LOT/ EK ARCHITECTURE : MIXER. INSTALLATION AND ASSEMBLY MANUAL

LOT-EK is an ar­chi­tec­tural de­sign stu­dio based in New York and Naples, Italy. Founded in 1993 by Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, it has de­signed in­sti­tu­tional, com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial pro­jects glob­ally. In ad­di­tion, LOT-EK has con­ceived and ex­e­cuted ex­hi­bi­tion de­sign and site-specific in­stal­la­tions for sev­eral cul­tural in­sti­tu­tions and mu­se­ums, in­clud­ing the Whit­ney Mu­seum of Amer­i­can Art, Mu­seum of Mod­ern Art (MoMA), Walker Can­ter, among oth­ers. Their pro­jects have been widely pub­lished and ex­hib­ited.[1][2] In De­cem­ber 2011, Ada and Giuseppe were rec­og­nized as USA Booth Fel­lows of Ar­chi­tec­ture & De­sign by United States Artists.[3] Upcycling & Sustainable Architecture As a stu­dio, LOT-EK is com­mit­ted to eco­log­i­cally re­spon­si­ble and in­tel­li­gent meth­ods of build­ing. They have built a crit­i­cal ar­chi­tec­tural prac­tice through re­search into the adaptive reuse («upcycling») of in­fra­struc­tural and in­dus­trial ob­jects - most no­tably the stan­dard 40-foot ship­ping con­tainer.[4] They are rec­og­nized for ini­ti­at­ing the con­cept of cre­at­ing ar­chi­tec­ture with ship­ping con­tain­ers and has suc­cess­fully lever­aged this con­struc­tion tech­nol­ogy with sev­eral award-winning pro­jects.[5][6][7][8][9][10] In ad­di­tion to uti­liz­ing con­tain­ers as build­ing blocks for ar­chi­tec­ture,[11][12] LOT-EK has up­cy­cled other ob­jects - in­clud­ing truck bod­ies, air­plane fuse­lages, and re­claimed wood or steel doors - as struc­tural in­ter­ven­tions to de­sign build­ings and in­te­ri­ors.[13][14][15] Their stated goal is to not only re­cy­cle an ob­ject, but to re­cy­cle the in­tel­li­gence that went into the object's de­vel­op­ment. LOT-EK's on­go­ing re­search has fo­cused on man-made ob­jects and sys­tems and the way they pro­lif­er­ate, ac­cu­mu­late, over­lap and in­ter­fere with the built, and nat­ural, en­vi­ron­ment around the globe. The man­u­fac­tured ob­jects that in­ter­est them in­clude: air-conditioners, air­planes, an­ten­nas, bill­boards, high­ways, jet­ways, and tun­nels; boats, booths, boxes, coils, cranes, ducts, lifts, lights, strips, scraps, stacks, shacks, sheds, and trucks; pack­ag­ing, park­ing, plumb­ing, scaf­fold­ing, ship­ping con­tain­ers and tanks. History Ada and Giuseppe trav­eled ex­ten­sively through­out the United States upon fin­ish­ing ar­chi­tec­ture stud­ies in Italy. In­spired by the Amer­i­can land­scape - both nat­ural and urban - they won a schol­ar­ship to con­duct post-graduate work at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­sity. This al­lowed them to ex­pe­ri­ence both the ex­per­i­men­tal aca­d­e­mic en­vi­ron­ment of Co­lum­bia, as well as the urban com­plex­ity of New York City. The work they pro­duced dur­ing that year was com­piled in a book, which served as the foun­da­tion of the pri­mary idea be­hind LOT-EK as a de­sign stu­dio. After suc­cess­fully sub­mit­ting their dis­ser­ta­tion in Italy, Ada and Giuseppe founded a stu­dio in Naples. On the basis of their work, as well as in­tro­duc­tions dur­ing their time at Co­lum­bia, Ada and Giuseppe began re­ceiv­ing com­mis­sions in the US. In 1995, they de­cided to open an­other stu­dio in New York City, and se­cured a loft in the then raw and unglam­orous Meat Pack­ing Dis­trict. This fur­ther es­tab­lished their prac­tice as a hands-on, artis­tic in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the cre­ative re­claim­ing of the in­dus­trial and man-made. Principals Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano each have a master's de­gree in Ar­chi­tec­ture and Urban De­sign from the Universita' di Napoli, Italy (1989), and have com­pleted post-graduate stud­ies at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­sity, New York (1990-1991). In ad­di­tion to head­ing LOT-EK, they cur­rently teach at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­sity, Grad­u­ate School of Ar­chi­tec­ture, Plan­ning and Preser­va­tion in New York, and the Mass­a­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Technology's Grad­u­ate De­part­ment of Ar­chi­tec­ture, in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts. They also lec­ture at uni­ver­si­ties and cul­tural in­sti­tu­tions in the US and abroad, and have pre­sented at con­fer­ences and meet­ings about sus­tain­abil­ity and the built en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing the Hol­cim Forum on Sus­tain­abil­ity 2010 (Mex­ico City), and the Kyoto In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy (Kyoto, Japan), among oth­ers. Publications LOT-EK: UPCYCLE, 2012. ISBN ISBN 978-1-105-96793-1 MDU Mobile Dwelling Unit, DAP, 2003. ISBN ISBN 978-1-891024-68-9 Urbanscan, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. ISBN ISBN 978-1-56898-300-4 LOT-EK Mixer, Edizioni Press, 2000. ISBN ISBN 978-0-9662230-9-5 Notable Works Whitney Studio (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City) APAP OpenSchool (Anyang, Korea) Puma City (Multiple global ports; planned installation in Boston, MA) Sanlitun North (Beijing, China) Sanlitun South (Beijing, China) Weiner Residence (New York City) Russell-Fontanez Residence (New York City) Pier 57 (Winning RFP design; in-progress; planned completion in 2014) Carroll House (in-progress; planned completion in 2013) Mobile Dwelling Unit or MDU (Multiple locations in the US)