Led by partners Sarah Hirschman1 and Ann Worth,2 Object Projects is a California-based architecture studio focused on strengthening social infrastructure3 through design.
About
Led by partners Sarah Hirschman1 and Ann Worth,2 Object Projects is a California-based architecture studio focused on strengthening social infrastructure3 through design.
About
Oceanside, CA
A 1930s-era movie house turned live performance venue, the Brooks sits at the heart of Oceanside’s Cultural District. Using the alibi of deferred maintenance, strategic improvements ensure the theater’s long-term sustainability. Phase one reorganizes interior spaces to encourage lingering in a redesigned front lobby and a new connection to an updated studio theater. Phase two wraps the building in an acoustic facade that folds down to create an outdoor stage, activating the surrounding urban context.
Boulder Creek, CA
When rebuilding their home after a devastating wildfire in the Santa Cruz mountains, our clients’ first priority was space to throw (very) big parties. We envision a series of choreographed moments for performance—transportation of 40’-wide steel frames of the pre-engineered building through steep mountain roads, the procession through the residence when unveiling a new fursuit, tracing the path that friends coming to a rave will travel (acid safe!), the theatrical regrowth of the surrounding forest.
Encinitas, CA
The design and buildout of Necessity Coffee’s first brick-and-mortar shop required careful choreographing of space to reflect the care that is put into crafting each drink for the Encinitas community. For the exterior space we designed a simple construction assembly that the owner and community can construct on their own, which minimizes plywood offcuts, misuses standard sonotubes for seating structures, and facilitates flexibility and modularity.
Online
Current Objects is an imprint of Object Projects, an initiative that grew out of our desire to collaborate with distant colleagues during COVID. It is a publication of small things; a digital (and sometimes physical) store; a forum for experimentation and production. We see object-making as an extension of architectural practice insofar as every architect we know makes things. We collect them and offer them to the world as an expression of respect and appreciation.
Oceanside, CA
The “O” is an urban- scaled metal and light installation suspended above the intersection at Pier View Way and Tremont Street, the heart of Oceanside’s iconic weekly Sunset Market. A collection of elliptical discs are suspended from a network of steel cables, activating a central public space below one large “O”, a metaphor for the many people, narratives, and events that have formed Oceanside.
Toledo, WA
The Woodland Hotel project takes advantage of a loophole in Washington State zoning regulations that allow agricultural operations to maintain a small number of guest accommodations on site. Working closely with the owners and carefully mapping the existing trees on their heavily wooded property, we proposed a small campus of private but connected cottages. A winding pathway promotes accessibility of the woods surrounding the proposed network of structures.
Buena Vista Lagoon, CA
The Nature Center holds an exquisite collection of taxidermy, bones, eggs, insects, and fossils from the nearby Buena Vista Lagoon, yet it sits marooned on an asphalt island, lacking connection to the landscape. The project proposes incremental improvements to reposition the Center as a front door to the lagoon. The first phase is modest, removing defunct infrastructure, reorganizing existing exhibitions, and swapping paint colors. Later phases open specimen cases and reorient visitors towards the landscape.
Oakland, CA
Since 1974 Creative Growth’s mission has been to provide a professional studio environment for artists with intellectual or developmental disabilities, whose work is collected by collectors and museums, including SFMoMA. Creative Growth engaged Object Projects to lead a facility assessment and vision development process through the end of 2023 to help articulate a vision and imagine possibilities for growth and synergies within the organization and the architecture that supports it.
Lake Forest, IL
Drama Garden plays with the proscenium as a marker of theatricality, multiplying it and layering planes of performance space throughout the Ragdale grounds. The project is constructed of lightweight components: ratcheted slackline webbing, ultralight ripstop nylon fabric, reflective ink, and directional lighting. Fifteen curtains are suspended from a series of reflective slacklines and can be cinched as needed to create moments of opening or closure and to define a procession from entry to performance space.
Los Angeles, CA
This shortlisted proposal for urban student-work display aimed to pause a moment in the journey between warehouse and distribution to highlight the sheer effort involved in transporting and distributing a literal ton of water. The installation reveals the staggering scale of water inaccessibility in LA, with each pallet holding a weeks’ worth of drinking water for 34 people. The assemblies are composed of ubiquitous industrial materials: wood pallets, thermally insulating pallet quilts, and nylon strapping.