Chu+Gooding Architects Joins Populous, HMC Architects and OLIN in $350 Million Project; School of Architecture Contributes to Overall Design
LOS ANGELES (August 10, 2015) – The architectural firm headed by Annie Chu, IIDA, AIA –respected architect, interior designer and Professor of Interior Architecture within Woodbury University’s School of Architecture – is part of the primary design team that has been awarded the $350 million Los Angeles Convention Center renovation project.
Chu’s firm, Chu+Gooding Architects, is a member of the four-firm collective, which includes Populous, HMC Architects and OLIN. The team’s progressive design focuses on placemaking, forward-thinking functionality and authenticity of experience. An animated walk-through is available on Vimeo; all 14 views of the proposed redesign have been posted on Curbed.
Chu, founding principal of Chu+Gooding Architects, contributed to the overall design concepts and interior architecture vision the interdisciplinary team proposed. Augmenting that effort, C+G associate Andrea Dietz — former Woodbury Graduate Program Activity Coordinator and Curriculum Specialist – contributed to Chu+Gooding’s design and School of Architecture adjunct faculty member Yilip Kang, a partner at Nephew LLC, contributed to the three interior renderings for the competition phase of the project.
“We are humbled by this commission, which truly was a Woodbury effort,” Chu said. “Together with my partners, Andrea and I worked on the competition, using interior architecture as a bridge to collaborate on such a large-scale project. Through his firm Nephew, Yilip and his partners helped tremendously with our three interior renderings. The Convention Center renovation will be an enormous boost to downtown L.A. and the entire region. We are thrilled to be a part of it.”
Last year, Chu received the International Interior Design Association’s Leadership Award of Excellence from IIDA’s Southern California chapter. She served as a Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles from 2010 to 2013, focusing on the re-launch of the Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel and public art initiatives that elevate the quality of public art and the built environment within Los Angeles. Her recent design work includes exhibit design for the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Hammer Museum; the LA County + USC Wellness Center; La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a Mexican cultural center in downtown Los Angeles; a new headquarters for Southern California Public Radio (KPCC 89.3) in Pasadena; and the Culver Center of the Arts at the UC Riverside ARTSblock in downtown Riverside, Calif.
Award-winning projects include a major renovation and addition to the 1950 Harwell Hamilton Harris masterpiece English House, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association’s office interior at Disney Hall, the interior renovation of a new home for the Kentucky Museum of Art + Craft in Louisville, the Architecture of R. M. Schindler exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and a material intensive experimental showcase for NeoCon West.
A native of Hong Kong, Chu received a bachelor of architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and earned a master’s in architecture and building design from Columbia University. As a recipient of the prestigious Skidmore Owings Merrill Traveling Fellowship, Chu toured Mayan and Incan architecture in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Peru before beginning an architectural practice that included 12 years with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in New York and Franklin D. Israel in Beverly Hills.
In addition to teaching at Woodbury, Chu has taught at the New York Institute of Technology, Parsons The New School for Design, University of Texas at Austin, UCLA, SCI-Arc, Art Center College of Design, Arizona State University and USC. She also has served the greater architecture community as 2009 Chair of the AIA California Council Design Awards Committee and as 2010 Chair of the National AIA Interior Architecture Committee. She contributes to professional publications and serves on the editorial board of Contract magazine.