La Cage aux Folles
Architect: Warren Techentin Architecture
Location: Silver Lake, California
Category: Up to $150,000 in construction costs (category one)
This complex, experimental bent steel tube structure actively engages the neighborhood by providing a space for unscripted use and curated performances.
Installed in the courtyard gallery of Materials & Applications, this project is an experimental bent steel tube structure that explores the craft of pipe bending, joining form, computational procedures, and fabrication processes into a complex structure that assumes various postures and porosities through looping and layering.
La Cage aux Folles actively engages the neighborhood by opening the courtyard to the sidewalk as a pocket park, albeit a small one. In this way, the design team wanted the project to lay within the traditions of both landscape architecture and urbanism.
Its engagement with the street provided a space for both unscripted use and curated performances. La Cage aux Folles has become a social condenser for the neighborhood and host to many activities during its run, including a three-person dance performance and a video animation of hummingbirds mid-flight—in slow motion—projected through multiple scrims.
