Firm Faces #20: LWPB Architecture

This week's Building of the Week – a feature I curate at American-Architects, where each week a recent building from a different state is highlighted – is the Patience S. Latting Northwest Library in Oklahoma City designed by LWPB Architecture. While researching the firm and their projects for the "50x50" feature, I couldn't help noticing the way the firm faces are represented:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

Moving the mouse across the screen (sorry, doesn't work on mobile devices) results in the people moving back and forth, retracting of the screen like two-dimensional cutouts on a virtual Rolodex:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

The technique is reminiscent of Diller Scofidio + Renfro's flip-up project grid on their website, which was designed by Pentagram:

[Screenshot from DS+R website]

When the mouse cursor overlaps with a person on LWBP's website, a speech bubble of sorts pops up with their name (who new Norman Foster worked in Oklahoma?) and clicking on each person brings up a postcard-like view with some of stats on them:

[Screenshot from LWPB Architecture website]

While LWPB's means of illustrating the firm's principals and employees is clever and memorable, its reliance on Flash points to the question: Can this sort of thing be programmed into the HTML environment, so as to be visible and usable across devices and platforms? I'd assume not in its current form, but perhaps in other ways that retain the fun way of showing the firm's faces and therefore the firm's personality.

Firm Faces #19: INC

This blog's "Firm Faces" has turned into a once-in-a-year, forgot-about-that feature, but I couldn't resist finding Incorporated's Twitter portrait a perfect addition to it. Not only do we not see their faces, but the six folks standing in front of five windows could easily be a band rather than an architecture firm. (Didn't Jesus and Mary Chain play shows with their backs turned to the audience?)



According to INC's Facebook page, the photo is their new office space at 9 East 19th Street and pictured are Adam Rolston, Louisa Brown, Drew Clay Stuart, Tyler Kleck, Hilary Fulmer and Gabriel Benroth. Check out Incorporated's website for the real faces of the partners Rolston, Stuart, and Benroth, and for more on the NYC firm.

Firm Faces #18: Bennetts Associates Architects

What a difference a week makes. Last week my friend Eric tipped me off to the crew at Bennetts Associates Architects sporting some obviously fake 'staches:



But today the facial hair is gone (for the most part):



The stunt was actually part of Movember UK, which is part of a worldwide network that aims "to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer." Here is Bennetts Associates Architects profile at Movember UK; looks like they raised just over £800. Not bad.

Firm Faces #17

'Tis the season for returning to school and therefore the DOE Solar Decathlon, coming after a summer of die-hard construction. This year's event (the Decathlon is held every two years) is located at the National Mall’s West Potomac Park, after a snafu earlier this year resulted in it being moved from its position between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. For those who can't make it to Washington, DC between Friday and October 2nd to see the student-built solar houses on display, the DOE's website has a decent roundup of the international teams. Included in each school's project description is a team photo, hence this post being lumped into my Firm Faces series. Since I'm a person like any, biased by his past, here I'm featuring the City College of New York team, whose entry is called Solar Roofpod:


[City College of New York DOE Solar Decathlon Team | image source]

I must admit it's an interesting way of presenting the students and teachers, not groundbreaking but one that relates to their home and the long-term goal of their entry, which envisions the solar house as a potential residence on rooftops throughout New York City. Teams also created short video walk-throughs, so here as well is CCNY: 

Firm Faces #16

In appearance more biker than architect, Peter Marino has a very distinctive style that can be found all over his eponymous firm's web page, particularly in the slideshow for The Studio portion, where the below photos were found.



Black leather pants, black leather boots, black t-shirt...you get the idea.



With his distinctive and consistent attire, combined with a portfolio that is centered on fashion houses, photos like the one above, with Sidney Toledano (president of Christian Dior) and actress Charlize Theron, are no surprise.




While I can't say for sure that these are the faces of his firm, the people that accompany Marino here don't have his distinctive style, but that seems appropriate. They take on a similar cool attitude and convey a sense of style about the firm, aided by the angle of the photo and its location on a stair landing. And of course Marino stands tall in the center of everybody.

Firm Faces #15

ARCHIPELAGOS is one of the New Practices New York 2010 (NPNY) winners. Their web page features this humorous image of a few members of the office:



Are they moving? Hauling their presentation to the Center for Architecture for the NPNY exhibition? Paying homage to Mr. Bean?

Those interested can ask them on Thursday when they take part in the NYPNY2010 Winner's Panel Discussion.

Firm Faces #14

LOT-EK features a bunch of "firm faces" in their LOT-EK ALBUM:


[LOT-EK ABOUT >> LOT-EK ALBUM]

But very little is found when clicking LOT-EK STAFF:


[LOT-EK ABOUT >> LOT-EK STAFF]

Let's hope this doesn't mean what I think it means (no staff!).

Firm Faces #13

Architizer, as many readers here know, is a website that "empowers architecture" and architects by connecting them with each other and a broader audience. At its root is a Facebook/LinkedIn-esque system where individuals are given a face alongside the usual projects found on the site and elsewhere. But do the firms have faces, beyond the individuals? Well, as a way to kick start my "firm faces" feature in gear again, I browsed the site's Firms tab to see how many firms actually put faces on their logo. Below is a sampling from a quick perusal of the first 50 or so pages.



Needless to say, most firms choose to represent themselves through typography, custom illustrations and the occasional building photograph. "Identity" these days is associated with things (custom logos) that are more stable than the people (architects) that actually do the work. No surprise that logos are more common, or that faces occur in smaller firms, but I like the range of those brave enough to give faces to the firms.

Firm Faces #12: Jones Studio

The last firm faces looked at hands as an expression of personality, so here we're taking the other extreme and looking right into the eyes of the individuals at Jones Studio. This is one of the freakier presentations of staff that I've come across, the eyes staring right at me...following my every move!



The people page of the firm's site is interactive, not animated like the image above. But the interactivity is limited to seeing each person's eyes and sometimes glasses; no further information is given. The names are already evident at left, so it's just a glimpse that we receive. This is unfortunate, though most likely the office wants to keep things a bit vague, letting the eyes speak. It would probably be fun (or weird) to click on a person's name when speaking to them on the phone, like an old-fashioned video call.

Firm Faces Hands #11: Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects

As a means of presenting the people in its office, Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects favor showing the owners' and various employees' hands instead of faces. While this might seem to deny the strength of the face in expressing personality, for an architect the hand says, and does, a lot. Traditionally the hand is the most important piece between the mind and the drawing, the skillful means of creating a design from ideas. But as can be seen by the 13 hands of 10 people below, the architect's job these days is as much -- or more -- about computers than the physical act of putting pen to paper. Only four of the ten "profiles" do not have a keyboard or mouse in the frame.



Setting aside the effects of technology on the day-to-day activities of architectural production, do these snapshots accurately portray the individuals and what they do? Hard for me to say, but I would wager that (from top to bottom, left to right) Marcy juggles proposals, clients, and lots of other important matters, Donn is the lead designer, Kent pumps CAD, Tai-Ran is a designer, Ketki is a technical architect, Mark drinks a lot of coffee, Justin is the intern, Cari red-lines drawings, Romelo picks up Cari's red lines, and Brandon handles the accounting. Needless to say, since using a keyboard is so common in any profession and architect's roles often overlap, I'll be lucky if I bat 500 on the above guesses.

(via Eye Candy)

Firm Faces #10: in situ DESIGN

Denver, Colorado's in situ DESIGN, featured on my weekly page back in 2006, use their studio space as the means for presenting each aspect of the firm, its projects, its awards, its press, and its people. All but the last are shown in windows overlaying the studio background, but the profiles of the individuals are revealed via a cartoonish interaction with each person at their desk.



Unlike many "firm faces" which break people out of their space and routine for a group shot, in situ DESIGN's technique melds the studio and its individuals. It's an appealing way (minus the somewhat annoying but necessary scroll) of giving outsiders a view of where the work unfolds and who contributes to it.

Firm Faces #9

Portugese firm Kaputt!'s web page is basically a splash page, but it's quite an interesting one. A slideshow of hands on a scanbed next to model photos gives us the firm's contact information and "cast of characters." The images associate the hand of the architect with the architectural creation, an immediate relationship that seems often splintered these days. The names take this relationship one step further, by marking the skin with that which can only be handwritten, not typed and printed on a computer.



And in case you're wondering about the faces that go with those hands:



Check out the belly of an architect for one of Kaputt's projects.

Firm Faces #8

Dale Jones-Evans Pty Ltd Architecture (dje) is an Australian office established in 1984, "a studio-based design practice committed to the art of urban, architecture and interior design," with an "approach [that] is personal, pro-active and professional."

This may sound like the same interchangeable description from any other office of the same size (I often wonder if a potential client could really tell the difference between offices based on their firm descriptions), but dje does a couple things interesting in aligning these words with the firm's faces: they are situated in the work space and they are seen "working."



This first image is the office's splash page. In a way it resembles a band photo, the majority of the "players" occupying themselves in some manner that clearly indicates who's the lead singer, or in this case the dj-e of dje. His eyes take aim at the camera and at the web surfer, as his employees talk, look at a magazine, and talk on the phone. It's humorous, yet surely unique, with their presence fading as one mouses over the image.



Clicking on the profile page, one is confronted by a quicktime movie that takes place in the same corner as the first image. The careful (nighttime?) lighting of the first image makes the jalousie wall read as part of the space, but here that detail is washed out by sunlight. These four "stills" from the looping movie show dj-e again as the center of attention, with all eyes on his centered, at-camera location in the top left; when he takes a phone call (top right) people take the opportunity to goof off; and when he walks about eyes and heads follow.

More than the first image, this movie illustrates the studio aspect of the firm, with dj-e the head and the rest his collaborators. The consistent location of these two pieces of imagery illustrates how the various designers come together, even though both are, naturally, staged. Overall it's a unique way of presenting the office that is, in my opinion, effective, more effective than the "same 'ol" text that tries to differentiate the office but ends up doing the opposite.

Firm Faces #7

STL Architects is "a collaborative group of design professionals with a common vision and a passion for architecture, planning, and design...led by Luis Collado, Jose Luis de la Fuente and Tracy Susanne Salvia" with 15 professionals. They "believe that good architecture evolves through humble, team-based efforts."



Their studio shot is a collage of black and white shots from the knees up on a bright orange background. Clicking on each person's name, one sees torso shots of each removed from the pack. I'm guessing the consistent treatment of their photos and the background conveys the humble, team-based nature of the studio.

What I like most about the studio page is not necessarily the clever composition -- something that enables them to add and subtract people, as necessary -- but the fact that each person has a page with a description. While this may seem to be in conflict with the team-based nature that the studio wishes to convey to potential clients, it is an unavoidable part of any professional office: it is composed of people and those individuals are important.

On a side note, that the contact information for each person is a phone extension instead of an e-mail address seems anachronistic at first, but ultimately it reinforces the importance of human contact

Firm Faces #6

Last week on my weekly page I featured four hotels, one of them by Juli Capella, aka Capella Garcia Arquitectura. From one look at the intro to the Barcelona-based office's web page -- a man (Juli?) waving at the viewer and watching a snail slither across the screen -- it's apparent the group has a good sense of humor. The office portrait definitely reinforces this characteristic:



Indicating that the studio "was founded at the end of last century but it will probably not outlast this one," this humor is obviously aligned with a tendency to not take themselves too seriously. But if one thinks that this attitude means their buildings do the same, then one will surely be disappointed. When they further say that they hope some of their projects will outlast this century "with dignity," it's clear that the humor and informality does not inform the building designs directly but perhaps makes the difficult process of architecture more enjoyable, or at least more sane, for architects and clients alike.

Firm Faces #5

Hope your Halloween was as festive as it was for this wacky bunch at Stephen Herlong Architects and Associates in Isle of Palms, South Carolina.



(Thanks to Joel for the head's up!)

Firm Faces #2, Version 2

The office of Vienna-based Delugan Meissl (previously firm-faced here) gets the Waking Life treatment on their team page, their faces animated in front of pink backgrounds. The choice for this is most likely aesthetic, but the means of filtering their faces reduces the amount of information in a way that allows for multiple readings from a lack of clear definition. How this hypothesis relates to their work is not clear, as their buildings have always struck me as crisp and modern, if more playful than those descriptors would normally indicate.



The clearest relationship between the cartoon faces and built output, if there is one, is to the layering of some of their projects, like the Weinenberg High Rise's facade. Here a printed glass exterior covers a simple white box wrapped with balconies, with openings in the first giving the elevations a pixelated appearance. But rather than extending or continuing with that approach, I'd conclude that the faces are ultimately just playful, just as some of their buildings are. That's good enough for me.

Firm Faces #4

Wait five seconds and the faces below will change from serious to, well, something else. Wait five more seconds and they're back to serious and ready to get some work done. These are the employees of Gordon Kipping Architects, a New York-based office that focuses on the intersection of technology and architecture. Visit their site to see the faces larger and as intended, their changing demeanor enabled by a mouseover, rather than an animated gif.



These changing faces show the personalities of those involved, but more importantly they also show how the technology-minded work is created by and for people. It humanizes the firm's work in a way that hopefully comes across in their designs.

Firm Faces #3

One of the most unique presentations of a firm's personalities is Atlanta-based Cooper Carry's stand-alone site Cooper Carry Talks. On that page one is confronted by 12 cropped faces (of 32 possible ones, changed by refreshing or clicking "shuffle"), faces which start talking when ones moves the mouse over them. Each person then has one or more short snippets of video that fill the screen when that snippet is clicked. Lauren Perry Ford's snippet below describes how the private sector eventually succumbed to the public sector's desire to build sustainably, as the former saw that healthier buildings "may contribute to their bottom line."



The videos are characterized by the tight close-ups of the thumbnails, a shaky camera, and an off-camera glance, making the sound-bites a bit stylized but ultimately very consistent, so a certain homogeneity comes across. It's hard to listen to more than a handful of snippets before one gets the idea. It's apparent from the words that the firm is aligned with sustainability and other quality-of-life concerns, but one must leave the site and venture into the firm's project page to see how the ideas translate.

Firm Faces #2

Delugan Meissl Associated Architects is a Vienna-based office with a penchant for glass and folding planes, both used as a way to merge their designs with their contexts. The penthouse addition House Ray 1 is a good example, though recent projects have increased the scale of their designs to, for example, whole apartment towers. Images of their office show a space in a building, that while it won't be mistaken for one of their own projects, seems to embody their embrace of glass and its inherent transparency, particularly evident in the night view.



The photos of the straightforward interior space show a reliance on the computer, though by clicking the image above one can see additional shots, including the model area. The terrace photo is the most telling, as it shows the relatively small office size, the potential of this outdoor amenity (as a social or break space, most likely), and what appears to me to be a rather even-keeled group, distributed evenly along the railing.

Be sure to check out the firm's alphabet, with humorous (Bricks: Have never been used) and thoughtful ( Light: As much as possible; it’s always easy to close something but often difficult to open something) descriptions of their philosophy.