Recent Programs

Materials & Applications is happy to announce the public launch of 96.7 KGAP-LP FM, Los Angeles’ only terrestrial architecture radio station. In collaboration with Lookout FM (run by Cameron Stallones), KGAP will feature programs that fill in gaps of architectural programming by prioritizing the voices and perspectives of those that are most marginalized in the practice and discourses of architecture and art.

On the occasion of Veil Craft, Materials & Applications with Craft Contemporary presents a conversation between practitioners across art and architecture on the topic of textiles and fibers to explore connections between and beyond.

Veil Craft is a new exhibition by Materials & Applications that proposes to investigate the cultural resonance of such industrial ready-mades seen throughout our city. The exhibition features new work by emerging San Francisco-based architectural studio Figure, whose installation deploys such textiles as artistic material rendered anew by architectural craft. Following our history of production, the installation transforms an underutilized urban courtyard into a temporary pocket park, unfolding in the summer of 2020 in the courtyard of Craft Contemporary

The last year has been a strange one for workers. Will there be layoffs? What is really expected of us? Are we being treated equitably? Can we have a say? Crisis can reveal and make more urgent the questions we’ve had all along.

M&A will celebrate May Day this month by learning about unions: what they are, how to form one, and who they empower. Join us for a workshop with Architecture Lobby organizers Keefer Dunn and Shota Vashakmadze, plus a presentation from Olivia Leiter of the MOCA Union.

Materials & Applications is excited to announce Kate Yeh Chiu as our new Executive Director, effective January 1, 2021.

After six years of working for Materials & Applications as Executive Director and Curator, I will be transitioning into a new position outside the organization effective January 2021.

In collaboration with the SCI-Arc Student Union, Why Not Us? will explore non-traditional and critical modes of architectural practice and organizing, and speculate on how architecture can learn from mutual aid. The workshop is oriented towards identifying harmful systems present in traditional practices and internships, and will serve as a platform to brainstorm how students can instead build their own mutual aid networks and social infrastructures to flatten leadership in architectural production.

In conversation with educator and activist Dean Spade, we will consider how mutual aid can challenge the organizational logic of professional practice. These networks focus on immediate forms of care rather than categorical solutions. What might architecture gain by moving away from transaction and toward care? Join us in reading and discussing a short chapter of Spade’s forthcoming book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next), with the author and with each other. Register now to receive future updates, materials, and resource guides.

Somewhere between an Enzo Mari puzzle, a fashion storefront display, and an IRL infographic, the installation amplifies the literal container of the Storefront to extend itself to something that is thick with an attitude about the issues at play. Re-imaging the crisis through the ethos of mutual aid, Hammer's project evokes how the sharing of things, alongside language and information, become tokens of love for a community in need.

Shade is a crucial yet criminalized resource in Los Angeles. Join us for six stories about shade and its criminalization in Los Angeles. Moderated by Sam Bloch, this session will address the complications of heat and shade through the topics of homelessness, the LA River, street vending, tree canopies, and public transportation. Speakers include Geneviev Liang from SELAH, Mark Vallianantos from LA Metro, Jessica Henson from LA River Project, and Lyric Kelkar from Inclusive Action, among others.

6° is a single-day virtual symposium bringing together six L.A. non-profit art organizations. Tune in for individually presented programs from each institution, as we aim to begin a collective and open conversation around racial inequalities in the art world.

EXTENDED—New Deadline Oct. 31st

Materials & Applications (M&A) is seeking an Executive Director to helm the next chapter of our Los Angeles-based project space for experimental and critical architecture.

We’ve compiled an FAQ from applicants of the Director Search to share with our audience and constituency.

Help us distribute urgently needed water and resources to our unhoused neighbors in Echo Park and neighboring areas. Materials & Applications is converting the M&A Storefront (1313 Sunset Blvd, Echo Park) into a mutual aid drop-off center and collection site. From there, we will coordinate with already existing initiatives including Waterdrop LA, SELAH and Street Watch to distribute these donations.

Heat Aid is a mutual aid initiative that pairs direct action with public programming to address water and shade inequity in Los Angeles.

Recycling Day is an event centered on collective building and sharing. Operating in the space between a gravel pile and a building, yyyy-mm-dd presents a new instantiation of their ongoing research into textile forms that become structural when filled with loose aggregate.

Building On Digital Foundations presents the uses of “big data” in development and construction industries, examining the ways data drives decisions by investors, developers, construction companies and design teams. The talk surveys the emerging field of “prop tech”: the loose network of research labs, startups, coders, and entrepreneurial academics searching for strategic uses of this new source of information.

Join us for a lecture by Alex Maymind on the history of shotcrete's aesthetic and technical progress.

Scoring, Building is a new installation by architect Michelle JaJa Chang that investigates architecture as allographic work. The installation is scored in three recursive “iterations”, each one accompanied by a public program. Iteration III (of III) takes place on February 29th, 7pm - 9pm at the Mackey Apartments with a closing party.

M&A is seeking proposals for experimental exhibitions, architectural activities, experimental program formats, and new forms of community outreach. Applicants who are focused on programming-based exhibitions that explore the use of a space outside of regular exhibition use are encouraged to apply.

Scoring, Building is a new installation by architect Michelle JaJa Chang that investigates architecture as allographic work. The installation is scored in three recursive “iterations”, each one accompanied by a public program. Iteration II (of III) takes place on February 15th, 7pm - 9pm at the Makey Apartments with a special program by CCMA.

Materials & Applications presents SLOW DANCE x budget gym, a participatory performance by Virginia Swenson. Designed for Laida Aguirre’s installation [ a kit of these some parts ] x budget gym ], SLOW DANCE consists of dual audio tracks that guide participants through individual exercises, creating a cohesive choreography within the budget gym.

Scoring, Building is a new installation by architect Michelle JaJa Chang that investigates architecture as allographic work. The installation is scored in three recursive “iterations”, each one accompanied by a public program. Iteration I (of III) takes place on February 1, 7pm - 9pm at the Makey Apartments with guest appearance and electronic music performance by Neil Denari.

Join us on Saturday, January 18th, 7pm-9pm at the Mackey Apartments for the opening reception of Scoring, Building, a new installation by Michelle JaJa Chang that presents architecture as an allographic work.

Michelle Chang'sScoring, Buildingis a spatial installation and architectural performance that centers on construction’s durational aspects, rather than its finished form.The installation is scored in three recursive “iterations”, each one accompanied by a public program in order to unpack the ideas of the installation itself.

Staging Construction, an exhibition and public program by Materials & Applications that explores construction as both practice and performance. Staging Construction is curated by Jia Yi Gu with support from the Contemporary Council of M&A (CCMA).

Join us for the LA book launch of Unresolved Legibility In Residential Types, a five year-long research project by architect Clark Thenhaus that offers new interpretations of American residential architecture.

[ a kit of these some parts ] x budget gym ] is a temporary work-out space constructed from a deployable kit-of-parts assembled to form a functional gym. The project is a new work by stock-a-studio installed in the M&A Storefront, an experimental exhibition space and architecture activity center.

Bringing Los Angeles- and Berlin-based architects together for an afternoon of conversation, Bauhaus Looking Forward seeks to identify past challenges and possibilities that might be recognized as present among current practices. Initiated by the Getty Research Institute, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, A+D Museum, and Materials & Applications, Bauhaus Looking Forward is presented as part of a series of programs that will unravel at multiple venues over the course of 2019.

Join us for Sunday Summer Steams at the Craft Contemporary featuring Michael Parker’s Steam Egg. Don’t forget you bathing suit!

SHOP & SUPPORT