THE WEST
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CONTENTS
DESIGN FOR WEST COAST’S TALLEST TOWER REVEALED
04
MAYNE DOES DALLAS 06
PUTTING A FACE ON BROAD 12
HODGETTS TEST DRIVES TESLA
SWA DESIGNS RIVERFRONT PLAN FOR SHANGHAI
AT THE FRONT The LA office of landscape firm SWA has made a name for itself designing waterfronts in places as diverse as Tulsa, Los Angeles, and China. Last month, the firm won a competition to
rethink a vital portion of the City of Shanghai’s waterfront. It enlisted Morphosis to develop the site’s architecture. The site, known as Front City, for its location at the
Parklet on Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
BERRY AND LINNÉ, UTOPIAD.ORG, AHBÉ
in scope: It features stained wood-plank flooring, curving built-in wood furniture, and mosaic tile furniture and siding. But as the city’s first parklet, it represents a major milestone. The parklets initiative involves intensive coordination among several city departments, including the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Planning, LA KICKS OFF CITYWIDE MINI PARK PROGRAM the Bureau of Engineering, the Bureau of Street Services, the Mayor’s Office, and various city council On February 3, Los Angeles firm Shared Spaces, the offices. The parklet was kicked off the pilot parklets park is located on the site sponsored by LA Councilman program it announced last of a former parking space in José Huizar, planned and fall, opening a miniature front of Bobby’s Auto Parts, coordinated by the nonprofit public space in the Eagle near the corner of Avenue 50 Living Streets LA, and built by Rock neighborhood of East and York Boulevard. the LA Conservation Corps Los Angeles. Designed by The $30,000 parking (which gives at-risk young continued on page 4 LA landscape architecture space-sized park is modest adults
POWER TO THE PARKLET
Winging It On February 7, California-based architecture firm AC Martin Partners unveiled detailed plans for the Wilshire Grand, a 1,100-foot tower in downtown Los Angeles that will be the tallest building on the West Coast. The $1 billion, 73-story project, funded by Hanjin International, is downtown’s first high-rise office in decades. Located on the corner of 7th and Figueroa streets, it will include 400,000 square feet of offices, 900 hotel rooms, and a 160-foottall, mixed-use podium at its base. The building’s tapering, elliptical shape is evocative of a sail, or as architect and aviation enthusiast David Martin, sees it, an airplane wing. He said that his cousin Chris Martin, who is managing the project, thinks the podium design resembles Half Dome, the famous rock continued on page 2
DEMANDING AN ETHICAL AIA 02 UNVEILED 03 EAVESDROP 11 CALENDAR
FILM INDUSTRY BUCKS DOWNTOWN LA ALTERATIONS
THE STREET STAYS IN THE PICTURE The resurgence of the residential community in downtown Los Angeles has come with numerous urban design interventions, from bike lanes to parklets to new transit stations. Not all of the neighborhood’s stakeholders, however, are happy about the changes. The film industry, one of the most powerful of those groups, has grown increasingly outspoken in its concerns about how the modifications are impacting business. Downtown’s impressive mix of Art Deco, Beaux-Arts, and Postmodern buildcontinued on page 5 ings, along
AN DELVES INTO THE WORLD OF CUTTING-EDGE MATERIAL SCIENCE. SEE PAGE 8
COURTESY JENNY SABIN
southern head of the city, includes a 940-acre mixeduse development and a 250-acre park along the Huangpu River, in the Pudong section of the city. The development is just south of the site of Shanghai’s International Expo Centre. SWA divided the 1.4mile-long park space into continued on page 3 five
COURTESY AC MARTIN
SWA
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