Conga Room at LA Live

For over a decade, the Conga room has been a Los Angeles cultural landmark. The Latin live music and dance venue was LA’s center for Salsa and Rumba. The original location closed in 2006 with the goal of opening a new venue in the new “LA Live” complex in Downtown, Los Angeles. The new home would contain a 14,000 sf live music and dance space made up of a multitude of programs—a large dance floor, a stage, multiple VIP areas, a full-service restaurant and three bars, each with their own unique environment. Collaboration with Cuban artist Jorge Pardo and Mexican muralist Sergio Arau, designers of the Papaya Bar and Surface Tattoos, respectively, was essential.

As if coordinating and blending the variegated programs and styles together wasn’t challenging enough, the space, originally planned for office use, had a very low and equipment-filled ceiling to negotiate and needed to operate within a mixed-use building. As a consequence, three major factors began to drive the design process: First, the space had to be acoustically isolated from the rest of the building while simultaneously performing acoustically for its performers and patrons. Second, it was anticipated that the club would continuously be filled to capacity, thus most conventional architectural devices—walls and floors, would be obfuscated by patrons. Finally, the club was located on the second floor of the building off of the main plaza—a classic foible for restaurant and club operators who commonly have difficulty in beguiling patrons up a flight of stairs or elevators. The solution was to use the ceiling to perform as the spatial organizer, the primary acoustical isolator/amplifier and event attractor.

In an effort to meet the client’s desires for an aesthetic that reflected the vibrancy and dynamism of Latin culture, the ceiling surface, fashioned from a series of Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC)-milled, painted plywood panels, was created from an assemblage of diamond patterns, which were initially derived from the classic Cuban Rumba dance step. Each panel represented a Petal while groupings of six Petals constituted a Flower. Parametric 3D modeling and building performance software aided in the proliferation of the Flowers in a unified, undulating surface that waned and blossomed, delineating each of the unique environments within the club. As the event attractor, the ceiling panels converged into a 20-foot tall glowing Tornado that penetrated the dance floor, inviting and guiding patrons up to the activities in the club. To further intensify the experience, the room boasted an integral, state-of-the-art LED lighting system which gave the ceiling the ability to change color and atmosphere at the push of the button or even react to, in real time, the rhythms and sounds of the music, becoming an active participant in the scene.

In addition to aesthetic concerns, the ceiling had to mitigate complex building infrastructure goals specific to that of a live music venue. Multiple lighting systems, audio visual systems, mechanical systems and fire/life safety systems, among many others, had to be considered. As previously mentioned, various acoustical considerations had to be explored and controlled. The parametric design model allowed the porosity of the ceiling to be manipulated based on feedback from performance, based on data collected from various acoustic analysis software packages. In effect, the ceiling was not an infinitely thin surface extended to all corners but rather a Deep Surface, layering and mitigating multiple constituencies to create a complex piece of building infrastructure providing both a dynamic visual environment as well as a great place to listen to music.

Status: Completed 2008

Project Type: Hospitality; Building Type: Tenant Improvement; Size: 14,000 sf

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Partners: Hagy Belzberg, Cory Taylor, Brock DeSmit, Daniel Rentsch

Project Manager: Andrew Atwood

Project Team: Chris Arntzen, Kelly Bair, Bill Bowen, Carina Bien-Willner, David Cheung, Barry Gartin, Aaron Leppanen, Lauren Zuzack

Photo Credit: © Benny Chan, Fotoworks

Awards:
2015 Interior Design Best of Year “Best in 10”: Bar/Lounge
2011 AIA Honor Award
2010 AIA LA Design Award, Citation
2010 AIA California Council Award
2009 Interior Design magazine Best of the Year Award
2009 American Architecture Awards - Chicago Athenaeum
2009 International Property Awards (America’s Property Award): Interior Design Award
2009 AIA Restaurant Design Award: Honor Award
2009 Los Angeles Business Council Architecture Award: Commercial Interior

Publications:
Designpeakpack: Commercial Space (China), Tasarim: No. 223 (Turkey), Light in Architecture (Germany), Contemporanea AD: #13 (Brazil), AIA 2010-2012 Designs For The New Decade, Architect, A5 Los Angeles, Night Fever 2, Hospitality Design (Netherlands), India Spice Today (India), Interior Design & Space (Malaysia), Architectural Digest (Russia), Interior Design magazine, IW magazine (Taiwan), Spa-de, International Review of Interior Architecture (Japan), IW magazine Detail 10 (Taiwan)