LoLA Gallery
Gallery Design + Build
Los Angeles
Lede
A design and build collaboration for LoLA — an emerging Los Angeles-based art gallery committed to work that transforms vulnerability into resistance, connection, and community.
The brief was not just to design a functional gallery space, but to create an environment that embodied the spirit of the founder and the gallery's mission: a space embodying a the energy of a creative playground.
Brief
Design a gallery interior that reflects LoLA's founding values: diversity through mark-making, perspective, subject matter, and emotional resonance.
LoLA is a gallery built from ‘BECAUSE’ :
Because art is memory
Because art is survival
Because art is play
Because people need it now more than ever
The space needed to embody these values, and challenge the traditional sterility of a neutral white cube.
Deliverables included:
Design Manifesto
Office design + build-out
Mobile ‘Sound Box’ DJ booth
Greeting desk design and build
Bathroom concept design
Design guidelines
Furniture + plant selection
Sourcing fabrication partners
Process
The project began with a discovery phase — sessions with the founder
to establish spatial themes, visual references, and material direction.
These informed an inspiration deck that served as the conceptual
foundation for all design decisions.
From there the process moved through:
3D design and modeling of the full interior environment
3D renders for design review and approval
Technical millwork drawings for fabrication
On-site design and build collaboration
The bathroom concept — titled internally as a "multi-verse portal /
playground" — became one of the most conceptually rich elements of
the project, drawing on references from David Lynch, meditation spaces,
stained glass, and sensory design to create a space that functioned
as its own micro-installation within the gallery.
Outcome
The built environment reflects the gallery's mission in its material
choices, spatial sequencing, and detail. LoLA has since gone on to
present exhibitions engaging artists who challenge conventional narratives
and use vulnerability as a form of resistance and connection.
Links
Exhibition official page (ACDF):
https://www.acdf.uz/programs/14
WHY Architecture:
https://www.why-architecture.com
Register for the exhibition:
*Detailed process imagery and technical documentation available upon request.
Credits
Commissioner: Gayane Umerova, Chairperson, Uzbekistan Art and Culture
Development Foundation (ACDF)
Curator: Kulapat Yantrasast, Architect, Founder and Creative Director,
WHY Architecture
Hypercube Creative role: Design development and visualization
Dates: 20–26 April 2026 | Palazzo Citterio, Via Brera 12, Milan