Brix Restaurant

The site of the Brix restaurant in Venice, California can be characterized as a cacophony of visual interference. The response was to insert a pause into this hyperactive landscape of noise in order to achieve presence. Exploiting an interest in the ubiquitous type that is the billboard, COA chose to use it to new advantage. Acting as a filter to the street, the billboard is economical in its pre-engineering and fabrication, and extremely effective in providing a scaffold for the large, semi-transparent surface that the small building required. Its irony lies in the fact that it carries no message other than functioning to desribe space, shade and boundary. The result is that the simple, functional box that is the restaurant is able to presence itself in a strong, more profound way within the city.