photos by  Brandon Solis- Friend.

The Martin Architecture and Design Workshop(MADWORKSHOP) announces its participation at Dwell on Design Los Angeles, which runs from June 23 – 25 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Programming to include panel discussion on feasible solutions for homelessness, on-site exhibition and raffle for ‘Tiny Home’

MADWORKSHOP’s presentations at Dwell on Design LA are a natural extension of a course it recently sponsored at the USC School of Architecture. In keeping with its mission to support innovative, impactful design with social value, the design incubator created “Homeless Studio.”  Conceived by Founder Mary Martin and taught by Sofia Borges and R. Scott Mitchell to fourth-year architecture students, the curriculum addressed the architect’s role in solving homelessness and encouraged students to design and produce full-scale temporary, modular and expandable solutions as well as transitional housing.

“We are so pleased to participate at Dwell on Design and shine a light on one of the most pressing social issues of our time,” said David Martin, FAIA, Co-Founder of MADWORKSHOP and renowned architect. “Our young designers met the challenge of homelessness with empathy and ingenuity and have demonstrated how dramatically smart design can effect change.”

On Saturday, June 24th from 2:30-3:30 pm, MADWORKSHOP will present a panel discussion entitled “Answering the Challenges of Homelessness” moderated by Gale Holland of the Los Angeles Times. The talk will explore forward-thinking solutions that stand up to the challenges of tenant needs, zoning regulations, cost and prevalent NIMBYism.

Panelists include: Sofia Borges the Acting Director of MADWORKSHOP, writer, designer, curator, trend consultant, and faculty member of USC, fellow USC faculty member R. Scott Mitchell, the Owner/Principal at Gigante AG, a Los Angeles design-build and fabrication-consulting firm and Greg Kloehn, artist, tiny home builder, Founder of the Homeless Homes Project and guest lecturer for the Tiny Home portion of the course.

MADWORKSHOP’s Homeless Studio exhibition will include: Nomadic Shelters, collapsible, adaptive shelters that can be reconfigured and moved easily, constructed from easily found objects such as boxes or shopping carts; renderings of Homes for Hope, a 30-unit, stackable, transitional housing solution that won Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas Award” in the Student Category; and a Tiny Home, which will be built on site from found objects. Construction of the Tiny Home will begin at 10:00 am on Friday June, 23.

MADWORKSHOP will raffle off the completed “Tiny Home” to raise money for Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission in the San Fernando Valley, the client for whom the modular “Homes for Hope” units were designed. Once constructed, the 30 units will provide temporary “bridge” housing for the homeless. The design was so well received as a practical answer to the spike in LA’s homeless population, local officials and stakeholders are in talks to move the project toward fruition.

On Saturday June 24th at 3:45 pm David Martin will participate in a book signing in the Hennessey + Ingalls Reading Room for Joy Ride: An Architect’s Journey to Mexico’s Ancient and Colonial Places, a journal of his travels through Mexico that uses a series of sketches, photographs, and observations recorded and gathered over an extensive sojourn across the country.

About MADWORKSHOP

The MADWORKSHOP Foundation (501c3), based in Santa Monica, CA, was founded by David C. Martin and Mary Klaus Martin in 2015 to identify and support the next generation of inventors and designers with a focus on technological craftsmanship. The foundation serves as an incubator to foster innovative design with an underlying social value. Merging a contemporary aesthetic agenda, ambitious fabrication techniques, and the mentorship of MADWORKSHOP’s experienced Board of Directors, the foundation offers emerging designers at college level and beyond the opportunity to take their ideas from concept to reality. Through thriving fellowship and education programs, the foundation nurtures young talent who will make radical, sustainable, and impactful contributions to the design discourse and society at large.

With vital partnerships at leading academic institutions including the University of Southern California and ArtCenter College of Design, MADWORKSHOP sponsors one studio course per year focused on design and fabrication. Fellows are chosen from these courses and through open calls for proposals announced at the beginning of each year. Spanning from smaller scale furniture, product, and fashion design to space making and architectural investigations, MADWORKSHOP projects bring education and artistic innovation to the forefront of the creative design process.