Los Angeles’ climate emergencies have renewed interest in natural building materials. Yet building with natural materials is often framed as a process of substitution: concrete replaced with rammed earth, foam insulation with straw, or steel with mass timber. Swapping petroleum-based materials for bio-based often leaves intact the anonymous systems that produce our architecture, treating materials as interchangeable commodities and detaching them from the ecological, economic and social systems from which they emerge.
Bioregional design understands architectural labor and buildings as part of material systems that extend far beyond the building site. Soils, fields, processing sites, and waste streams are engaged alongside the labor, knowledge, and social economies that shape how materials are grown, sourced, processed, and used. In this talk, Vienna-based bioregional.agency (Gordon Selbach and Jakob Travnik) shares recent research and pedagogical approaches developed through its bioregional networks, highlighting a major collaboration with Vienna based multidisciplinary artist and anthropologist Anna Reiss.
The presentation will be followed by a conversation with Jia Yi Gu and Ben Loescher about their recent residency at Atelier LUMA and ongoing collaboration to develop a bioregional center for Los Angeles.
EVENT DETAILS:
6 PM Doors Open / 6:30 PM Talk Begins
TERRAIN LA
353 S. Broadway, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90013
ADDITIONAL DETAILS:
This event is ADA accessible.
Limited street parking is available, with additional paid parking at 308 S Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90013. Rideshare is encouraged.
Pershing Square Station is the nearest Metro station.
