Here are some construction progress photos of a four-unit condominium complex we’re building in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. On site, we notice the connections between steel profiles becoming points of fetish. We look at them repeatedly to grasp some sense of the weight each one carries. This is a strange act because in our other work we’ve gone to great lengths to avoid the expression of these kinds of details. But we can’t help it: there is a palpable excitement staring at a 33-fot span in steel. It’s heroic. The steel, though, is inscrutable. It gives no real sense of the forces in transit. The I-beam discusses the load it carries in the code of its cross section, but it does not express that load. We would rather it drooped a bit, or maybe dripped beads of sweat in complaint.
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The building structure is a layer-cake: a steel moment frame is stacked above a concrete pill box, with a hybrid steel and wood system perched on top. Each system is the result of a collision between a structural type and a living requirement. At the base, bedrooms occupy the fortified hillside retaining system. The middle level is vacant with no skin – a place for cars to park in the center of the building; just a steel moment frame. At the top, two living levels are built like conventional townhouses.
