Marmol Radziner Prefab

The MOCA Contemporaries presents Art Panel Series 2008. Leo Marmol, FAIA, will be part of the 3rd panel on Emerging Architecture. 
     
Wednesday, May 21, 6:30pm
Sotheby’s Los Angeles
9665 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA
Tickets $75 per person
Advance ticket purchase required
RSVP now 213.368.8878 or contemporaries@moca.org

Hosted by MOCA Contemporaries, Sotheby’s, and City National Bank.

We posted recently about a local fundraiser for Architecture for Humanity, so we thought we’d bring up some of their recent work: the Open Architecture Network. With a goal of improving the built environment, OAN is a open-source network where architects, governments and NGOs can share and collaborate on building plans, designs, and ideas.It began when Architecture for Humanity won the impossibly cool TED prize in 2006, where three individuals at the TED Conference are granted one wish each to change the world and members of the TED community vow to offering their resources and talent to make the wishes come true. After a year in development, last year AFH launched the Open Architecture Network. In it’s first year, the site has designs for over 500 projects from all around the world, ranging from Nepal to Macedonia.

Site preparations are plowing along for the Palms House in advance of the installation in the beginning of June. After the hand demolition, where reusable materials and appliances were removed from the old house, the bulldozer cleared out the remaining structure and materials. Then came the rough grading and trenching, and now we’re doing the installation of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems that will hook up to the house modules at predetermined locations. Soon we’ll start pouring the structural concrete footings and laying the CMU stem-wall foundation. Then after that… delivery day!

Marmol Radziner + Associates is happy to announce that the American Society of Landscape Architects selected us for an Honor award for the Altamira Ranch project in Palos Verdes, California. MRA has also won awards for the architecture from the AIA South Bay-Long Beach among others.

The Altamira Ranch landscape is a great example of a native garden. Native plants are a natural win-win for gardens. They typically better suited to local ecosystems, so they require less water, reduce fire hazard, and minimize maintenance (as compared to conventional landscaping). Plus, native plants are truer to their location, reflecting the real nature of the local area.

Our friends at the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano just released their Maintenance Guide for Native Gardens, a great resource for creating and caring for native gardens. The Nursery contract-grew 30,000 plants from native California seed. Check out the Nursery’s case study about the process and green benefits of Altamira’s garden.