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NIALL MCLAUGHLIN WRITES LA ARTICLE FOR ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW

SEPTEMBER 2013

Niall McLaughlin has written an article for the Architectural Review, entitled ‘Street Life: Michael Maltzan’s Social Housing in Los Angeles’. The piece examines the history of the infamous area of LA known as Skid Row and three housing projects by the practice Michael Maltzan Architecture for this fractured part of the city. The piece draws out common themes between the projects, which are all low-cost accommodation for the previously homeless, exploring the successful spatial relationships between the private space of the individual rooms, the areas of common sheltered space and the public realm of the street.

“The formal virtuosity of each composition is Maltzan’s own special skill and they suggest that high architecture can give pleasure and dignity to all of us….I hope that the different spatial experiments, linking and articulating pavement, common sheltered space and private rooms, will become subjects for further reflection and analysis. It speaks of our common need to situate ourselves and participate in public life.” NM

ATHLETES OCCUPY OLYMPIC HOUSING

AUGUST 2012

In the run up to the London Olympics, the Athletes’ Village housing block N15, is now occupied with athletes’ preparing for the games.  Niall McLaughlin Architects have designed the external skin of the housing block on a ‘chassis’ designed by Glen Howells. The facade samples fragments of the Elgin Marbles, scanned from the British Museum and converted into 3D pre-cast panels depicting galloping horses from the Parthenon Frieze.

Niall McLaughlin commented on the practice’s approach to the unusual commission in Building Design. ‘I was very interested in the principle of the facade being delaminated from the building’s core form. Usually it’s something one tries to swim against to retain a sense of ‘authenticity’, but here we decided to embrace it….I like the idea of setting Ruskin’s conception of the craftsman against the absolute Taylorism of the construction process. Through digital reproduction, these deracinated stones are now doubly lost.’ (Building Design 27.01.2012)