Ball-Nogues Studio

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Ball-Nogues Studio is a Los Angeles-based design and fabrication practice started by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, now led by Ball. They work where art, architecture, and industrial design meet, creating site-specific installations from unusual materials such as Mylar petals, paper pulp, garments, and furniture. The studio emphasizes the process of making, researching materials and fabrication methods to push what’s possible.

Ball, from Waterloo, Iowa, grew up around theater, while Nogues, from Buenos Aires, was inspired by a father in aerospace engineering. They met as students at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in the early 1990s. After graduating, Ball did set and production design for film, music videos, and commercials (including work related to The Matrix) and contributed to projects like Walt Disney Concert Hall. Nogues joined Gehry Partners, focusing on product design and fabrication, until 2005. Their first joint project, Maximilian’s Schell (2005) at Materials & Applications in Los Angeles, used semi-translucent Mylar petals to create a multi-story pavilion and earned several awards, including an AIA Design Award.

The studio has created notable works for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: Copper Droopscape (2008), Elastic Plastic Sponge (2009), and Pulp Pavilion (2015). Pulp Pavilion, made from recycled paper pulp and spanning 1,300 square feet with seven 20-foot-tall woven tree forms, won Architect Magazine’s 2015 R+D Award for its innovative design and material use. Other important works include Skin and Bones at MOCA, a large cardboard installation for Tiffany & Co.’s Frank Gehry jewelry line, and Liquid Sky, a kaleidoscopic Mylar shade structure that won the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program.

Ball-Nogues Studio has earned multiple honors, including three AIA Design Awards, the United States Artists Target Fellowship, and a Graham Foundation grant. Their work is in the permanent collections of MoMA and LACMA. They were named Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York in 2011 and were Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize finalists in 2014. Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues have taught at SCI-Arc, UCLA, and USC, and their projects have appeared in major publications around the world.