unsolicited proposal for Beggars Group Los Angeles headquarters
A successful group of independent record labels with offices in London and New York is contemplating setting up a new presence in Los Angeles. Under consideration is an idea to buy a “house” and convert it to serve various needs of the company. The projects would provide office space, accommodations for touring bands and, possibly, a space for special projects and a U.S. “home base” for one of label’s major British artists. Landscape architect Sarah Cowles and I presented this proposal of possible approaches to the project.
Organized into a booklet similar to a rock and roll music “zine” the proposal intentionally avoids specific architectural propositions and instead focuses on themes, motifs and a set of broadly defined issues relating to the project. The intention to pick up on the iterative, mix-and-match quality of rock music and culture and use it to suggest not only an architecture but a way of approaching architecture as a set of practices and tactics for the re-thinking and re-working of the city.
