REGENISIS
Nothing is permanent. Nothing is forever. The world around us is constantly changing. Clouds roll overhead dragging behind them a dark veil on the ground below. Fog develops as the sun begins its journey across the sky, before disappearing into the atmosphere. Our world is dynamic, never static. Fire watchers know this all too well. Set thousands of feet above the flat plain of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest, is an area that observes and experiences the most drastic of change. Wildfires. They can be a force of nature to reckon with, or they can be a righting force in an overcrowded forest. The South Mount Hawkins fire tower will experience wildfires and will be destroyed. Its inevitable fate. The intervention embraces the flames, and lets the fire restructure the building. The structures, clad in brass, will reflect the surroundings in the beginning stages of its life. During a fire the brass will melt (1,700 degrees), and will run down the vertical structural elements. Collected by a narrow linear trough, the molten bronze will travel downhill to the roof of the research center. Let to cool, it will form a brass roof, becoming a floor plane before traveling downhill to its final destination—an empty cast of a wall slab.
2020 Stewardson Award