HI		LO
	A conversation with Thom Mayne on his unique approach to architecture.

He's been referred to as the bad boy of architecture, but when you look at the unassuming, 62-year-old Thom Mayne, co-founder of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and architectural design firm Morphosis, the aforementioned moniker isn't the first thought that comes to mind.

However, when judging him solely on his award-winning designs and his architectural philosophy of "behaving not within the norm of expectations," you begin to see where his 'bad boy of architecture' image comes from.

A graduate of USC and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Mayne was the 2005 recipient of the Pritzker Prize, considered to be the world's most prestigious architecture award. While his story is hardly that of rags-to-riches triumph, Mayne wasn't always embraced with such fervor in the architectural community.

Along with the praise and accolades, there are individuals, both inside and outside of the architectural community, who criticize Mayne and his work with the harshest of terms, calling it cold, aggressive, unwelcoming, alienating, and even nihilistic.

Despite years of small projects and a career that consisted of mainly 'paper architecture' - abstract designs traditionally thought to be made more for their artistic rather than practical value - Mayne has stayed true to himself. He's asserted that he's extremely comfortable when his work is attacked and maintains that he's not looking for validation - "I don't work for awards, I work for my projects."

Mayne's philosophy eventually paid off when he won a design competition in 1993 for the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona. Completed in 1999, Mayne describes the school as being his first piece of work that he could believe in - "This was the first project where the aesthetic act and the social act were singular."

Since then, Mayne and his Morphosis design firm have enjoyed an immense amount of success both commercially and critically by garnering awards and multiple design opportunities. Morphosis has completed projects both locally - the Science Center School and Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in Los Angeles - and internationally - the Hypo Alpe-Adria Center in Klagenfurt, Austria and the Sun Tower in Seoul, Korea.

Current projects include the San Francisco Federal Building and the Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse in Eugene, Ore.

		CALTRANS DISTRICT 7 HEADQUARTERS The 13-story Caltrans District 7 Headquarters building encompasses an entire downtown L.A. city block. "Enrobed in a constantly changing mechanical skin that is alternately open or closed depending on the conditions of outside temperature and sunlight, the building's fundamental property is that of transformation," according to the Web site Arcspace. Other features include an outdoor lobby which acts as a plaza to engage street traffic, a light installation by artist Keith Sonnier entitled Motordom, and elevators that only go to every third floor with the intention of promoting interaction between employees. For the design of the Caltrans building, Morphosis was awarded the 2005 Honor Award for Design from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
		SCIENCE CENTER SCHOOL The redesigned, state-of-the-art Science Center School rests in South Los Angeles. The renovation of the 120,000-square-foot main building, now known as the Wallis Annenberg Building for Science Learning and Innovation, now consists of eight classrooms, administrative offices, a multi-purpose room and the school library. In addition, Morphosis constructed an entirely new 34,000-square-foot building which holds 20 classrooms separated into five groups. Each group of four classrooms is connected to a commons room designed for scientific experiments. The Science Center School is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, but by joining up with the California Science Center, who help operate the facility, the school curriculum is able to focus on science, math, and technology, creating an ideal environment for creative and progressive scientific learning.
		DIAMOND RANCH HIGH SCHOOL The 72-acre hillside campus of Diamond Ranch High School in Diamond Bar holds 150,000 square feet of buildings. This includes 50 classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria, administration building and parking for 770 automobiles. The land, which was originally considered unfit for building due to its steep slopes, was donated to the Pomona Unified School District. Due to both budget and environmental concerns, much of the lands natural elements were incorporated into the design of the campus.

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