I started this week as a design consultant for the Myklebust Company or m-CO.  His company has some great resort projects in China.  I used to work with Scott at Jerde.  Its a great opportunity to continue keep my supersized project experience from getting rusty.  We will still be marketing the workSHOP brand in the hopes of landing projects here in Southern California as well.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Dwight

Okay, cool year to be living in, huh!  Well we hope everyone has had a great holiday season…had a great 2011…and is looking forward to a fantastic 2012.  We have had a great year ourselves and will continue to push the workSHOP concept.  To that end, we will continue to do our best to find opportunities to combine our varied talents to design problems.  We also hope to be vigilant in our efforts to keep everyone up to date to our new projects and opportunities.

Also, we hope to hear from all of you and would love to know how you are doing.  If you have websites please send us the link so we can share your success with everyone.  Stay in touch and all the best everybody!

Dwight + April

Thanks for all the great thoughts everyone!  More exciting workSHOP info to follow!

April and I hope everyone is having a great summer so far.  We have had quite a busy last couple of months with the wedding planning and celebration.  We hope to have a post-reception party later this summer (any good reason to have a party) and hope you all can make it.  We head to Oklahoma in a couple of weeks to celebrate with the locals.

workSHOP has been busy this first quarter of the year completing the Long Island Cinema competition with the brainstorming help of April, Jeanie, and her daughter Emily.  Max, Robin, and manone also contributed via blog comments which were great.  We did not win (the winning entries were a little predictable but interesting for sure).  click on the link below to view the top 20.  click here to see the winning entries.  We used the competition as a great way to expand our collaborative portfolio.

Neuroscience Research Lab – update.  We have been working on the basic programming and site research for the NeuroLab.  We are being asked to hold off on payment of about 75% of our proposed $15,000 fee until fundraising begins which is why we haven’t been able to do the full team brainstorm.  We hope that with successful concept design and packaging of an exciting presentation for our client, we will ultimately be selected along with ETC (Essrig Taylor Construction) in a design build relationship to bring the project to reality.  We would then start concept all over again with a full consultant team + our workSHOP team and everyone can get paid!  So happy thoughts!!!  Click here to follow our design progress and add any comments.

701 Grand Plaza – We have also been asked to assist a project owner near Highschool #9 with facade renovations.  We have submitted a rough concept idea and are waiting for comments.  If you are interested, click here to review the current status of the project.

Thanks everyone!  Have a great summer!

April and I wanted to give you all an update regarding our potential uber project, the Neuroscience Collaboration Hub (okay that’s what I am calling it).  April and I met our contact, Mike Engel from ETC Building and Design this past Monday and our client, Babak Kateb, at USC’s Keck/Broad CIRM center.  Its a brand new high tech stem cell research facility at USC’s medical campus.  We were fortunate to have gotten a tour from the project’s director, Professor Martin Pena.  ZGF designed this LEED Silver building…beautiful.  Babek has similar hopes.

We also discussed the potential site for his new building on NASA’s Moffett field in Mountain View.

click here for a mapquest map of Moffett field.  Moffett Field is becoming a huge site for Biotech incubator companies.

Babak’s concept for the project is that it is a hub linking over 3,000 biotech companies around the world that effect the research and development of techniques and hopeful cures for all head injuries, specifically those suffered during battle which often lead to Alzheimers.  Amazing stuff.  For reference, click here for a look at Babak’s organization.

So that’s what we have so far…the fees to create the marketing package are not huge but should be good to get us going.   When we have it all worked out we will let everyone know!

Thanks everyone!

Dwight + April

April and I are excited about having a quick brainstorm followed by two weeks of great work to pull together a competition entry for the Long Island Cinema group sponsored by SuckerPunch.  For information regarding the competition click here.

We will create a new blog to use as a test project for the LIC competition to explore how we can all work remotely in the interest of pushing some aggressively awesome design concepts.

We will send out that blog shortly.

When you get a sec, take a look at the three links above.  We have an opportunity to work with Dennis Potts, a gentleman who has a successful project management company with work all over the country.  He asked us to put together a brief brochure he can share with his clients.  You will note that the first page is identical for each brochure type (interiors, big projects, big sites).  We changed the second page images to focus on either of the three project types.  The focus of the brochures discusses our “rapid brainstorm” method.

Let us know what you think…Ben, Robin, manONE, and James, let us know if we gave you proper recognition.  Thanks again everyone!

check out Dennis Potts at www.dennispotts.com

April and I wanted to send out our first 2011 workSHOP update and let everyone know how things are going!  We have lots of optimism for 2011 and feel we are prepared to spread some design wealth around!  In the meantime, there are a few projects we have been working on and some we would like to work on that we want to chat about.

Pacific Trust Bank: Through a mutual friend, Steve Mandic, the Sierra Group (building contractors) asked us to team up with them to provide a design build option for a series of new or remodeled bank branches in Southern California.  We had a great presentation but have, unfortunately, come to the realization that the client does not require design services, only the services of a contractor.  Sierra has not yet secured the job but they are the front runner.  Even though we did not get to move forward with this client, we made a great impression with Carl Frommer, the Sierra Group’s President, and hope to collaborate with them in the future.  Design/Build sounds fun!

Westfield | Roseville Play Area: This is a project we have been working on since last October.  The project scope has changed a couple of times and looks to get refinement this week.  The Roseville Galleria (near Sacramento) has an outdoor Promenade area that they have asked us to help them design and document (through SD/DD) an outdoor children’s play area with shade canopies, movie’s on the lawn, water features…etc.  We look forward to more work with Westfield.

88 Colorado Restaurant: We started a restaurant concept in collaboration with Architecture and Light in San Francisco last year.  We completed a concept package for the Riboli family.  The current status of this job is it is on hiatus until negotiations between the building owner and restaurateur are complete.  It is not clear when that might happen.  Stay tuned.

workSHOP team member activities:  Check out both manOne’s (www.crewest.com) and Ben Kelley’s latest work and up coming shows.  manOne has a great gallery in downtown LA a block west of Pete’s cafe which, coincidentally, is always active every month for LA Artwalk. Ben Kelley (http://benjaminbrycekelley.blogspot.com) has a big show coming up in May which sounds amazing.  Check out his blog.

Lastly, we have some great opportunities with new clients and contractors in the hopes of pushing the design/build concept across international lines.  Also, wish me luck on passing the last last last architectural exam, the supplemental exam!

Thanks everyone!  Stay in touch!

Dwight + April

good times…d+a

Here are the latest updates for the workSHOP crew…they are as follows:

88 Colorado Restaurant:

We completed concept design a month or so ago for the Riboli family.  The project then went on hold for a while.  We got word today that the client team was sharing what we had done with brokers to get a better sense of what their budget and lease structure should be.  We hope to regroup on this project in early December.

Westfield’s Roseville Galleria:  Promenade Play Zone:

We completed concept design for Westfield’s Roseville Galleria Promenade Play Zone.  Thats a long description, but was a really fun project.  The promenade is an open air portion of the mall’s expansion that was left a little sparse and in need of an outdoor play area to attract more community activity.  We hope to move in to Schematics in the next week or so…please let us know your availability if you would like to assist the Playzone team.

Mobile Arts & Architecture RFQ-Long Beach:

A really interesting and exciting RFQ is floating around regarding a portable modular performing arts venue for the city of Long Beach.  It is specifically referred to as a “Call to Artist-Architect teams”…which is of course right up our alley.  We are working with Selbert Perkins, ManOne, and Ben Kelley to update our RFP/Q to hopefully make the short list.

Thats all for now…over and out!