Lawrence Scarpa - Test Patterns

Lawrence Scarpa, Principal of Broooks + Scarpa has been selected as the Jon Adams Jerde, FAIA Chair in Architecture which honors Los Angeles architect Jon Jerde as an internationally renowned architect, urban designer, and distinguished USC School of Architecture alumnus. In addition to lecturing Scarpa will teach an undergraduate studio course during the fall semester. The work of Lawrence Scarpa has redefined the role of the architect to produce some of the most remarkable and exploratory work today. He does this, not by escaping the restrictions of practice, but by looking, questioning and reworking the very process of design and building. Each project appears as an opportunity to rethink typical processes and applications -- with material, form, construction, even financing -- and to subsequently redefine it to cull out its latent potentials -- as Scarpa aptly describes: making the "ordinary extraordinary." This produces entirely inventive work: it is environmentally sustainable, but not "sustainable design;" it employs new materials, digital practices and technologies, but is not "tech" or "digital;" it is socially and community conscious, but not politically correct. Rather, it is deeply rooted in conditions of the everyday, and works with our perception and preconceptions to allow us to see things in new ways. Over the last ten years, Mr. Scarpa&#39;s firm BROOKS + SCARPA received more than 50 major design awards, notably 18 National AIA Awards, including the 2010 <b>...</b>