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Techentin Buckingham Architecture:
Keeping it real-world |
Techentin Buckingham will pass on paper architecture. The Los Angeles studio, founded by college friends Warren Techentin, AIA, and Henry Buckingham, AIA, has focused its six years so precisely on real-world building that the partners only recently decided to enter one competition annually—if only to keep staff spirits high and creative juices flowing.
Click here to see images of six projects by Techentin Buckingham Architecture.
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By emphasizing construction, Techentin and Buckingham have engaged all kinds of clients and their associated sets of limitations. “We end up with a kind of straightforward Dutch model in which client interaction, big ambitions, and minimal means develop the program,” Techentin says. Some clever solutions surface along the way, too. For the clothing manufacturer Elwood, for example, the architects developed a cabinet design that could be lined with textiles of the company’s making. And when a Pasadena couple recently revealed that the husband’s father runs a shipping business in South Dakota, the team decided to fabricate their new home there and ship the parts to the site to reduce local construction costs.
Even projects seemingly unfettered by parameters can get creative. When Techentin remodeled his own home in nearby Los Feliz, he also served as general contractor, putting him in closer contact with different trades. After learning that one 81-year-old subcontractor specialized in Venetian terrazzo, Techentin made a point of experimenting with the material. Today, his kitchen countertop features the terrazzo polka-dotted with large circular stones.
By designing responses to the exigencies and surprise opportunities of each project, Techentin and Buckingham are moving only gradually toward a signature. The architects stand at a self-admitted crossroads, wondering whether Dutch-style pragmatism or a looser, folded language will become their M.O. Regardless, several unifying characteristics shine through the oeuvre, such as urban interaction. For the Casa Santa Ana parochial school in Los Angeles, the Archdiocese originally requested a simple set of additional kindergarten classrooms. But instead of tacking volumes onto the existing complex, Techentin Buckingham nestled the expansion into it; this courtyard-in-courtyard scheme allows the youngest students to see their role models in everyday situations. In a similar vein, residential projects like the Los Feliz house and a beach house in Ventura feature openings aligned to the neighborhood to encourage engagement between occupants and community landmarks beyond. These careful considerations reflect the partners’ longstanding interests. After graduating from Berkeley, the native Californians earned their M.Arch. degrees at Harvard and Columbia, respectively, with Techentin picking up an extra degree in urban planning. Both then worked in New York, at ARO, Resolution: 4 Architecture, and Selldorf Architects.
Although their firm’s formal stamp is undetermined, the architects agree that their everyday urbanism seems destined to stick around. Indeed, they’re working on three condominium projects, and each makes an attempt to contribute to their neighborhoods’ critical mass of activity with courtyards, mixed uses, and variously sized units that promote a wider profile of ownership. “We’ve taken the longer route through building,” Techentin says. Then again, that longer route has also yielded tangible places that are making greater Los Angeles a friendlier place to live.
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