Beloit Facade

The graphic facade is a seven-story multifamily building along the 405 in Los Angeles whose facade operates as a vertical billboard. instead of advertising a product, is stikes a pose. A parametrically driven aluminum panel system, each panel bent at a slightly different angle from its neighbor, produces a continuous flowing surface clad in 3M reflective film, the same yellow and white material used on freeway signage. By day the facade catches and redistributes California light. By night, headlights and taillights strike the reflective surface and return as something painterly and unplanned, an abstract composition generated by traffic, never repeating. The bending of the panels does double work: offering spectacle to the city while redirecting views from the building's patios away from the freeway and toward the mountains beyond. A mirror turned outward. A billboard turned vertical.