The Santa Monica Car Showroom design by Fajer AlQattan, John Torpy, and Victor Nunez explores the idea of a showroom not only having a retail sales function, but also making it an educational tool for new Hydrogen Fuel Cell (HFC) cars. Its design is influenced, appropriately, by modern concept cars and automobile design to ensure a sleek and aerodynamic product. Because of its location on the waterfront, the structure is able to take advantage of the breeze by having exterior pleats in the surface. These pleats are a subtle design that actually reduces the amount of energy consumed by filtering the breeze into public areas of the building while leaving the private spaces mechanically ventilated. Its design is an open one to ensure maximum exposure to the public. “Circuits” mixing pedestrian and vehicular traffic from the HFC cars wrap around the entire building and form a conceptual basis for the building’s form.
By Lyly Huyen