From board rooms to robots, designer/builder keeps evolving
It’s difficult to give Benjamin Armstrong, 29, an exact title for the type of collaborative design/build work he does. He creates hard-to-navigate surfaces for robots, codesigns and builds Japanese style board rooms, sculpts imaginary landscapes of a snowy planet, and will be part of the design and build team for a new Hollywood luxury hotel. He’s adaptable, and this seems to be the skill our rapidly changing world demands.
NEO THE ROBOT learned how to maneuver by practicing on spiral stairs and slippery surfaces Armstrong created.
For the last eight months Armstrong has been working in house at 1X, an AI robotics company in Palo Alto, where he is part of the team to help Neo, a personal AI companion, learn to be more human—physically. “I’ve built all sorts of staircases: spiral, overly deep or shallow stairs, slippery surfaces full of rollers. The head of hardware and I meet, then I go to the design team and work with their design language to make an environment that is challenging for Neo,” said Armstrong.
His relationship with 1X began when he built a set of steel walls for a commercial. He was then asked to design and build a meeting room—with furniture—that had to be done in a week’s time. “Everything in Silicon Valley is ‘right now’—that’s how they operate. They hear that some venture capitalist is in town—‘Let’s give them a demo they’ll never forget!’ But they are going to leave on Monday—‘We need it here
WARM WOOD paneled hall built by Armstrong.
Sunday’—and it’s Wednesday!” said Armstrong. He said, “Yes, I can do it.”
When asked how he got the job done with such a tight turnaround, Armstrong replied, “Friends. Because no one else will pull 18-hour days for me.”
So be adaptable, and keep your contacts from college, he advises. He worked with Alex David, a buddy from his alma mater, NYU, and his design team to build a warm wood paneled room in the style of traditional Japanese inns called ryokan.
I asked him if going to college was useful to his career. “NYU was an excuse to be in New York City. Sure, I met tons of great people—a huge networking time for me—but I can’t tell you one hard skill I learned from college. I can tell you a million skills I learned from my dad [who is a carpenter and sculptor back home in Florida], and the boatyard I worked in upriver in New York with fiberglass and painting sailboats. But college? One class—the history of set design dating back to Japanese kabuki theater. I still reference images in my mind from that,” he recalled. But college still has its value. “There would be some missing piece of the world had I not gone,” he said.
Benjamin Armstrong
“TRANSFORMERS ONE” premiere set.
After university Armstrong moved to Los Angeles, specifically to the cottages Paramount Studios built in the 1930s for actors. He took a production assistant job, which led him to work in set design with Wesley Goodrich, including for music videos such as Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers.” “I really tapped into L.A. and the work here creating and building sets,” he said. He also did set design and build for Paramount’s live events and premieres. He recalled the building he made for the “Transformers One” film premiere: “It was an entirely animated movie, and I took the moonscape from the film and sculpted 12-foot foam versions of this imaginary place. I brought it into the real world.”
What’s next on the horizon for this designer/builder? “Oh yeah, we are working on a small luxury hotel in the Beachwood Canyon area. It will have 40 rooms with a restaurant and some sort of L.A.-type roof scape. You know the Greenwich Hotel in N.Y.? Similar, but more L.A. style with local character and design influences. Each hotel room will be unique. Lots of friends are working on it,” he said. Where? Who’s investing? “Can’t say exactly where. And investors? Maybe a New Yorker, maybe someone from Silicon Valley.” It’s yet to be revealed. It’s evolving as is his multi-faceted, everdeveloping, undefinable career in design.
Category: People
