I haven’t quite known what to think about Peter Zumthor’s proposed overhaul of the LACMA campus, ever since I saw it described as a “black flower.” It confused me. I know black flowers exist, but the architect’s nickname for the project doesn’t help me understand this enormous, amoeba-shaped slab of concrete that the architect has plopped down onto the sunny Los Angeles terrain. And aren’t flowers, even black ones, usually delicate? This project is something much sturdier and larger, and when it’s done, will probably smell a lot more like the neighboring La Brea tar pits than a flower.

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What is the largest building in LA with net zero energy usage? This guy: the new offices of Morphosis Architects in Culver City. The project is at once muscular, techno-savvy and light. The project is muscular in a way that most Morphosis projects are – by highlighting the strength of steel with a cantilevers or large and dramatic steel frame. Here, a cantilever greets folks as soon as they drive into the gated parking lot.

The project is techno-savvy as it incorporates a bevy of innovative technologies. Not just the photovoltaic array that shades employee parking and provides the building with most of its energy, but technologies like the windcatchers installed on the roof. This is the first time these windcatchers have been installed in the states, and they reduce the energy usage of the building by ventilating the space in a way that moderates its temperature. And the project is light. The interior is bright and evenly-lit. There are white walls, a sloping white ceiling, and even a white floor in some spaces. Sixteen skylights light the large studio space; their perimeters are surrounded by florescent lighting for all the late nights employees surely find themselves working.

Chemistry conspires against us. We get older and our skin changes, sagging away from places it used to diligently cling to. Our hair changes, turning grey, completely disappearing, or just migrating from the top of heads down our backs. And our bones change, becoming less dense and more fragile. It turns out that chemistry also conspires against bridges; specifically, the Sixth Street Viaduct in Downtown Los Angeles. More than just chipping paint and rusting steel, the concrete used to build the bridge way back in 1932 had an unusually high alkali content. So for the past 80 years, an alkali-silica reaction has been deteriorating the bridge from the inside out. This makes the bridge especially susceptible to failure durring earthquakes so the city has decided to host a competition to replace the bridge. The three renderings above are from the finalists.

According to this World Architecture post, public reception of the three finalists was tepid: “the designs failed to capture the community’s imagination with its leaders describing all three schemes as turning their backs on the neighborhood.” Without being overly critical of the schematic designs, I feel like these bridges are spanning the murky territory from flamboyant to banal. Each design seems to start with an idea about the overall form rather than starting with an idea about how to best implement a structural system at this site. And as a result, each bridge looks like it has extraneous elements. Any bridge is better than a pile of rubble in the river, when the neighborhood residents aren’t excited about any of the designs, the pile of rubble seems inevitable.