Forms+Surfaces

Renovation of Beverly Center

Roma-based architectural and urban design firm Studio Fuksas www.fuksas.com, led by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, was selected as the design architect for the renovation of the 886,000 sq. ft. Beverly Center in [Los Angeles](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/los-angeles), California. Thirty-four months of construction and five hundred million dollars later a reimagined Center was officially unveiled on November 2, 2018. The mall, a monolithic eight-story structure located at the edge of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, now boasts a new glimmering white skin made of a highly textured stucco surmounting a metal mesh that changes transparency through the day and according to the viewer's vantage point. Due to its sheer size, on a total land area of approximately eight acres, the Beverly Center could be very well considered a city block. The unusually large scale amplifies the relationship between the exterior and the surrounding neighborhood. The sinuosity, and the glossy white, of the metal mesh wrapping the entire perimeter, enables both absorption and reverberation of natural light. The exterior appears calm and diaphanous in the morning. Dynamic and fiercely contrasting in the afternoon. Dematerialized in a soft and wavy 300-yard-long kaleidoscope at night when the mesh-up lights turn on.