GRANT BEAUMONT 2017-18   YEAR 3

An embedded hop drying house

The ‘LA Hop Drying House’ explores the journey of hop processing that takes place within the building’s drying floors, market place and soaking spaces in the centre of the Arts District- Each developed as isolated moments so the process is never seen in its complete state. Whilst the spaces are mostly private during the drying and testing phases, at regular intervals when the hops are ready, elements of the building open
to the public as a marketplace.

The lifespan of the building is key, and is directly correlated to Los Angeles’ ability to produce hops, leaving roughly 75 years of drying and soaking experimentation. During production cycles, hop oils from the building begin to etch directly into masked zinc surfaces of the floor plate fabric. Inscribed surfaces are then re-purposed as cladding elements, forming an ongoing record of the processes within the building, and allowing imagined glimpses into key working spaces.

Investigated through dissertation work, we begin to learn that a record of a space, at a particular time can never capture a moment in full. A record within the architectural world may not be as widely valuable as we think, as it becomes abstracted through multiple layers of observation. Both the building and the dissertation attempt to combat this, by proposing different methods of architectural observation and inhabitation that exist in short, sharp glimpses.

Tutors: Thomas Pearce, Greg Storrar