Douglas Russ Newby | Work Sample

I am an archi tectural designer working and residing in Los Angeles, Cal i fornia. Having had the opportuni ty to l ive in several regions of the Uni ted States and travel through parts of Asia, North Afr ica, and Europe, I have come to v iew the development of successful archi tectural projects as an inherent ly region-speci f ic pract ice. Research into the local nuances of cul ture, c l imate, and ecology dr ives my work. For me, the ul t imate purpose of archi tecture is the provis ion of master plans, bui ld ings, and landscapes that perform del iberate and measurable funct ions, promot ing both ecological and social sustainabi l i ty, for the communit ies they are meant to serve.

Douglas Russ Newby

PROFESSIONAL WORK

1138 Wilshire Boulevard,Los Angeles, CA, p. 4

ACADEMIC WORK

L.A.gora: Polycentric Civitas, Graduate Thesis,Los Angeles, CA, p. 10

INDEPENDENT WORK

Newby Family Cabin,San Juan Mountains, CO, p. 22

In 2012, West Edge Architects was asked to provide the schematic design for a 90,000+ square foot commercial office building on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Lucas Avenue near Downtown Los Angeles. The client currently owns two low-rise office buildings on the block and is looking to expand their own offices while also investing in the asset of rentable Class A office space. Completing the program, the ground floor of the building is designed as public-use commercial space, including space for a fine-dining restaurant, small cafe, and a large suite for commercial retail. The new building is designed to complement the clients existing properties, creating a unified and pedestrian-scaled street edge along Wilshire Boulevard. The offices, elevated above the street, will offer sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills and Los Angeles Basin, while acting as a commercial balance to several new residential real estate developments in the area.

1138 Wilshire BoulevardCommercial Office Building

Westlake, Los Angeles

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Westlake, Los Angeles

The location on Wilshire Boulevard and Lucas Avenue, just across the Harbor Freeway from Figueroa Street in Downtown and within a ten minute walk of MacArthur Park, is capable of supporting a vibrant street life. To support this potential, the ground floor building envelope interacts with the street, providing several public amenities for the neighborhood. Employees, visitors, and everyday neighborhood inhabitants alike will be encouraged to linger.

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PRIVATE OFFICES

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2nd Level 3rd Level 4th Level

FLOOR PLANS “Useable” Area Exterior Deck

The envelope-adjacent private office is a requirement for the client. However, it is also important to ensure that all employees will have at least partial interaction with spaces lit by natural daylight on an everyday basis. To accomodate these competing requirements, the design consists of three distinct elements that fit together to create the overall composition of the building. The public plinth, clad in the same sandstone as the existing buildings, grounds the building within the context of the street, while the glass enclosure of the open offices acts as a counterpoint to the more weighty materiality of the private offices and public plinth. The resulting separations between private offices and public plinth allow daylight deep into the building.

4th Level 5th-8th Level

L.A.gora POLYCENTRIC CIVITASGraduate Thesis

The L.A.gora is an attack on the prevailing efforts to re-cast the City of Los Angeles as a typical “core-periphery” urban environment. Historically, Angelenos have found their civic identity in the localized nuances of their individual neighborhoods, and the unwarranted focus of political and economic capital on Grand Avenue and Bunker Hill has undermined and eroded this civic compact. In an attempt to (re)discover civitas in Los Angeles, the L.A.gora defines a methodology aimed at supporting and enhancing what is left of the city’s inherent, but neglected, polycentrism.

Miracle Mile District, Los Angeles

L.A.gora POLYCENTRIC CIVITASGraduate Thesis

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The L.A.gora is a parasitic urban form, seeking out areas of the existing urban fabric infused with civic “potential”. In the Miracle Mile District, for instance, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Hancock Park provide portions of the “facility” components that make up the holistic L.A.gora program. The ensuing built intervention completes the program, augmenting the existing neighborhood to support the emergence of a new civic center. This parasitic process would be undertaken throughout the city, but the resulting built intervention would be necessarily unique, based on the “potentials” found in a given neighborhood. In the Miracle Mile, for instance, the static process of artistic exhibition is balanced by the insertion of the active process of making art: the built intervention is an artist commune.

Block Structure vs. Programmatic Column Grid

The L.A.gora program requires a built form capable of simultaneously adapting to and co-opting the existing “potentials” of a particular site. Rather than adopt a monolithic, internally focused block structure, an infinite grid is overlaid on the entire Miracle Mile District. The grid provides a datum to anchor a series of programmed building elements; the resulting negative space becomes an amplified and continuously accessible pedestrian streetscape. The deconstructed building conforms to the site while multiplying the amount of programmed public space available to the Miracle Mile’s inhabitants.

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SECTION THRU LIBRARY, PLAZA, AND GALLERY

The vertical layering of the commune’s public programmatic elements “thickens” the site, expanding the area of potential interaction between artists living in the commune and the everyday inhabitants of the Miracle Mile District.

View of Gallery from Plaza | Vertical circulation elements play a conspicuous architectural role, promoting an atmosphere of public ownership over the commune; the visual prominence of stairs and elevators is a signal to visitors and artists alike that all levels of the commune are publicly accessible and provide a civic utility.

Reading Room | The Reading Room and Main Stacks of the Visual Arts Library are located beneath the plaza formed by the gallery, cinema, and above-grade portion of the library. Glazed areas of the plaza surface provide natural daylight for the reading room, while informing users passing through the plaza that the commune extends below their feet.

Plaza Plan & Principal Facades | While the L.A.gora is programatically parasitic, the architecture of the artist commune provides an expansion and enhancement of the Miracle Mile’s existing urban character. The public buildings are positioned toward Wilshire Boulevard and scaled to interact with the existing LACMA buildings: the 4th facade of the plaza formed by the gallery, cinema, and library is Renzo Piano’s BCAM building on the LACMA campus.

SECTION THRU KIOSKS / LOFTS, CINEMA, LIBRARY, AND SUBWAY STATION

The scale and footprints of buildings decrease as the artist commune extends into the residential neighborhood south of Wilshire Boulevard. The spacing of the “artist loft / kiosk” buildings provides intimate outdoor public areas where the informal exchange of goods and ideas between artists, visitors, and residents of the Miracle Mile District can occur.

SECTION THRU KIOSKS / LOFTS, CINEMA, LIBRARY, AND SUBWAY STATION

BCAM BUILDING

KIOSK MARKET PLACE & ARTIST LIVE-WORK LOFTS

The Artist Commune is a test case for a larger urban theory encompassed by the L.A.gora. The civic heart of Los Angeles is not locked away behind the freeway interchanges that surround Downtown; it is found on a thousand different street corners spread throughout the city. As we design and construct the urban future of Los Angeles, we can continue to ignore the city’s inherent polycentrism and build ever-more programatically generic civic monuments along Grand Avenue. Or, we can seek out the multitude of neglected sites throughout the city and offer precise interventions capable of releasing the latent civic potential buried in the city.

KIOSK MARKET PLACE & ARTIST LIVE-WORK LOFTS

NEWBY FAMILY CABIN San Juan Mountains Placerville, Colorado

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1) Two Level Mass• “Immediate Family” Program Above• “Extended Family” Program Below

3) Separate Upper Mass• Privacy for “Immediate Families”• Maintain compact mass for “Extended

Family” program.

5a) N-S Orientation??• Each “Immediate Family” Suite has

nearly identical characterisitcs (sunlight, daylight, view, etc.)

• No hierarchy between suites• But...

6) Sunlight• Provide direct sunlight to North Suite in

winter months through clerestory

7) Extended Family Program• Extend Lower Mass toward views

and access road to accomodate full “Extended Family” program.

5b) E-W Orientation!!• Each Suite is not used equally• Both Families will only occupy

home at same time during holidays.• Hierarchy between suites ensures

both families will use full building.

2) Pitch Roof• Accommodate Snow Loads• Increased efficiency for PV &

Evacuated Tubes

4) Vertical Circulation• Stairwell in Void between Upper

Masses.• Double-height space increases

efficiency of passive heating/cooling

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STAIRWELL MASTER SUITE View of Aspen Grove

The Newby Family has owned 35 acres of land in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado for over 30 years. In the early years, the family spent several weeks each summer using the property as a base camp for exploring the surrounding wilderness. As the children grew older and started families of their own, the plan was always to build a small cabin in the woods: a place to get away, congregate for special occassions, and pass down from generation to generation. Thus, the Newby Family cabin is not a home, in the general sense. It will be occupied by different parts of the family at different times, and for much of the time, may not be inhabited at all.

Given this constraint, the schematic design for the 1,500 gross square foot structure outlines an off-the-grid concept that takes advantage of the site’s access to sunlight, breezes, and both rain and ground water, while framing the views of the mountains and aspen groves that have become so important to the family. The building features double-leaf masonry construction to provide solidity against the wear of time, fire-resistance, and high termal mass capable of storing heat provided by the sun during the cold winter months. The spatial layout strives for social sustainability, developing a hierarchy between the two private suites on the second level aimed at preventing family members from claiming individual “ownership” over any part of the cabin; the family will develop its own rules for the alternating use of the master suite. In this way, the cabin will remain a shared retreat: a home for extended family.

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NEWBY FAMILY CABIN Energy Strategy

Heating Strategy

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Average Temperature June Hi: 77 December Hi: 35Lo: 15Lo: 52

For Ful l Portfo l io , Please Vis it

http: / / issuu.com/douglasnewby/docs/douglas_newby_selected_works

IMAGE CREDITS

Graphics and Wri t ings by Douglas Newby

COPYRIGHT

Professional Work, © West Edge Archi tectsAcademic & Independent Work, © Douglas Newby