S I T E W O R K S
a r c h i t e c t u r e

SITEWORKS ARCHITECTURE utilizes an laboratory approach to architecture, motivated by a search for alternative solutions to design problems. We are committed to an architectural process where conceptualization and the craft of making go hand in hand. Typically, with the site as canvas, we employ a strategy of interface between program, subject, and situation-place. Form without preconception then follows naturally. Each confluence of site and program constitute a sort of 'found' condition. Rather than relying on the 'found object' as sole determinant, however, the antithetical 'subject found' (i.e. human interaction) becomes equally important. The work does not attempt to exist as still life with the ejection of the subject, but is dependent on a symbiotic and dynamic relationship of site, user and used.

Kevin V. O'Brien
Partner, Siteworks Architecture

Kevin V. O'Brien

Architect Kevin V. O'Brien was educated at Oxford University, Emory University, and received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture at Ohio State University. His Master of Architecture was obtained from Yale University in 1988. He is a Board Member of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. O'Brien has practiced architecture in the Los Angeles area since 1988 with the firms S.O.M., Franklin D. Israel Design Associates, and Richard Meier & Partners. He is currently partners with Sigrid Miller Pollin in the firm Siteworks Architecture, with studios in Los Angeles and Riverside. He has been teaching architectural design at Cal Poly Pomona since 1994.

His work has received several awards for local and national projects and competitions, such as the Children's Head Start Competition, Urban Patterns Project, The D6E6 Beverly Center Project, the Pittsburgh Housing Competition, and the UCLA 'Urban Spaces' Competition. Many of these projects have been exhibited in various forums, such as the recent Brazil Biennale. In 1994 he was honored as one of the nation's outstanding young architects by the Architectural League of New York. Mr. O'Brien also supplements his professional and academic work by writing and lecturing on architecture. His work has been published in GA, Architecture Magazine, Progressive Architecture, Landscape Architecture, ZYZZYVA, Casabella, Variety, and GQ magazines. He is the recently appointed Director of the Neutra VDL Research House and is a Visiting Lecturer of Design at Cal Poly.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION; SAUROS - This recently completed project is a house for a Magician in the Nevada desert. The project is a formal investigation into the potential of the 'masque' as a layering of perception and reality. Masque here refers to the concept of camouflage (mask) as well as the manipulation of experience (masquerade), both of which are integral to the life and work of the client. Like the masque, the house conceals as it reveals, and thus becomes a site filter that controls the experience of the site from within. The house utilizes this system of layering to respond to the brutality and beauty of the desert site, and controls the desert climate's impact on the house through passive means. The client demanded that all preconceptions of traditional domesticity be rejected. The interior spaces utilize illusionary devices such as forced perspectives, mirror tricks, and secret panels to create a changing series of experiences. The magician will live with these elements as accurate accommodations for his own unique and profound conception of reality.

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