For this&nbsp;digital program, Neil Denari, FAIA, Neil M. Denari Architects, will sit down with Aaron Betsky from Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture + Design.

HL23 is a fourteen-story residential tower defining a distinct architectural character along the High Line and in the West Chelsea gallery district. The structural steel frames form the aesthetic skin of the building with patterned steel cladding. It establishes vistas while concealing the private nature of building function.

L.A. Eyeworks  

As a form of new “spatial identity” for l.a.Eyeworks, one of the most adventurous companies in the field of contemporary design, the new store finds its idea at the moment where the fixity of architecture and the seasonal change of new lines of glasses come together.

In working with the basic parameters of store design such as the demand for transparency from the street and from the sales counter, the design shapes space and movement though a continuous suspended surface. This gaseous blue surface performs many functions: perforated ceiling plane, window display, bench, shelving unit, and sales counter. By merging the functional demand with the formal ambitions of continuity, architecture and eyeglasses fuse as a coordinated design


Alan-Voo House

The clients for this house renovation / extension, a couple with three daughters, are a creative, democratic unit. The family have asked that 1,000 sf be added to the site in addition to the existing 1,000 sf house. 
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The scheme leaves half of the house for the daughter’s bedrooms and incorporates the other half plus new extensions in front and back into a public zone and a private bedroom for the parents. This strategy amounts to a new 16 ft wide linear house being inserted into the existing house. Multi-toned, bright colors accentuate the new pieces which suggests a graphic expression representative of the family’s interests. 


Endeavor Offices

Located within a 1961 Charles Luckman building in downtown Beverly Hills, this interiors project consists of 63,000 sf of offices for nearly 200 people and an 80 seat screening room. Endeavor is the third largest talent agency in the world and the company represents a wide range of writers, directors, and actors including Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson. 
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Given the straight forward planning dictated by the building, the more expressive aspects of the project can be found in ceiling / wall deformations surrounding the main lobby and conference room areas, and in the core elements that float within the field. The main premise of the open office space was to allow for daylight to reach into the assistant’s area. The sectional raise toward the perimeter and a band of clerestory glass creates natural lighting conditions that significantly enhances work life and the collective spirit of the agency.



Center for Architecture

Cocktails & Conversations: Neil Denari, FAIA, and Aaron Betsky

Neil Denari is an American architect, professor, author and the founder of Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA), a Los Angeles-based firm known for exploring the realms of architecture, design, urbanism, and contemporary life.Denari’s architectural approach emerged in New York during the 1980s with a series of theoretical projects and texts based on the collapse of the machine aesthetic of Modernism. He has held visiting professorships at several institutions, including UC Berkeley, Columbia, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Since 2002, he has been a tenured professor at UCLA.Denari has received numerous awards for his work, including an Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008 and a Fellows Award from United States Artists in 2009.&nbsp;

Aaron Betsky is Director of the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech. Previously, he was President of the School of Architecture at Taliesin. A critic of art, architecture, and design, Betsky is the author of over a dozen books on those subjects, including forthcoming volumes on Frank Lloyd Wright, and the landscape architecture firm Turenscape. He writes a twice-weekly blog for architectmagazine.com, Beyond Buildings. Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, Betsky was previously Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014) and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006), as well as Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). In 2008, he also directed the 11th Venice International Biennale of Architecture. His latest books, Making It Modern and Architecture Matters, were published last year.

Eben Klemm, a former research biologist, is especially interested in encouraging knowledge among bartenders concerning the basic chemical and physics principals that affect the materials they use in order to better understand the techniques they use. Klemm and his cocktails have been featured in such diverse local and national publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food and Wine, Time Out New York, Popular Science, and Playboy. He has also made televised appearances include The Today Show, CBS's Early Show and ABC 20/20. His cocktail book for beginners, The Cocktail Primer, was published in December by Andrews McNeel.

Neil Denari talks about the design of HL23

Neil Denari talks about the design of L.A. Eyeworks. 

Neil Denari talks about design of Alan-Voo House. 

Neil Denari talks about the design of the Endeavor Offices

Neil Denari talks about Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Cocktails & Conversations: Neil Denari, FAIA, and Aaron Betsky

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