In this film David Freeland and Brennan Buck, principals at FreelandBuck, discuss “Views from the Field,” their recent SCI-Arc Gallery exhibition which extends their research and design work on the history of architectural illusion in the context of contemporary visual culture and emerging flatbed printing technology. “Views from the Field” documents the spatial complexity of Walter Netsch’s late-twentieth-century architecture through the photographs of Orlando Cabanban. Taking inspiration from Cabanban’s photographic interest in capturing multiple subjects within each frame, the exhibition reconstructs the photographs as large three-dimensional image-objects. Each recomposes and transforms the space of Netsch’s interiors into a multitude of views and illusionary spaces. The architecturally-scaled objects are designed, detailed, and assembled from graphically-printed architectural materials.

FreelandBuck is a Los Angeles and New York City-based architectural office founded and led by Brennan Buck and David Freeland. Established in 2010, the office makes buildings, spaces, and objects that engage the public through layers of meaning, illusion, and visual effect. With each project, FreelandBuck aims to create distinct spaces that contribute to a more stimulating, aesthetically engaging, and challenging world. The firm’s architecture and public artwork is notable for its visual richness, intricate spatial sequences, and use of drawing and imagemaking at an architectural scale. FreelandBuck is a winner of the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices Prize in 2019. They were named a finalist for the 2018 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, a member of Architectural Record’s 2017 Design Vanguard, and a winner of the 2017 AIA LA Next LA Award for their project, Second House. Other recent projects include Stack House, a residential project in Los Angeles that was both designed and developed by FreelandBuck; Down the Block at the MRT Health Center in LA, “Parallax Gap” an installation originally commissioned by the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum that will be exhibited at HALO in downtown LA later this year; and the LA headquarters of Hungry Man Productions, among other residential, commercial, and cultural commissions.

Crew Credits:

Production:
Creator and Executive Producer - Hernán Díaz Alonso
Producers - Marcelyn Gow/Reza Monahan
Director - Reza Monahan
Director of Photography - Sean Morris
B Camera - Alex Valesco
C Camera - Mitch Brinker/Michael Rice
Sound Engineer - Chris Trueman

Post-Production:
Story Producer - Caroline Post
Editors - Sean Morris/Reza Monahan

Soundtrack:
"Nine Lives" by Unicorn Heads
"Smooth and Cool" by Nico Staf
"Vital Whales" by Unicorn Heads

Additional Images and Video Provided by FreelandBuck

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