The City of Los Angeles has selected a team led by Gruen Associates to design a 12-mile section of the Los Angeles River Greenway as a part of Frank Gehry’s comprehensive master plan. The design team will also include architects Oyler Wu and landscape firm Mia Lehrer + Associates, who recently won a competition for a new park at First and Broadway in downtown LA. Upon its completion, the greenway will allow residents to walk and bike nearly 30 miles between the neighborhoods of Canoga Park and Elysian Valley.
Found in places as diverse as the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, Willis Tower, and Tokyo Skytree, glass bottom observation decks have become the favorite engineering marvel of thrill seekers looking for a new perspective on the world. Now, the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles has upped the ante for adrenaline-spiking structures – affixing a glass side to the building’s facade. Spanning from a window on the 70th story to a terrace on the 69th, the 45-foot-long chute opened to the public on Saturday, providing those brave enough to ride it with unprecedented views of the city.
Orange Barrel Media with Tom Wiscombe Architecture and MoCA – West Hollywood Belltower. Image Courtesy of City of West Hollywood
The visual identity of West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip has been synonymous with billboard advertising since the 1960s. Over time, different eras have been displayed through the advertising; from the rock bands and cigarette brands of the 60s and 70s, to the highly commercialised signage of today. As part of an initiative to probe the value of this signage as both an identifier and a valuable public asset, The City of West Hollywood (WeHo) launched The Sunset Strip Spectacular Pilot Creative Off-Site Advertising Sign Competition.
The competition sought a multi-dimensional, kinetic billboard “spectacular,” and attracted firms from advertising, marketing, design, architecture and engineering backgrounds. A pool of nine entrants has been narrowed down to four finalists: JCDecaux/Zaha Hadid Project Management Limited; Orange Barrel Media/Tom Wiscombe Architecture/MoC; Outfront Media/Gensler/MAK; and TAIT Towers Inc. Following public presentations in May, the proposals are now visible to the public before the jury make their recommendation later this month.
The City of Los Angeles has selected landscape architects Mia Lehrer + Associates (MLA) with partners OMA and IDEO to design a new public park at First and Broadway in downtown LA. Located across from Los Angeles City Hall, the new development, to be known as “FAB Park,” will connect into the existing Grand Park, turning the area into one of the city’s most important civic spaces.
ALTASEA campus aerial view. Image Courtesy of Gensler
Gensler has revealed their design for the new AltaSea Campus at the Port of Los Angeles. The 35-acre project is dedicated to the scientific study of the ocean and will integrate historic buildings with new research centers and public areas. AltaSea’s existing partnerships make them a key connector within the community, and the new project will “expand scientific-based understanding of the ocean, incubate and sustain ocean-related business and pioneer new ocean-related education programs.” Read more after the break.
Agence Ter and Team have been announced as the winners of a proposal to redesign the oldest park in Los Angeles, Pershing Square, with a call for “radical flatness.” Opened in 1866, with subsequent name changes and redesigns, the winning proposal will replace the most recent iteration by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and landscape architect Laurie Olin, which opened in 1994. Pershing Square is a five-acre park bounded by 5th Street to the north, 6th Street to the south, Hill Street to the east, and Olive Street to the west, in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. The path to redevelopment began in September 2015, when the Los Angeles City Council adopted the plans of councilmember José Huizar, to create a public-private partnership and work with Pershing Square Renew, a non-profit partner, which came out of a task force created by Huizar in 2013.
Jennifer Siegal, founder of Los Angeles-based Office of Mobile Design (OMD), has been announced as the winner of the fourth arcVision Prize – Women and Architecture, an international award to women’s architecture organized by Italcementi. Siegal was unanimously chosen by the jury for being “a fearless pioneer in the research and development of prefabricated construction systems, at low prices for disadvantaged users and areas, who has been able to invent and build practical solutions and a new language for mobile and low-cost housing."
"Innovation and unconventional thinking are both hardwired into my DNA. This shows in my body of work and research that questions everything, particularly the static, heavy, inflexible architecture that we somehow still expect in a world that is anything but," said Siegal in a press release.
This month's Archilogic model is a virtual tour of the very first Case Study House being featured in Arts and Architecture Magazine's program, designed by Julius Ralph Davidson. After World War II, American soldiers returned home from battlefields in Europe. They had to cope with traumatic experiences during the war and probably just wanted to rebuild their life and settle down.
It must have been hard to get back to normal. Certainly people wanted to live the American Dream: The pursuit of happiness, the intention of all Americans. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was first proclaimed in the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and became a sort of “doctrine” for American citizens. This was an idea often reflected in the Hollywood film and television industry. The films that were produced in Hollywood after 1945 were stories that suggested that every hard-working person would succeed. Hollywood seemed to repeatedly produce stories of the American Dream.
https://www.archdaily.com/785051/a-virtual-look-into-julius-ralph-davidsons-case-study-house-number-1David Tran and Florian Meier, Archilogic
Secluded behind a screen of tall bamboo shoots in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, the Kings Road House may be considered the first home ever built in the Modernist style.[1] Designed by Rudolf Schindler in 1921, the architect’s use of tilt-slab concrete construction (highly innovative at the time) and an informal studio layout, set it apart from its contemporaries; indeed, the design would set the tone for other Modernist residential design for decades.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R)'s The Broad Museum has been slowly revitalizing its plot of downtown Los Angeles. In this new video by Chang Kyun Kim, The Broad is shown at an intimate human scale. Kim takes viewers on a journey through the space, following a class of elementary school children as they tour the museum.
The video opens with a shot of the museum from across the street. As the film slowly approaches the building, it focuses on small details, like other pedestrians, the line in front of the ticket booth and a worker adjusting a window detail from inside the museum. The video then moves through the building, viewing the art and the children interacting with it, at various distances and angles, mimicking the way one might experience the art in real life. As the children leave, the video closes with shots of The Broad, again from a distance, as if saying goodbye.
The West Coast's tallest building, Los Angeles' US Bank Tower is going to be outfitted with a terrifying glass slide designed by engineering firm M.Ludvik & Co. Set to hang 1000-feet above the street, the project will be part of the building's Gensler-designed OUE Skyspace LA attraction - soon to be California's tallest open-air observation deck.
Downtown Los Angeles is on the verge of a breakthrough moment. It is becoming more livable, walkable and enjoyable as we speak. But what's missing? A multidisciplinary panel at the A+D Museum examines the promise of DTLA almost a decade after the museum's show Enlightened Development asked the question: How do we foster a "sustainable downtown revitalization"? What can we learn from other cities where a similar downtown renaissance has taken place?
Each year, MAIN EVENT brings together leading architects and designers, developers, contractors, architectural patrons and philanthropists, as well as SCI-Arc alumni, to raise scholarship funds for SCI-Arc students. SCI-Arc's signature MAIN EVENT program to be hosted this spring is the first under SCI-Arc's new director, Hernan Diaz Alonso. Sponsorship and tickets available online at sciarc.edu/mainevent.
American actress Gwyneth Paltrow has commissioned Gensler to design a new branch of London's exclusive Arts Club in West Hollywood. The eight-story members-only club will feature a number of luxury amenities, including a spa, gym, art gallery and rooftop pool. Paltrow is collaborating with business partner Gary Landesberg to complete the 132,000-square-foot facility, which will also include a restaurant and dining terrace, screening rooms, 15 guest rooms, and helicopter pad.
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