A duplex for two writers.  As a conceptual seed, focus was placed on the nature of the parking space as symbol and as the structure to guide the language of the rest of the building. The idea of the car and the parking receptacle alluded to imagery found in the writing of J. G. Ballard, and is particularly appropriate in Southern California culture.

The duplex attempts to reconcile the idea of building as language and building as sign. The idea of the car accident on the site can make use of the distinct language of the automobile as well as the nature of the site and deconstruction of the site in relation to itself and surroundings. In Southern California, the car accident has become the quintessential symbol, along with the palm tree, of course. 

The automobile accident and the architectural ruin attract people for the same reasons. The ruin is the decay of structures while the accident is shattering of objects, an instant ruin.  Ruins are accidents in slow motion. Here is the parallel between the aesthetic of a “ruin” and that of the engine. This duplex can take on the nature of the ruin as a preexisting, fragmented object which has been reoccupied. The repetitive fragmentation of forms brings us back to the repetitive forms of the ruin.   This duplex becomes a ruin not of what once was but what might be.