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2007 Summer

Ball-Nogues: Under a Liquid Sky

An installation view of Liquid Sky with architects Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball. Photo: Jeremiah Greiman

Ben Ball and Gaston Nogues are busy guys. As winners of the 2007 Young Archi­tects Program, this Los Angeles-based team was given only three months and $70,000 to transform their ambi­tious proposal, Liquid Sky, into a larger-than-life reality. For any firm this would pose a serious architectural challenge. But the challenge, of course, is half the fun.

Since its inception in 2000, the Young Architects Program has been keeping young firms on their toes, asking them to think beyond traditional architectur­al practice, to gener­ate forms that merge architecture and art, and then to make those forms a reality. There is little room in the tight construction schedule for mistakes or delays, as the proj­ect must be up and ready when thousands of visitors arrive for the first Warm Up event of the season.

Luckily, however, Ball and Nogues have been here before. Since forming their partnership in 2005, they have built a hybrid practice that combines elements of architec­ture, installation art, and event design and have plenty of experience with the hectic schedules and tight budgets that make the Young Architects Program such an exciting challenge. Although both architects have worked at more traditional firms since their graduation from SCI-Arc, their current part­nership is focused more on creating experi­ences than buildings and on fabricating what they visualize.

Based out of an unassuming three-car garage in the Echo Park neighbor­hood of Los Ange­les, they have been busy practicing that doctrine, realizing an impressive number of projects in a brief number of years. The two have completed such commissions as an installation for the Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture at The Museum of Con­temporary Art, Los Angeles, the event design for the launch of Frank Gehry’s jew­elry line for Tiffany & Company, and Rip Curl Canyon, an un­dulating landscape installation at Rice University made entirely from corrugated cardboard. Drawing on the imagination, ingenuity, and hard work that have gotten them this far, Ball and Nogues set to work on their most ambitious project yet, mounting a Liquid Sky just in time for summer in Long Island City.