California Dreaming is a longing for freedom of action, a
craving for community of independent spirits,
and a thirst for pleasure in creativity. A place of abundance and beauty, of
warmth and wealth. Economic opportunities, ripe for the taking, transformed
social status from a fixed condition into an evolving reflection of effort over
time. However, on the hardscrabble path to dreamland, other possibilities have
emerged. California Dreaming measures quality of life by its style and sug-
gests that the joy of working breeds success.
To dream is to bring the subconscious into light - a hazy comprehension felt as much as understood. A mind at peace with ambiguity, recomposing fragments of the known into the unforeseen. The three practices highlighted here flourish in an unencumbered environment where architecture is defined in the making. One theorist, one designer and one artist - all three are professors at the Woodbury School of Architecture (WSOA). A small, private university, Woodbury is situated on a beautiful campus in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains on the border of Los Angeles. The creative pulse of California Dreaming is sustained by a diverse architectural community. California, a state that celebrates progress, recognizes the value of inclusivity. To be inclusive is to be open to alternatives to the status quo. To invite foreign ideas and foreign actors into the establishment. Architecture that is curious about craft, fearlessly entangled in other disciplines, and critical of existing power structures is inclusive.
The creative practices of Paulette Singley, Heather Scott Peterson and Erin Wright open up architecture, expanding its material composition and its intellectual matter. Informed but not bound by disciplinary confines, they inhabit the beyond. A creative space at play with disparate branches of knowledge. While their drawings, objects and paintings are not architecture canonically, they are architectural - conjuring new futures for the built environment informed by extra-disciplinary undertakings.
-Heather Flood and Aaron Gensler from AD Magazine, California Dreaming
To dream is to bring the subconscious into light - a hazy comprehension felt as much as understood. A mind at peace with ambiguity, recomposing fragments of the known into the unforeseen. The three practices highlighted here flourish in an unencumbered environment where architecture is defined in the making. One theorist, one designer and one artist - all three are professors at the Woodbury School of Architecture (WSOA). A small, private university, Woodbury is situated on a beautiful campus in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains on the border of Los Angeles. The creative pulse of California Dreaming is sustained by a diverse architectural community. California, a state that celebrates progress, recognizes the value of inclusivity. To be inclusive is to be open to alternatives to the status quo. To invite foreign ideas and foreign actors into the establishment. Architecture that is curious about craft, fearlessly entangled in other disciplines, and critical of existing power structures is inclusive.
The creative practices of Paulette Singley, Heather Scott Peterson and Erin Wright open up architecture, expanding its material composition and its intellectual matter. Informed but not bound by disciplinary confines, they inhabit the beyond. A creative space at play with disparate branches of knowledge. While their drawings, objects and paintings are not architecture canonically, they are architectural - conjuring new futures for the built environment informed by extra-disciplinary undertakings.
-Heather Flood and Aaron Gensler from AD Magazine, California Dreaming
Heather Scott Peterson is an artist, designer, and writer. She received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a MArch from the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Her studio practice centers around sculpture, furniture, drawing, and artifacts. In 2014 she was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship, and has been a member of the viewing program at The Drawing Center in New York since 2007. In 2009 she was awarded the juror’s choice in issue 85 of New American Paintings. She has taught fine art, design, and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Boston Architectural Center, and Cal State Long Beach. She is currently an Associate Professor of Interior Architecture in the School of Architecture at Woodbury University.
Paulette Singley is an internationally known architectural historian whose work expands the disciplinary limits of architecture across diverse subject matter such as food, film, and fashion. She is a Professor of Architecture at Woodbury University. She received a Ph.D. from Princeton University, an M.A. from Cornell University, and a B.Arch. from the University of Southern California. She co-edited Eating Architecture with Jamie Horwitz, the first book to explore the intersections of architecture and the culinary arts. She also co-edited Architecture: In Fashion and has published chapters in several anthologies as well as essays in architecture journals such as Log and Assemblage.
Erin Wright is a painter and designer based in Los Angeles, California. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Master of Architecture from UCLA, Erin’s architecture practice, Plus Projects, focuses on bridging the two disciplines through art-based reasoning. The office is currently working on several residential and small commercial projects.
Erin’s painting practice is an exercise in technique: the works mimic the machine-made quality of an architectural rendering through isometric posturing and applied textures. The work invites intimate viewing and challenges the notion of scale through the absence of figures. The work has been shown nationally and internationally and published in New American Paintings, The New York Times and Studio Visit Magazine.
Photography by Paul Emberger
Paulette Singley is an internationally known architectural historian whose work expands the disciplinary limits of architecture across diverse subject matter such as food, film, and fashion. She is a Professor of Architecture at Woodbury University. She received a Ph.D. from Princeton University, an M.A. from Cornell University, and a B.Arch. from the University of Southern California. She co-edited Eating Architecture with Jamie Horwitz, the first book to explore the intersections of architecture and the culinary arts. She also co-edited Architecture: In Fashion and has published chapters in several anthologies as well as essays in architecture journals such as Log and Assemblage.
Erin Wright is a painter and designer based in Los Angeles, California. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Master of Architecture from UCLA, Erin’s architecture practice, Plus Projects, focuses on bridging the two disciplines through art-based reasoning. The office is currently working on several residential and small commercial projects.
Erin’s painting practice is an exercise in technique: the works mimic the machine-made quality of an architectural rendering through isometric posturing and applied textures. The work invites intimate viewing and challenges the notion of scale through the absence of figures. The work has been shown nationally and internationally and published in New American Paintings, The New York Times and Studio Visit Magazine.
Photography by Paul Emberger
©2022
Woodbury School of Architecture
Woodbury School of Architecture
Wedge Gallery is located on the southwest end of the Woodbury University campus. Due to the COVID-19, in person visits are by appointment only. Please email us to schedule your visit.
7500 N Glenoaks Blvd
Burbank, CA 91504
7500 N Glenoaks Blvd
Burbank, CA 91504