Architects go green and prosper from it
By DAILY PRESS STAFF
DOWNTOWN Santa Monica buildings are more than just spaces to work, live, or play, as proved by the numerous architectural awards that have been presented this past month.
The Killefer Flammang Architects know something about sustainability and community enhancement. The company was awarded four Los Angeles Business Council (LABC) Awards last week for their work on the OPCC Cloverfield Services Center in Santa Monica and three Los Angeles fire stations.
The Santa Monica based company was founded in 1975 and has been honored with countless awards over the years.
“We are delighted to recognize these projects for the contribution they make to their local communities as well as the city in general,”said Mary Leslie, LABC president, referencing the four recently honored buildings.
The Cloverfield Service Center was awarded the Council’s Civic Award in the Renovation category. The Service Center houses abused women and mentally ill homeless, and was designed to create an “environment of hope” for its residents.
From the shell of an old manufacturing building, the Killefer Flammang Architects succeeded in creating a space that is “anything but grim,” said Dick Lewis, a public relations spokesman for the company. He said that usually there is not a sense of hope or optimism associated with homeless facilities.
“During the planning stages, there was a big emphasis on light,” Lewis said. The company used translucent panels, skylights and a lightwell to diffuse light throughout the interior of the building, and an elaborate glazed concrete perimeter wall to protect and provide privacy for the building’s 55 inhabitants.
“Light plays a major role in the interior of the contemporary-styled building,” said Wade Killefer, architect and founder of Killefer Flammang Architects.
The three fire stations were honored for Brandon Wise GETTING NOTICED: The Killefer Flammang Architects, designers of the OPCC Cloverfield Services Center, recently received four awards from the Los Angeles Business Council. their design which provides state-of-the-art working, living, fitness and training functions, and LEED certification and also make use of natural lighting.
The Killefer Flammang Architect Co. has taken on various projects including schools, universities, libraries, recreational buildings, community buildings, urban apartments and condominiums. They are also revered for their adaptive reuse of historic buildings in Los Angeles.
Across town the Santa Monica Airport Park and its designers, the Ah’be Landscape Architects, have also received distinctions. The park’s design, which effectively utilized environmentally conscious lighting, greenery, and irrigation in a visually interesting way.
The Santa Monica Airport has long been a spot of historical significance. It was part of the first circumnavigation of the world by airplane and the founding of the Douglas Aircraft Corporation, which made the DC-3.
However, for years the space has been poorly utilized, serving most recently as a parking lot and a storage area for a car dealership. The opening of the park introduced green space to the area. The park’s design also incorporates the transportation history of the site, with winding pathways that suggest runways, steel picnic tables that recall the industrial origins, and windsocks giving the park an intentional airport feel.
The sports fields are made of synthetic turf with infiltration beds underneath to capture storm water, and the dog park consists of three terraces which drain to capture all of their water. The parking lots were paved in permeable asphalt to also help improve the city’s storm water retention system.
The park won the Westside Prize in the Urban Solutions/Built category from the Westside Urban Forum on June 6. On June 19 it won the Los Angeles Architectural Award in the Landscape/Civic category from the Los Angeles Business Council. A few months earlier the Southern California Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects also gave the park a design award.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 3, 2008. Read the original PDF.