Like other residents of Altadena, Calif., MATT Construction Senior Project Manager Nick Pemberton didn’t know that the days after Jan. 7, 2025 would irrevocably change his and his neighbors’ lives.
To transform an underutilized edge of LA’s Natural History Museum into a publicly accessible wing that connects exhibitions, research and community programming to Exposition Park, the project team structurally integrated a new 36,000-sq-ft expansion with an existing operational building as part of this three-year-long endeavor.
Built in 1911, the Rose Garden Tea Room at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens was originally designed as a billiard room and bowling alley for Henry E. Huntington.
After taking more than two decades to realize, the 235-ft-tall (W)rapper is the latest part of an ongoing 35-year revitalization and adaptive reuse plan for a former industrial and manufacturing zone.
Constructing the four trapezoidal sides of Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s sculptural gem, a 75-ft-tall “machine for gathering” with three sloping faces, was the most daunting aspect of the project. “The concern was the facade,” says Stephen Montoya, vice president of operations for MATT Construction.
As the first residential high-rise to be built west of the 405 Freeway in more than 40 years, the Landmark Los Angeles (LMLA) is a glass-and-steel structure rising 349 ft featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, horizontal balcony planes and glass guardrails intersected by vertical elements to a rooftop cornice.