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Artists and architects Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues of Ball-Nogues Studio have designed a suspended sculpture for the Centinela Area Building and Safety Permit Office lobby where engineers, architects and contractors, among others, apply for construction permits. Ball-Nogues' design exemplifies the artists' experimental and inventive approach to sculpture. The artwork is composed of over one thousand individual nickel and brass plated bead chains hanging from custom-made aluminum ceiling panels. Although the sculpture will be light-weight and diaphanous, it will have a voluminous and undulating quality intended to intrigue the waiting clientele.

As they do for many projects, the artists designed specific software to investigate the form, manage the chains, and expedite the cutting of the bead chains. The artists state that in their artistic process, "formal exploration and revisions are fluid and effortless: rather than drawing and measuring the length of each chain, we sketch the qualities of the installation in general terms; the software then automatically generates the thousands of catenaries, computes their lengths, and prepares labels to locate each chain once cut." This highly technical design process front-loads the fabrication work, making for a more efficient and effective installation.

About the Artists: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues of LA-based Ball-Nogues Studio, began their practice together after having met as Sci-Arc undergraduates. Prior to partnering in business, Benjamin Ball worked for several Los Angeles architecture firms including Gehry & Associates and Ramer Architecture, and Gaston Nogues worked as a product designer for Gehry Partners. As a Studio, Ball and Nogues have completed designs and installations for the New York Museum of Modern Art / P.S. 1, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and Materials & Applications. In the fall of 2008, they were invited to install their artwork, Echoes Converge, at the 2008 Architecture Biennial in Venice, Italy.

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