-By Steve Dumez

To hear Larry Scarpa describe Pugh + Scarpa Architects' design process, you might wonder if you are hearing a descriptive synopsis of the 1997 film "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control." And, like the four near-obsessive individuals featured in Errol Morris' unconventional documentary, Scarpa shares a razor-like intensity and focus, coupled with a childlike curiosity about the world around him. "In the early days, we operated a bit like a little kid's soccer team—you know, where everybody follows the ball," Scarpa says. "That's how we worked. Everyone would essentially sit around one desk focused on the project at hand, get it done, and then we'd all jump to the next project."

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Los Angeles-based Pugh + Scarpa Architects' design strategy, employed on many of the firm's early projects in commercial interiors, was well outside the norm of the conventional design-bid-build practice. The office often partnered with contractors and builders to deliver projects on very tight budgets and aggressive schedules, essentially at-risk. "We started with minimal drawings and kept designing until the client moved in. It was very quick and intense, but extremely gratifying in that we often saw our designs realized in three months or less," says Scarpa.

Starting with Reactor Films in Santa Monica, Calif., where a shipping container is reimagined and transformed for conference-room use, Pugh + Scarpa has consistently applied a vigorous combination of creativity and pragmatism to its projects, imbuing everyday items with new poetry, even in prosaic applications. There is a strong interest in materials research and exploration; the firm is well-known for using the common and everyday in remarkable ways as a means to heighten experience and awareness. This is readily apparent in the offices for Creative Domain in Los Angeles, where colored, translucent Dixie cups penetrate a wall to provide borrowed light to a corridor, or at Jigsaw in Los Angeles, where ping-pong balls are sandwiched between glass panes to form a window that evenly illuminates a post-production editing room.

The lessons learned in the early projects, set against the need to work quickly and in concert with numerous parties to the building process, have been put to the test more recently for the international headquarters of MGA Entertainment, where Pugh + Scarpa is collaborating with Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects on a 300,000-sq.-ft. adaptive reuse and expansion of the former Los Angeles Times printing facility located in Chatsworth, Calif. While the scale of many of the firm's projects may have changed—from small-scale boutique interiors to larger commercial and institutional projects, multi-family housing, and educational and civic buildings—the firm's focus on delivering creative, sustainable environments has not.

A constant thread through all of the work is a focus on the experience of the project—a focus on how you do something rather than what is done. Or, put another way, the experience of the space is more important than what it looks like. "We typically design from the inside-out rather than the outside-in, and I have always been influenced by artists who leave something with the visitor," says Scarpa, adding that this is the case regardless of whether the building is ultimately constructed or not.

Having grown up in Florida, Scarpa was also influenced by the Sarasota School of Architecture, a group that practiced during the '50s and '60s and created some astonishing sustainable buildings in the harsh, central Florida climate. Perhaps best known among these was Paul Rudolph. While following his undergraduate studies in architecture, Scarpa spent two years working with the somewhat reclusive and iconoclastic modernist. While profoundly influenced by his time with Rudolph, he is no less an iconoclast than his mentor. What I find unique about Larry Scarpa is his genuine enthusiasm in sharing information and ideas with colleagues, his interest in creative collaborations with other architects, and his ability to take great pleasure in accomplishing what is possible, rather than losing focus on the impossible. I have had the pleasure of working with and alongside him on three projects over the past three years, and I have found his energy and enthusiasm contagious.

When asked what frustrates him most about current practice and the state of commercial construction, Scarpa offers that while the cost of building sustainably is closing the gap on conventional, developer-driven cost models, it's still too difficult to convince certain clients on the value of sustainable design. He feels the biggest issue in commercial construction is developers' ability to ignore issues of sustainability and energy management because, in the world of triple-net leases, all costs are passed on to the tenants.

"I am usually not big on rules," Scarpa says. "But in this case, I feel that there will be a need to legislate some sort of performance-based model or provide incentives as they relate to sustainable construction. If we were to handle it in a manner similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it would eventually be seen as standard practice and we wouldn't find ourselves constantly fighting in the margins. Sustainability is a question of professional ethics."

Steve Dumez, FAIA, is a partner and design director at New Orleans-based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple. Dumez says of Scarpa: "My own experience in working with Larry has been characterized by an atmosphere of collaboration. This has been the case across three projects. The first was a competition to design the Mill Center for the Arts, a cultural arts facility in Hendersonville, N.C. We then worked in parallel with Pugh + Scarpa on an affordable housing prototype for the Make it Right Foundation, a group committed to rebuilding a sustainable community in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Larry recently asked us to assist Pugh+Scarpa in the development of a new museum for Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis."