Last summer, TWA debuted what’s known as the Sunset Spectacular, a three-sided, craglike, 67-foot-tall tower of steel that looks like it could have been mined from a metallic alien world. Vertical digital screens adorn the two sides oriented toward the street, and the ground level has an opening into which pedestrians can enter to see a light and video show projected onto its interior hull. It’s part Blade Runner, part Star Trek—and it’s a next-generation billboard in the heart of the Sunset Strip, an outdoor advertising mecca rivaled only by Times Square.

Fast Company 2022

TWA’s work has for years been at the forefront of conceptual approaches to context, energy, and the objectlike nature of buildings. But Wiscombe maintains that he’s not satisfied or interested in ending with the architectural image: “As an academic, I notice more and more a break between ideas of what architectural representation is and how we build or what construction documents are. I guess I’ve become tired of that binary. Anything that draws the architectural eye back into landing things on the earth is now my goal.

Landing on the earth” is something the Dark Chalet certainly does well. While the project raises many intriguing theoretical questions, the more interesting story tells of highly practical issues of documentation, representation, and construction. In an unorthodox move, TWA assumed responsibility for much of the modeling, detailing, and fabrication files for the complex facade. TWA also upended the look and use of construction documents, which cut up a building into thousands of flat, isolated details. For Wiscombe, the ideal CD set is “the Revit file plus a ‘Godzilla’ drawing or five ‘Godzilla’ drawings or however many are necessary to represent the full picture of the building so that ‘everyone gets it.’

Davis Richardson
Architects Newspaper: Tom Wiscombe Architecture’s Dark Chalet touches down on Powder Mountain

There is a connection between Tom and Denis Diderot, located in the vastness of their respective ambitions and in their explicit provocation, both social and cultural. But the difference is also profound and crucial: if for Diderot objects existed outside the contemplating subject, available for the understanding, for Tom objects exist alongside subjects and subjectivities, including his own, which are also objects. This permits lateral connections and altogether unexpected affinities to emerge alongside clearly identified interests and biases: toward the mysterious and ancient, the futuristic and the fictional, and away from traditions and affirmations of all kinds.

Thom Mayne
Pritzker Prize Winner, FAIA 2021

Like Kubrick’s Star Gate sequence, Tom avoids well-trodden routes to the unknown. In fact, I think he’s the first architect to say something dramatically effective about the capacity of mystery as a programmatic and polemical force in architecture, rather than simply use it as a common trait of the radical architect. The stuttering, glitchy, repetitive organization of offsets and objects within objects, like the matryoshka doll to which he refers, is just one way in which he gives structure to the deferral of finitude, and by extension, to any problematic relational view of the world. For Tom, mystery is both concept (wonder) and matter (dark).

Indeed, with 2001, we should just go into the hypnotic, psycho-spatial, technicolor void and prepare to be transformed. I go there quite often with my work, and when I do, I usually find Tom there too. His helmet is jet black; mine is bright blue.

Neil Denari, Architect, 2021

This project [The Dark Chalet] is unanimously recognized for its aggressive rigor, control over gravity, and materiality, adding grace to complexity. We should all sleep better at night knowing that beneath the nerve-wracking gymnastics, there is an underlying performance rationale. Undeniably, it is a dastardly, indivisible fusion of tectonics and stereotomy. Grotesque yet inexplicably attractive, it is a strange, mesmerizing new realm where familiar associations weirdly unfold and unravel.

Michael Fox, David Hertz, Kunlé Adeyemi, Mohamed Sharif
AIA LA Next LA Jury

Tom is one of the most inspiring and engaging architects I have ever worked with. His work is beautiful, relentless, and technologically innovative. As a leader in the solar industry, I am particularly impressed with the 364% energy positive solar system that Tom designed for my project -- an audacious achievement perfectly integrated into the architectural form. Tom is also a true leader: attentive and responsive to me as his client and to the other stakeholders involved, and yet always surefootedly committed to the integrity of the design vision and to ensuring its execution in the world without compromise. I consider him to be a world class talent.

Tom Buttgenbach, Co-founder and CEO of 8 Minute Energy
Developer of the largest solar fields in the U.S. 6,092,826,119 kWh of solar energy produced to date...and counting.

I am convinced that Tom is one of the most important young architects working in the United States today. I admire his work for its formal and conceptual inventiveness, but also for its deep-rooted constructability. His design for The Main Museum is premised on the idea of weaving existing historical features together with bold, contemporary architecture, creating an incredible resonance.

Tom Gilmore
Developer Responsible for the renaissance of downtown Los Angeles, client for the Main Museum.

Tom brings a sense of playfulness and wonder to what otherwise can be an arduous process of realizing the unconventional in public architecture. From winning the City of West Hollywood's design competition for the Sunset Spectacular Digital Billboard, through his incorporation of advanced construction engineering, evolving digital technologies and new art milieu, and responsiveness to community and client concerns, Tom inspired me with his positive attitude and commitment to partnership in delivering quality design and innovation to the Sunset Strip. I throughly enjoyed working with him and hope I'll have more opportunities to do so in the future.

Joanna Hankamer
Director of Planning and Community Development, City of South Pasadena

Tom Wiscombe's highly original designs command our respect and our fascination. As a theorist, he has also done a great deal to shift architecture away from the Deleuzean deadlock of the previous generation of design authors, and I have profited greatly from his contributions in this area.

Graham Harman
Philosopher Author of A New Theory of Everything, Immaterialism, and Weird Realism. Named one of the 50 top contemporary philosophers.

I have known Tom Wiscombe for many years both personally and professionally; as an architect, an academic peer, and finally, as a personal friend. Without a doubt, Tom is one of the strongest designers and thinkers of the current generation of Los Angeles architects. His prodigious output of work is recognized internationally for its inventive and intelligent architectural vocabulary.

Tom’s dedication to questioning architectural standards through inventive interpretations of form, function and context explores architecture as a cultural artifact that is shaped by contemporary issues, and ensures the profession’s relevance within the increasingly complex and integrated realms of the creative and the instrumental. I am consistently impressed with his ability to produce a highly rigorous, energetic and thoughtful body of work.

Thom Mayne
Founder, Morphosis and Pritzker-Prize winning architect

I’ve loved learning from the cornucopian, ecotopian visions of Tom Wiscombe for a long time, and I’m a lot happier for it. He’s the kind of person who makes you know that we’ve got this, and boy do we ever need that as the human-designed stage set collapses around our ecocidal selves. What the world needs now is Tom, Tom Tom.

Timothy Morton
Ecophilosopher - Author of Hyperobjects, Dark Ecology, and Human Kindness.
Named one of the 50 top contemporary philosophers.

I worked very closely with Tom as the Owner’s representative for the New Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio- a 7-year, $42M project. The Art Museum received his undivided attention throughout—believe me when I say this was not an easy task.

Tom is a great partner who clearly gets how to transform and incorporate the needs and desires of the client into amazing architecture. Through his professionalism and understanding, he gracefully navigated some difficult and trying processes, including challenges from a Board of Trustees and the City of Akron.

Carol Murphy
Owner’s Rep.Representative of the director and board of trustees for the Akron Art Museum.

Over the past 10 years working in high end custom residential real estate development, I’ve worked with a handful of architects, some very well known. Of these architects and firms, TWA is hands down the most enjoyable to work with. TWA’s level of engagement and attention to detail is unprecedented. The quality of work product they produce reduces stress for the entire build team. TWA does a phenomenal job navigating the sensitive balancing act between client’s needs and architectural design. At this level of high concept architecture, we often find ourselves building prototypes with details and conditions that have not been designed or built before. TWA is among a small group of architects who are capable of designing, and more importantly executing with finesse at this level.

Charlie Patton
Owner’s Rep. the Dark Chalet

I can’t say enough about Tom Wiscombe and the rest of the team at TWA. We’ve worked with TWA for more than five years now, first on the winning submission for a project in the city of West Hollywood, and subsequently on other media and commercial real estate development projects. There are a lot of good designers, but none who combine Tom’s level of design might, intellect, innovation, passion and dedication. TWA has consistently delivered on projects with tight deadlines while being cognizant of and committed to delivering within the budget. Tom has an unparalleled ability to find a design solution that perfectly marries a daring and beautiful form with an compelling intellectual idea, and in doing so has developed a language all his own.

Pete Scantland
CEO Orange Barrel Media

“Can digital billboards be beautiful?”

KCRW’s Frances Anderton reports on the Sunset Spectacular