2 I'm the proprietor of a small firm in Los Angeles, California and we've been in existence for about 15 years, with a variety of other partners, beginning with Peter de Bretteville and Eugene Kupper and, a bit later, with Robert Mangurian, and at the present time with Ming Fung and myself as the principals, and that usual very entertaining group of students and former students who accompany us on all of our research. We like to think of ourselves as a kind of bunch of garage architects really working in the LA tradition of hot rods, hop ups and retrofits. And it's an entertaining way to work, sometimes perplexing, and it usually sends us off into spirals of research on new materials and methodologies which are un- common, at least in the LA area where most architecture, as you know, is based on the balloon frame and stucco construction.

However, our practice began really in New York City that same 15 years ago with a tremendous and very passionate interest in mass housing. There was a system of competitions in the US known as Operation Breakthrough for which we prepared a scheme utilising automobile construction techniques to fabricate housing. We called it The Link System, - and the system involved the fabrication of hybrid metal beams — you can see them there in the slide, they're the yellow-coloured beams - and each of those beams actually incorporates a horizontal chase for utilities, a combination heat—pump and refrigeration system, the 100 and a verti— cal staircase. And when they are erected in a kind of domino pattern, they are able to span from 30 - 60 feet. And the floor boards and exterior cladding are left to the choice of the individual occupants. We still hope it will be built, maybe if Chrysler really gets hot then we'll actually make a tender to them.