How do you describe your contribution to this design?
DH: I worked on it for about 12 months, starting with the first meeting with BP, then early concept sketches, architect selection, architect collaboration, site concepting, on-site informational materials, overseeing final construction and implementation. So I guided the overall gestalt of the project from the very beginning, and found myself a year later in Wisconsin, tweaking the actual tile mosaic for the restrooms... days before launch. The designer of the mosaic, Jung Kim from BIG, used million-color gradients, which I had to re-map to a less than 10-color recycled glass tile palette. As the mosaic was coming together literally, I tweaked the design further, as it hadn't yet been seen in a three-dimensional space. It became something else altogether from her original design. Jung didn’t recognize it as her own, nor would I claim to have designed the tile myself. This happened a lot with various aspects of the project. A lot of moving parts; a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Unfortunately, many of the best ideas for the Helios House were not executed—for lack of feasibility, or because of time or money constraints. In fact, the corner sign for Helios House is (and will probably remain) unfinished. Only the middle third of the sign is currently there (seriously!); the rest remains in a warehouse somewhere in Van Nuys.
Who was on the design team and how did you work together? We’re particularly curious about whether you had an environmental advisor on the project and what educational background they came from.
DH Helios House was the biggest project I've personally worked on, and the team was vast. At BIG: Brian Collins (Executive CD at BIG, oversaw all our projects from a birds-eye view), Chuck Rudy (CD, managed the project day to day), Me (Associate CD, ran creative with Chuck, and helped ideation), Mark Aver (Design Director), Christian Cervantes, Jung Kim, Allbriton Robbins (Designers) and Jason Nuttall (Digital Artist). We led the entire project. We hired Office dA as our architect; Nader Tehrani, Monica Ponce de Leon, and Arthur Chang. We all embraced every opportunity to use or employ sustainable/renewable technology or materials. During ideation, we consulted Office dA or Buro Happold, who told us what was feasible early on. (For example, BP is a manufacturer of wind technologies, so we wanted to use their wind-farming propellers, but we learned it wasn’t possible because the amount of wind on-site is insufficient. And had it worked properly, there was a risk of birds getting hit by the blades and falling on motorists.) Most environmental ideas came from BIG, and either made it through, or were shot down at some point. The 90 photovoltaics atop the canopy was a natural fit, as BP is one of the world's leading solar companies.
How would you describe the aesthetics of the BP Helios House? And how was the choice made to go more tech/craft rather than earthy/Whole Foods?
DH: I'd describe the aesthetics of Helios House as boldly optimistic. Not for an instant did we think of looking into the past, at earthy things. Our benchmark for gas station canopies was the Unocal 76 in Beverly Hills. It appears retro now, but in its day was far more futuristic than Helios House is now. Your question implies an assumption that "good", "earthy" things should look like the past, unhindered by technology. Or something like that. The aesthetic of Whole Foods (which is identical to Starbuck's, hence overused... and now meaningless) is carefully calculated to make you feel as though you're making some holistic, natural choice. But for the most part, Whole Foods stores are usually part of a renovated strip mall, with the "new" retail space adding no benefit to the environment. Those benefits are reserved for the food only, their product. Since we were unable to change the product (for now) for Helios House, we focused on making the architecture/design/experience/educational aspect better.
The way the project was described to us, it represents a different kind of branding initiative – one where the brand is established through word of mouth buzz and becoming the press darling (bottom-up) rather than pushing the brand through aggressive, overt actions (top-down) of pasting the BP logo on everything. There’s probably some sophisticated way of describing this reframing that you can offer and perhaps give us a bit of history on this type of branding – where it comes from and where its going.
DH: I don't know the more clever name for this type of branding. We just call it branding. Essentially, BIG is the branding group inside an enormous ad agency. Advertising is changing quickly these days, so new types of brand expressions are becoming more and more important. When a client comes to us, we generally try to give them what they don't expect, and haven't seen before.
There was a very brief piece on the gas station on NPR that calls the gas station just an effort in green washing. Do you feel the result of your very beautiful and what I'm sure was a lot of hard work is actually making a difference in the way gas consumers (that fill up there or drive by) act in their lives to change their impact on the environment? Was this an ethically rewarding project?
DH: It's all relative, isn't it? It was more ethically rewarding than designing cd packaging, or art school posters (both of which I’ve done, and am proud of). Helios House is an easy target for the "green washing" moniker. However, it has far more going for it than you’ll experience across the street at Exxon. We tried very hard to get an alternative fuel dispensed there. We discovered there are many issues with today's biofuels that made it impossible at that location, which we were absolutely tied to. In the end, we were left with beautiful design, a better experience, and hopefully some customer education. I think that's plenty of ethical reward. Here’s a blog posting about Helios House we thought poignant and amusing:
"This damn thing made me wreck my car. I drive past it every day on my way
to work, and i was watching the grass grow up the sides, into the
billbaords above. Finally one day the unveail the damn thing and i was
staring at it trying to figure out what the hell it is, and bam. Thankfully
the guy i hit was nice and didnt claim any fradulent damage. But still my
rates are going up and all because of funky archeture. Oh well. Viva
progress!!"
