Cole Kazuo Masuno
Cole Kazuo Masuno is a Los Angeles based designer who has received his Bachelors of Architecture (B.Arch) from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).
He is currently working at Formation Association, and has co-taught as a teaching assistant for various design studios, visual and applied studies seminars at SCI-Arc. Prior to working at Formation Association, Cole worked at award winning offices such as Eric Owen Moss Architects, and Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects.
Cole is a principal/founder of Alterity Studio.
He is currently working at Formation Association, and has co-taught as a teaching assistant for various design studios, visual and applied studies seminars at SCI-Arc. Prior to working at Formation Association, Cole worked at award winning offices such as Eric Owen Moss Architects, and Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects.
Cole is a principal/founder of Alterity Studio.
Things Worth Looking At — What Constitutes A Project...︎
Index
2024
(Air)rings
Jewelry
2023
AO Table
Furniture
landscape painting
ENGAGING EXCESS
Ecological Alterity: Shrines to Nature & ArtInujima, Japan
Type: Landscape Architecture, Sculpture
Instructor: David Ruy, Timothy Morton
No matter where we look, the ground is always there. It is so pervasive that we never even think about the ground below us. One convention of landscape design defaults to gravel as an environmental substrate. The proliferation of gravel has become a null hypothesis - you don’t have to prove anything about it because it’s conventional by default. Mainstream ecological design is over burdened by endless variations of what already exists. If we can already do that - why can’t we make it better instead? I want to make a point about the surface itself. Rather than to produce more variations of what we already know, I want to substitute gravel as an environmental infill material, and instead use toys to construct a new ecological topsoil.
landscape painting
Gravel will be deployed in a decorative fashion to form a new kind of topsoil, one that is saturated with an extreme proliferation of vinyl toys. Damaged surfaces will be transformed into something delightful, by saturating the terrain with a skin deep cosmetic. Surface-level effects you typically wouln't never see cause moments of hesitation between you and the thin surface of the ground.
landscape painting
A landscape that includes fantasy is a more truthful, and thoughtful form of engagement because it represents something about our visual culture today. Known symbols from anime, manga, and video games are introduced as gravel, to construct a landscape that doesn't simulate natural geological forces, but instead incorporates some degree of the literal as infill material.
landscape painting
Colored gravel, what may at first seem like a protest against rationality, is only antithetical to mainstream ecological imagery. Topsoil's sedimentary applications remain the same, but it's aesthetic transformation makes it possible to release new forms of beauty into the world.
landscape swatches