Marcelyn Gow introduces Neil Denari, currently acting as special B. Arch thesis advisor, as an designer whose work engages architecture as part of a larger cultural project.

Denari challenges the B.Arch thesis students to re-examine what’s behind their interest in architecture. Is it architecture as a material and spatial thing, or architecture as social medium? He proposes to show projects currently in progress, all of which originated with developers.

He begins with an office building, 9000 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills (2019). Then Denari discusses three tower projects in Vancouver: a 37-story glass tower, West Broadway Towers (2020), and a white brick tower originally planned as condominiums, now to be apartments.

Denari discusses Los Angeles-area projects: an office building with retail space in green-glazed brick, a hybrid building in terms of form and structure, elevated on columns above a parking lot, a medical research/Wellness center, Santa Monica, and a 8-unit apartment building in the West Adams district.

Denari concludes with a discussion of the Sotoak Pavilion in El Paso.