Before I leave Los Angeles and drive the 180 miles — or three hours and twenty minutes — that it takes to get to the Yucca Crater site in Wonder Valley, I speak with Benjamin Ball by phone. "I just hope that you don't try to understand Yucca Crater as a piece of conventional architecture, which seems to be what a lot of journalists want to do," he tells me. "There's an expectation of youthful polish or sexiness, but by now, it's probably a decaying shack." Which has been the plan all along. As Ball put it: "We didn't set out to make something that was going to withstand the elements. It's not something that's everlasting. It's not something that's made to be beautiful in a conventional sense of the word, with respect to design and architecture."

"It's degradable," he says. "I don't know about bio."

More than anything, our concern was creating a moment, a weekend, a place. Benjamin Ball




Ball tells me something I don't hear often: "People can do with it what they want."
Katya Tylevich

The handle that could win the Compasso d'Oro
How can design speak of care? This handle goes beyond its primary function and rediscovers the symbolic value of design.