Designed as an interactive installation outside the West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center, Parallel Perpendicular by Phillip K. Smith III reflects different colors and images depending on the perspective and time of day.
The Artist's Touch
On a series of recent projects, designers worked with artists and clients to explore the ROI of art in architecture.
More than two years after its debut, the urban art installation Parallel Perpendicular by Phillip K. Smith III outside the new West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center continues to elicit emotional reactions. During the day, the mirrored faces of the sculpture’s large rectangular panels reflect passersby, the surrounding park and the city setting. At night, the panels become dynamic, luminous faces of every hue in a rainbow — a nod to the area’s vibrant LGBTQ+ community and nightlife.
“The choreography moves at such a pace that if you were to look away, talk to your friend and look back, it is a completely different experience,” says City of West Hollywood’s Arts Manager Rebecca Ehemann. “It’s simply beyond.”
For generations, researchers have explored that mysterious, intangible link between art and a place. Art can elevate an environment, personalize it and make it special. An artistic statement can bind communities, inspire creativity and provide value on a daily basis.
“People appreciate facilities that support and improve how they live and work,” says LPA Project Designer Casey Chapin, who has worked with artists on several recent projects. “The qualitative layer that art brings has no substitute.”
Parallel Perpendicular is one of two art installations embedded in the park when the City of West Hollywood and LPA created the new West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center. For the city, art is seen, in part, as an economic engine, benefiting local businesses. Art also strengthens the community’s identity and ethos, Ehemann says.
“Art humanizes the space,” Ehemann says. “It can also communicate that the owner values investing in the arts and
the importance of a community to be able to experience art.”
The City of West Hollywood uses colorful expressions like this work by Kenny Scharf to strengthen the community’s identity and ethos.
MERGING ART AND ARCHITECTURE
LPA designers often serve as quasi–art advisors on projects, looking for opportunities to link visual expression to an environment and the client’s goals. On several recent projects, LPA has been able to match artists to a client, helping to develop captivating elements to engage and connect people with the facility.
“We can advocate for artists who would be a great fit for a project, assess where and what type of art makes sense in the space and evaluate how it can reflect the client’s values,” Chapin says. “Ideally, we would collaborate with the artists throughout the project so that the building, interior and landscape designs are in harmony with each other and with the art.”
More than a decade ago, the LPA-designed Malibu Public Library was one of the first institutions to hire mixed-media artist Christine Nguyen, who has since won several national and international commissions. For each project, she says she seeks to establish a connection with the local community.
“Because public art is accessible to everyone — and not just those who go to museums or galleries — more people can experience its impact,” Nguyen says. “Each time they pass by the work, they might see an element they missed before and appreciate how it celebrates their community.”
The renovation of Washington Elementary School in Santa Ana, California, includes a mural by local artist Crisselle Mendiola that inspires exploration and introduces “an at once friendly and exciting presence onto the school grounds.”
For the renovation of Washington Elementary School in Santa Ana, California, art was seen as an integral tool to link the new campus and its developing visual and performing arts program with its heritage and the surrounding community. The school, built in the 1940s, is across the street from Memorial Park, where a number of murals — including the iconic Chicano Gothic by artist Emigdio Vasquez — serve as important cultural touchstones for Santa Ana residents.
Designers incorporated art throughout the project, inside and out. The district issued an open RFP and then commissioned paintings from five local muralists, including one former Washington Elementary student. Santa Ana artist Crisselle Mendiola’s mural, spread across several walls, depicts a young girl astronaut amid a swirl of comets, flowers, planets, stars and rabbits, creating an image that inspires exploration and introduces, as one site noted, “an at once friendly and exciting presence onto the school grounds.”
“We thought of these buildings almost as blank canvases,” Chapin says. “The artwork helped give the school a real sense of identity. Art can show who they are in a way that may be more accessible than a mission statement, website or slogan on a T-shirt.”
Artist David Gilmore’s work is part of Washington Elementary’s strategy to use art and design to engage students on the new campus.
Washington ES leaders went a step further and turned play areas into “Learning Landscapes,” a research-driven approach to embedding learning goals in playground design. For the district, using art and design to engage students was viewed as an economical approach to meeting important standards for the new campus.
“When we can deliver something that reflects the community’s interests and values in a cost-effective manner, that’s a win,” says SAUSD’s director of planning and design, Jeremy Cogan. The art has already paid dividends. When the students saw their refreshed school, “they realized how much the district and the community care about their school,” he says. “They felt valued.”
– Casey Chapin, LPA Project Designer
THE CORPORATE CONNECTION
In commercial spaces, art can elevate the experience and express the company’s values and culture, regardless of the client’s budget or the commission size. “Art that is done well can become integral with the architecture and bring out the best in a project,” says LPA Design Director Rick D’Amato.
For Merchsource, a consumer products company that specializes in developing brands for other companies, its own identity revolves around the merger of art and design. The company’s Irvine headquarters was designed to create a unique sales experience, including original installations from Los Angeles artists Retna, El Mac, Hueman and Vizie.
“Merchsource understood the value in spending money on art that will inspire clients and staff,” D’Amato says. “It furthers the image of who they are as a company.”
When John Combs, founder and president of RiverRock Real Estate Group (since acquired by Lincoln Property Company), retained LPA to design his corporate headquarters in Irvine, California, D’Amato offered two recommendations: “First, use art to create a fun environment, a culture that appreciates their people and creates an interesting perspective,” Combs recalls. “Second, do not make the office look like a boring real estate company,”
Combs, an art collector who co-owns the building with husband Sheldon Harte, was already committed to art’s power. In each of the company’s 30 on-site offices on the West Coast, a curated set of black-and-white photographs fills a gallery wall. “If art can help draw in people who then want to lease your space at a high rate,” Combs says, “then its benefits also translate into revenue and increasing the value of the building.”
Combs and Harte appreciate that people react to art differently, but that doesn’t diminish its value. “Art is a personal thing,” Harte says. “What some people love may not be for everybody, but people will appreciate that the art represents you, just like your home does.”
Robert O’Neil’s red blocks and Sandra Fettingis’ mural create a dramatic entry for Lincoln Property Company.
For the corporate headquarters, art was meant to make a statement and bring life to the older building. Prior to entering the building, visitors can see through glass curtainwall the dramatic mixed-media mural Loba, by artist Hagop Belian, hand-pasted onto the lobby’s expansive curved wall. “You’re totally enveloped,” says Combs (now executive vice president at Lincoln). “That piece can happen nowhere else.”
Curated artwork is placed strategically throughout the conference rooms, workspaces, offices and corridors along with other visual and tactile elements, like river rock–filled gabion walls and bold red panels to support feng shui.
“Art really builds a sense of community and creativity,” says Austin Brown, now Vice President of Operations at Lincoln. “Our team feels like they’re in a hotel or in their home.” This was critical when the building opened in late 2022, after the COVID-19 pandemic, he says. “We needed a way to bring people back to the office and make them feel more engaged.”
In Lincoln Property Co’s headquarters, Raphael Macek’s horse photography brings passion and energy to the environment.
— Austin Brown, Vice President of Operations at Lincoln Property Co.
In a commercial setting, art has the ability to make people feel connected and engaged with a facility. In LPA’s Irvine studio, artist David Gilmore painted his interpretation of the design process on the interior steel columns. Nebulous bubblelike forms on the ground level transition into colorful and then grayscale forms moving upward, representing the solidification of design ideas.“The task was to create something that would speak to the design process and LPA’s creativity,” says Gilmore, who was also one of the muralists at Washington Elementary School. “I wanted to create something that is thought-provoking and interesting, as well as compelling to look at.”
Research shows art can generate positive and quantifiable benefits for communities of all sizes. A recent report by the Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit organization Americans for the Arts found that investment in arts and culture enhances the quality of life and stimulates economic development. “By supporting the arts, companies attract and retain talent and create an environment where creativity, businesses, and communities thrive,” the “Arts & Economic Prosperity” report concluded.
The group surveyed more than 220,000 people about their attitude toward the arts.
ECONOMIC SENSE
From a children’s reading room to dramatic public displays, art can have a profound effect on end users. In the fall of 2020, when the COVID pandemic was in full force, the City of West Hollywood installed artistic neon street signs by artist Scott Froschauer that simply read “Relax UR OK” and “One Love” at major city gateways and thoroughfares.
“We received so many comments and emails from the community that seeing the signs during their drive through the city brought them relief and a sense of a calm,” Ehemann says.
West Hollywood’s historical embrace of the arts is a point of pride and popular talking point for city representatives. The city’s Urban Art Program requires developers of most new construction or renovation projects within its jurisdiction to invest 1% of the project value into a public art and beautification fund or into original, publicly accessible artwork.
Artist Daniel Tobin’s installation for the City of West Hollywood will memorialize the devastation of HIV/AIDS, honor activists, caregivers and community leaders, and raise awareness about the history of living with HIV/AIDS.
“Art can make public space richer in many ways,” says City of West Hollywood architect Ric Abramson. “And it has been shown to be a catalyst for economic vitality as well.”
The City of West Hollywood recently began construction on a monument honoring people whose lives have been impacted by HIV/AIDS on the site shared by the West Hollywood Park Aquatic and Recreation Center. Designed by internationally renowned artist Daniel Tobin, the AIDS Monument installation was developed through extensive input and discussion in the West Hollywood community and will memorialize the devastation of HIV/AIDS, honor courageous activists, caregivers and community leaders, and raise awareness about the history and stigma of living with HIV/AIDS. The monument features a series of integrated light fixtures, reminiscent of a candlelight vigil, with 13-foot bronze vertical “traces” etched with narrative text. After dusk, they light up with varying degrees of intensity.
“This installation celebrates and embraces individuality,” says D’Amato, who was on the selection committee. “Everyone has a voice that deserves to be heard. It is these voices, through community involvement, that makes this work meaningful.”
