. But LA seems to be thriving, even without Architecture with a capital 'A.'" His thoughts on suburban environments have also influenced his design-in-progress for a suburban Los Angeles art center. And the considerations inherent in designing for a city that is not yet built heavily influenced some of the decisions made in the design for PUSH's entry to the Hotel Pro Forma competition in a planned city outside Copenhagen. A lot of thought goes into PUSH's architecture, but that thought is put to good use. As Cornubert says, he is just "trying to come to an intelligent understanding of what the hell is going on here." Christophe
Cornubert / PUSH LA
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The
Projects | The Firm |
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Educatorium,
Utrecht
Structure: ABT / Rob Nijsse Utrecht University
wanted a new building that would keep its students on campus instead
of bicycling off to the center of town. The resulting program
includes a large canteen, 2 lecture halls, examination halls and
lounges. Functioning as a sort of indoor plaza, the Educatorium
draws members of all 14 of the schools faculties to a central
gathering place. |
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Hotel
ProForma, Copenhagen
Virtual worlds: Michael Heim Structure/Services:
Ove Arup & Partners, Los Angeles Hotel Pro
Forma, an itinerant Dutch performing arts group, sought competition
entries for a permanent arts center/performance space/office space/hotel.
Taking the vague program as a starting point, PUSH attempted to
go beyond the black box and to solve the problem of multi-purpose
spaces that end up not serving any of their purposes very well. Visit archrecord2's coverage of nARCHITECTS to see another competition entry. |
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LA
Art Center This art
center, designed for an anonymous client in Orange County, California,
exploits the tension between its surroundings—a traditional
suburban neighborhood—and its own need for space. The lower
level, which appears to be underground, is a large loft space,
while three glass pavilions on the undulating, grassy roof evoke
Philip Johnson's glass house mass produced and exported to the
suburbs. |
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Gucci
Urbanism
Gucci Urbanism,
an ongoing project that may result in publication, is an attempt
to come to an intelligent understanding of sprawl, suburbia, and
urbanization, and answer the question of how a culture creates
space. The "Gucci" in the title comes from an understanding of
how lifestyle and identity are increasingly tied to marketing,
as mass-produced surroundings blur individuality. |
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All images courtesy of the firm.
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