HOLA’s state-of-the-art, three-story Performance Pavilion was designed by Berliner Architects and furnished by Arper. Arper creates spaces and solutions to move forward with intelligence and ease.
HOLA’s Arts & Recreation Center is located in the northeast corner of Lafayette Park, as the result of a formal public/private partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.
The facility was created as a community center for local youth, to elevate the arts and aid in the development and success of the next generation.
Opened in December 2019, the highly innovative construction includes the use of 47 modified, recycled shipping containers as “building blocks” to create an energy and cost efficient structure.
The facility’s design and footprint allows for maximum preservation of green spaces in order to live in harmony with the natural environment – going beyond preservation to enhance the outdoor space with more greenery, shade trees, and the injection of native plants, which returned biodiversity and native creatures the area has not seen in decades back to the park, now home to a family of hawks.
“With HOLA’s Arts & Recreation Center, we are creating a new vision for how young people should interact with the city – equitably. We are signaling an investment in the next generation, because they deserve it and we want to see their potential realized.
With Arper, we were able to create a high quality space just for the children – no more hand-me-downs, or spaces thrown together without intention,”
says Tony Brown, CEO of HOLA.
The industrial feel of the shipping containers necessitated efforts to make the space feel as warm and inviting as possible, a safe space where children can congregate to learn, relax, and socialize.
With the children responding best to bright, fun colors, Arper’s organic, clean lines and modern aesthetic fit seamlessly with HOLA’s vision for the space, airy with a ton of natural light from the surrounding windows and many creative pops of color lining the halls and classrooms.
HOLA’s state-of-the-art, three-story Performance Pavilion boasts 35-foot wide bi-fold doors that open into an amphitheater-like outdoor space where the community can enjoy performances by HOLA’s Youth Orchestra program. Multipurpose rooms reach as large as four containers wide, able to easily house large music ensembles of over 30 people.
Design by Lievore Altherr Molina, Soft yet sculptural, Colina is a family of armchairs, elegant in silhouette and generous by design. Though originally created to complement the fluid architecture of the modular sofa system Loop, its adaptive, organic form and diverse range of options invites inclusion in many contexts from offices to public spaces to homes, in groups or alone. Its open character encourages dialogue of all sorts in architecture as well as among colleagues and friends.
DESIGNING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN