Formation Association

Happy Lunar New Year from Formation Association!!! . . . Celebrating the Year of the Horse and embracing freedom, high-energy change, and bold, decisive action! Galloping forward, glimpse over our shoulder with us to see some of the journey that brought us here. We thank all of our incredible collaborators, clients, and partners for riding with us! Some images and highlights from the upper left: 1. Bronze Celestial Horse, Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 CE), China 2. Atwater Canyon recognized with AIA Los Angeles Design Award in Adaptive Reuse / Renovation category, 2024 3. Zócalo Public Square publishes Formation Association Design Director John K Chan’s article on Wildfire Recovery, ‘How Altadena Can Rebuild Smarter’ , emerging from his work in the Wildfire Recovery Think Tank (WRTT). 4. Studio City residential project, interior rendering for Phillips auction house Gallery Manger, Alexis Chompaisal 5. Parker Gallery, Formation Association’s latest commercial gallery project, opened for Frieze, 2025. Definitely visit this amazing gallery program and building if you haven’t yet! 6. Grace U. Oh, Formation Association’s Managing Director, delivering opening remarks at the Hammer Museum last weekend for Voices of the Diaspora, the third installation of AAPI Arts Network’s annual symposium – bringing together diasporic and Indigenous artists and cultural workers of color to challenge colonial legacies and reimagine art histories by exploring the complexities of migration. #formationasociation #architecture #interiors #art #design

Seoul’s art scene needs no introduction as the ‘Art World’s Hot New Destination’, heralded by @travelandleisure , and @artnet dishes ‘Where to Go, Where to Stay, and Where to Eat Korean Fried Chicken…’ for incoming Frieze Seoul travellers — it’s officially mainstream intel.  But it still takes real insiders to navigate what matters beyond the art commerce frenzy. Formation Association’s own Managing Director Grace U. Oh brought her Korean American art insider expertise to Frieze Seoul 2025, participating in the Frieze Talks panel ‘Art Foundations and the Ecology of the Art World’ and serving on the Frieze Stand Prize Jury. Through a dynamic conversation with foundation leaders from across Asia and beyond, the ‘Art Foundations and the Ecology of the Art World’ panel offered a behind-the-scenes look at how foundations are reimagining their roles in building art’s future.  Moderated by Gabriel Ritter, Director of the UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum, Grace’s conversation partners included cultural leaders Zoe Butt, Founder & Executive Director, in-tangible institute; Laurencina Farrant-Lee, Director, Songeun Art Center; and Patrick Sun, Sunpride Foundation.  Adjudicating across the expansive floor of 121 exhibitors in Frieze Seoul’s 2025 edition, Grace joined fellow Californian Gabriel Ritter and Hyejung Jang, Chief Curator at DASOON Art Center and co-organiser of WESS to award Tokyo gallery Take Ninagawa the  Frieze Stand Prize — congratulations @takeninagawa booth A34!!  The winning presentation spotlighted diverse, multigenerational artists — many female — who transform everyday objects into new points of inquiry, with works by Aki Sasamoto, Stella Zhong, Ryoko Aoki, Gozo Yoshimasu, Yoko Daihara, and Shirno Ohtake.  Detail images, show mixed-media sculptures by Aki Sasamoto, relating to her Sounding Lines commissioned installation at Para Site, Hong Kong, and also Shinro Ohtake, among Japan’s leading contemporary artists, presenting a sculptural work binding together individual pieces in Scrapbook #68. . . . #Freize #FriezeSeoul2025 #Seoul #travelandleisure #artnet #artfoundation #takeninagawa #건축 #建筑 #建築 #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #akisasamoto #shinroohtake

Parker Gallery is Formation Association’s latest adaptive reuse art gallery project. Dramatically altering and reorganizing a modest existing mid-century office building, the redesigned spaces and attendant site improvements invite an abundance of light and layering of views while expanding the gallery’s extended programming and events outdoors Opening just in time for @friezeofficial LA earlier this year, Parker Gallery’s inaugural shows presented the works of Joe Minter & Daisy Sheff at the new Melrose Ave location.  We’ve enjoyed hearing the beaming and articulate notes from many who’ve visited the gallery space since then – in the LA art world and beyond!  As for the last image and latest reason to visit Parker Gallery this Friday, Sept 12:  Lukas Geronimas opens with his third solo show with the gallery’s program: Ordinal Reject.   The new show delivers both a walkaway keepsake and an installation in dialogue with the gallery’s architectural environment! More on Ordinal Reject below: At the entrance to the gallery, visitors are greeted with a takeaway card that reads: “That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.” The text is from The Claw of the Conciliator, the second volume in American writer Gene Wolfe’s four-part science fiction series, The Book of the New Sun. With this phrase in mind, the works in the exhibition begin to take shape, creating an aura of foreboding, mystery, and intrigue. Within the gallery, Geronimas has installed nineteen wall mounted sculptures around the perimeter of the room, surrounding the exposed ceiling beams and adjoining joists original to the gallery’s 1947 building. Conceived in response to the architectural hardware, his new series of Custom Joist Hanger Cover and Lures are detailed in their ornamentation and decidedly handmade, belying traditional function and mass utility.  Lukas Geronimas September 12-November 1, 2025 Parker Gallery 6700 Melrose Ave Los Angeles CA 90038 Tuesday–Saturday 11am–6pm . . . Special thanks to our collaborators for making this project and miracles happen! See you guys at the show!! @nousla @fmslighting #EngineousGroup #MarkHaddawy Photos @sevlasphoto

Formation Association Design Director John K Chan’s recent essay for Zocalo Public Square explores how neighborhood culture can inspire transformative solutions for wildfire recovery. Read “How Altadena can Rebuild Smarter” — via link in bio. . . . Drawing from John’s work with the Wildfire Recovery Think Tank (WRTT), an interdisciplinary volunteer network advancing culturally responsive wildfire recovery for Altadena and other wildland-urban interface communities, the essay challenges California to “Ditch ‘Suburbrain’ Logic and Embrace Design That Puts Community First’. Article excerpt: “Expanding our urban and social imaginations, we might activate new California housing policies, in combination, to help communities flourish after fire. We also might mitigate our widespread housing crises, and fight back against an epidemic of loneliness—manifestations of our rush toward the three-bedroom, two-bath pinnacle of the American Dream”. Concept illustrations created by Formation Association for the WRTT. Many thanks to @m0irash0urie , #erynbrown, @skrothbard , & @thepublicsquare for amplifying these ideas on such an exceptional platform for public conversation! The article can be found at the Zocalo Public Square website: /how-altadena-can-rebuild-smarter/ Stay tuned for more collaborations between Formation Association and the WRTT! Follow @wrttconversation to join the growing WRTT activism! . . . #formationassociation #zocalopublicsquare #wildfirerecovery #wildfirerecoverythinktank #altadena #altadenarecovery #microvillage #micromixeduse #suburbrain #urbanism #wui #wildlandurbaninterface #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計

THE LOS ANGELES OF TOMORROW Tuesday, April 28 @ 11am PT Free with RSVP, see link in bio Friends, colleagues, & extended family - join us for this critical chat on LA wildfire recovery hosted by the MOCA Environmental Council! @john_k_chan will be unpacking the conversation John will be unpacking the conversation from his perspective as an architect and also as founding participant in the Wildfire Recovery Think Tank (WRTT) - a relational network of cross-sector thought leaders and wildfire victims working to catalyze restorative and transformative outcomes in Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and endangered communities, existing across California, living in the wildland urban interface. . . . Resilience & Rebuilding is an open ended series of virtual programs exploring the impacts of the recent devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, offering a container for conversation and pathways for rebuilding that foreground ecology, community, and collective wellbeing. The third program in the series will look to a future LA, reimagining a more resilient and environmentally responsible city of tomorrow. Speakers will consider visionary frameworks including architecture that emphasizes the commons, improved insurance systems, traditional ecological knowledge, and artist-led activism. The goal of Resilience & Rebuilding is to develop guidance for rebuilding efforts, from within and beyond the art sector, over the months and years to come. In addition to inputs from scheduled speakers, we encourage attendees to share their testimony and questions in the chat as part of this evolving document. Resilience & Rebuilding is supported by Nora McNeely Hurley and the Manitou Fund. The series is jointly organized by MOCA Environmental Council Co-Chairs Andrea Bowers and David Johnson, Environmental Council Advisor John Quigley, and Environmental & Sustainability Strategist Kelsey Shell with support from Alitzah Oros, Public Programming Associate. . . . #formationassociation #wildfirerecoverythinktank #moca #resilienceandrebuilding #thelosangelesoftomorrow #wildfire🔥 #wildlandurbaninterface #wui

Adjacent to the human toll and community devastation of LA’s recent wildfires, the latest report by @latimes of the financial cost of destruction is $250 billion. The annual operating budget for the entire state of California is $322 billion. A looming deficit. Against the backdrop of staggering figures and economic shortfalls, the most important kind of money that exists in California right now is the little remaining equity of Altadena and Palisades households - the financial lifeline preserving these communities most affected. Cross-sector collaboration in our state must quickly mobilize to help save these neighborhoods from forces of bad actors, private equity, and municipal mismanagement. The equity of these wildfire affected households and communities are now literally the gold of the Golden State. #saveourcommunities #losangeles #altadena #palisades #wildfire #california #goldenstate

#wip hoping your holidays are filled with euclidean surprises! #formationassociation #residentialdesign #euclid #disneystudiosadjacent #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計

#wip stick with it stick together stick frame stick around #formationassociation #residentialdesign #framing #disneystudiosadjacent #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計

#wip framing for structure, site lines, state of mind #formationassociation #residentialdesign #framing #disneystudiosadjacent #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計

Closing Reception for Michael Coughlan’s exhibition “Atavistic Impulses b/w Tales of the Unheimlich” this Saturday November 9th at council_st from 2 to 5p. Come by enjoy the work and have some pizza! 3019 Council St (or thereabouts) LA 90026. . @mcoughlan @sheilabuchanancoughlan @pinkyjones @formation_association @kentmyoung1

Formation Association Field Notes, Hong Kong: I.M. Pei exhibition opening at M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture. The first full-scale retrospective of the acclaimed architect, ‘I.M. Pei: Life is Architecture’ presents over seven decades of hight profile projects through photography, drawings, and full scale models, representing various stages and themes of Pei’s career. The OG Asian American Starchitect, Pei’s work was realized across the globe. Mounted at M+ in Honk Kong, the show is an overdue survey of one of the most celebrated modern architects of his era, and an oblique commentary on the continued underrepresented role of Asian American architects in ours. I.M. Pei: Life is Architecture 貝聿銘：人生如建築 Through January 5, 2025 Curated by Aric Chen and Shirley Surya Props to @graceuoh M+ American Friends Foundation Visionaries for supporting Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture! #hong kong #formationassociation #fieldnotes #impei #lifeisarchitecture #m+ #suhanyaraffel #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計

Yo Eastside! Join us for a hop, skip, and a jump touring Atwater Canyon & Council_St Art Shed this Friday with Formation Association Design Director, John K Chan, AIA LEED AP! Link in bio for tickets to this eastside twofer architectural tour, part of AIALA’s Spring ARCH TOUR FEST! . . . Atwater Canyon is an adaptive reuse project which introduces a canyon-like paseo through an existing single story unreinforced masonry building, situated in the Atwater Village commercial corridor on Glendale Boulevard. The paseo creates a new thoroughfare between sidewalk and parking lots in this mid-block urban condition while more than doubling the commercial ‘frontage’ of the building, which anticipates new restaurants and retail tenants forming a collective urban destination. Council_St Situated in the Historic Filipinotown domestic landscape, the Council_St Art Shed is an art studio wrapped in shingles, shedding water and notions of building type alike. Programmed by owner and artist Kent M Young, the space is used for his own studio practice and for his commercial gallery program, ‘council_st’ which opens to the public, attendant with an emerging contemporary art scene. . . . #formationassociation #aiala #atwatercanyon #atwatervillage #adaptivereuse #urbandesign #losangeles #paseo #courtyard #council_st #councilstartshed #artstudio #artgallery #architecture #architecturelovers #arquitectura #건축 #建筑 #建築 #art #artlovers #미술 #艺术 #藝術 #design #deseno #설계 #设计 #設計