#85: AWARDS, HONORS AND BRAGGING RIGHTS

June 29, 2018

We are both blessed and lucky, as accolades shower the work of Poon Design Inc. With several dozen national awards, alongside local and regional ones, I am honored–especially with our recent win of one of the most prestigious awards in the industry: the National AIA Award.

Each project requires grueling work and commitment. For some projects, ten years have been exhausted to transform a design sketch into an award-winning reality.

From neighboring jurisdictions to countrywide juries, the prizes bestowed on my design team validate our creative pursuits. Sharing the honors with our clients validates their trust in us.

But here is the thing: every architect I know calls himself or herself an “award-winning architect.”

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#84: KINETIC ARCHITECTURE: THE DESIGN OF MOVEMENT

June 6, 2018

It is uncommon to think of buildings as anything other than static. Generally speaking, architecture is the design of a fixed object, not of something that moves—such as a car speeding down the neighborhood street. Rather, architecture is thought of as the neighborhood street. Similarly, architecture is not performing arts, but the theater that houses the performing arts. Architecture is mostly a building made of sticks and stones, steel and glass.

It doesn’t move. But why not?

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#83: A SUMMER IN BLACK AND WHITE

May 25, 2018

Over two decades ago, I arrived into a Los Angeles summer. Between my job at a Melrose studio working on a building in Zurich, and designing one of my first independent projects, a café in West Los Angeles, I grasped tightly my 35 mm Nikon FE2, never putting it down. This summer was an authentic and faithful period of history that preceded iPhones and the obsessive posting of self-indulgent, overly-curated photos.

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#81: TEN THOUGHTS, TEN MINUTES

April 13, 2018

Take ten minutes and get ten thoughts for your design project.

Besides architecture, these ten thoughts can apply to many other pursuits, from graphic design to gardening, from composing music to creating life itself.

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#80: TIMELESSNESS: THE MANY LIVES OF THE BRADBURY BUILDING

March 23, 2018

In 1893, architect Sumner Hunt served up the beloved Bradbury Building, a jewel in the gritty South Broadway area of downtown Los Angeles. To talk about the building’s elegance is akin to commenting on the freshness of the sushi from world-acclaimed chef Jiro One.

Rather than discuss the obvious beauty of the Bradbury, I am more fascinated by the architecture’s numerous chapters of evolution and interpretation. There are many lives to this iconic building, from film to music videos. Why and how?

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