PRP Now! Ariel Padilla // Synthesis Design + Architecture
PRP Now! aims to showcase the great experiences students encounter within the Professional Residency Program. PRP offers upper-level architecture students a unique opportunity to expand their education through work experience in the architectural profession. Over the past twenty years, our students have been linked with 260 firms in 29 countries. We will feature a handful of students within each session, graduate and undergrad, domestic and international firms. PRP staff mostly recently had the pleasure to speak with Ariel Padilla [B.Arch. '16] about his experience.
PRP: Tell us about your PRP firm. Where are you working?
I’m currently working for Synthesis Design + Architecture, a contemporary design practice exploring the intersection of Performance, Technology and Craft. We are located in DTLA and I’ve been here for three months. I really love it. I have always had an affinity for computer modeling, geometry and parametric scripting and I get it here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The office has an extensive arsenal of softwares and implement them as tools of the trade. We see software like Grasshopper and 3dsMax as not so different from an xacto knife or a set of watercolors if you are using them to visualize your designs.
PRP: Do you enjoy the city you’re working in? Favorite aspects?
I moved to LA from Austin and I have really been amazed at what it has to offer. LA is so weird. I mean so is Austin, but in a completely different way. This city is large and not necessarily the good kind like when you say you ordered a large box of red velvet chocolates. It’s terribly troubled by sprawl and has some of the worst traffic in the world. Luckily, what it lacks in efficiency it makes up in cultural richness and great weather. I work downtown all week and make an effort to discover new areas of the city every weekend. The best part about living here is that if I’m on the bus to the LACMA and nap through my stop I end up on the beach. It is really a win/win situation.
PRP: What is currently on your desk? What are you working on?
On my desk is my sketch book, a latte, my fave Muji pens, a few books, my Graptoveria Echeveria named Concepción and a couple of 3d prints. I'm currently working on research for high efficiency, unsupported 3dprinted structures. Essentially a lot of wasted material goes into creating support for a 3dprint that will eventually be removed and thrown away. Our research aims to create geometry, using parametric scripting, that has the support structure designed into the final form. Ideally, at the end of a print there would be no wasted material and we would have a designed product that we are proud of. Since this is part of larger goal we have found ways to incorporate what we have learned into products, this way we are not just mindlessly building random objects. We’ve made a chair, a lamp shade and a fruit bowl. The office is quite dynamic at any point I could be stripped of my current duties and be given a new task if there is something more impending. I very much like this aspect, I never really know how the day will end.
PRP: Describe the firm culture? The office atmosphere?
The office atmosphere is relaxed and high energy. That could be an oxymoron, but it’s like a coffee shop during midterms. Everyone is working diligently and effectively but not pulling back to back all nighters. Well, unless there is a big deadline, but doesn’t everyone do that? Regardless, there is always a great spotify playlist playing on communal speakers and we take lunch on the roof of the high rise where the office is located.
PRP: What is the first thing you'll tell your classmates upon your return to UT?
I’ll probably be complaining about the weather back in Austin. Then I’ll tell them I really missed them. I do.
PRP: As you’re finishing up the week, what are your plans for this weekend?
Umm there are thesis final reviews at SciArc, which I will go to on Friday. After that I’m going to Las Vegas. It sound really west coast of me to say that but it just so happens my brother is visiting this weekend and I just finished reading Learning from Las Vegas.
PRP: Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Hook em’.