OVERLOADED + UNDERFUNDED DOWNTOWN LA
This proposal asserts that infrastructural investment should lead to a reformulation and simplification of the entire transit system, rather than discrete interventions. Termed by some “a managed fantasy”, Los Angeles is a mirage. It is defined and sustained by it’s aging infrastructural legacy: freeways, channelized water networks, power grids, and sewage. These networks have grown horizontally, in response to and in anticipation of human land use. They underpin a vast landscape of sprawling enclaves served by an incessant frenzy of individualized transportation. Yet after decades of relative climatic and geological stability, cheap reliable energy input, and resources imported from distant sources, the fate of this experiment is increasingly uncertain. The gathering forces of resource scarcity, global warming, sea level rise, economic destabilization will all serve to radically alter its future modes of transport and development patterns. In the face of these challenges, Los Angeles is placed in a unique moment of opportunity—with a chance to assert its resiliency by radically altering its modes of infrastructural, not as a measure of remedial planning, but as a matter of survival. It must inoculate, desalinate, articulate, and abandon.
INFRASTRUCTURAL ARMATURE
Flow begins as an infrastructural armature, giving rise to dense vertical habitation. This common hybrid infrastructure of vascular networks will emerge in alignment with the existing stormwater, transportation, power and sewage networks, with subterranean networks of tunnels serving as both conduits and water storage in impermeable and contaminated zones. Flow will serve to process human and industrial waste through mechanical and natural filtration, and then bank water into aquifers. It will also serve to convey materials, goods, and people through integrated tubular networks that will exist both above and below ground. Strategic integration with a global subterranean high speed rail network allows L.A. to maintain and expand its industrial base while becoming a vibrant employee outpost for a globally mobile workforce.
Predicated on three symbiotic constructs, Flow, Focus, and Fuzz, this exhibit outlines a possible scenario for Los Angeles over the course of the 21st century. Taken together, they comprise a mutually supportive metabolism that responds to and embraces regional pressures as a catalyst for new land uses, new economies, new forms of transportation, and new modes of urbanism. Recognizing the vital role that mobility, water, and sewage will play Los Angeles' future, it must begin investment in a core armature of new bundled infrastructures which will allow the city to survive impending peak water/peak oil. The city must reorganize along the matrices of transportation, water and sewarshed networks, and grow infrastructural tentacles out into the world to ship and receive.. Let the streets fall apart! Lets mine them for valuable minerals and petrochemicals...
AMID THE RUBBLE
The continuing forces of economic and seismic instability diminish L.A.’s ability to support its periphery, resulting in the redistribution of many urban populations within zones of existing infrastructural confluence (primary nodes). No longer obsessively maintained, abandoned enclaves begin to succumb to an inevitable process of succession, urban mining, and desertification.
200B 500
300
5
405
ROADS RAIL FREEWAYS
PORT OF LA
LEGEND WATER
TRANSPORT FREEWAYS ARTERIALS RAIL GEOLOGY MAJOR FAULTLINES
WASTE
IMPORTED WATER SOURCE WATER MAIN DESALINATION PLANT DEBRIS + INFILTRATION BASIN
WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITY
MASS TRANSIT NETWORK (MILES)
SEWERSHED BOUNDARY
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT (HECTARES PER INDIVIDUAL)
SEWER MAINS
RESIDENTS (MILLIONS) NON-RESIDENTS (MILLIONS) LOCAL WATER UTILIZED (BILLIONS OF GALLONS) IMPORTED WATER UTILIZED (BILLIONS OF GALLONS)
FUZZ
UR EC NA ON AB TI ON ST AN ES RU DO TA PL CT BL AN M IO IS EN TS N H 20 T M E BE OF XP % EN GI AN EN AG T NS OF D ER IN GY FL G IN OW IM FR PO PR AS RT IM TR S E UC ST IN UR AT FR EH ES AS TR IG H UC SP TU EE RA D LA RA IL RM PR CO IM AT M AR UR P Y LE E FO TE CA D LN OD ES ES PO TA BL RT IS OF HE LO D SA NA TI N GE ON LE AL SR HI EC GH ED SP CO ES EE AS IN D TA LA RI LW AL ND AV CO EE M PL NE ET RG ED Y GE NE RA S TI ON 48 TAT % EW PL RE A AN DU TER TS CT CO ON IO N LI N FIC NE IN T S W R AT E ER SU IM LT PO IN RT S
Y W AV EE NE RG
T2
FUZZ
BIOMASS PRODUCTION MINING SOLID WASTE PROCESSING HABITAT DRYLAND AGRICULTURE ALGAL FIELDS SOLAR/ WIND ENERGY PRODUCTION
FOCUS
HABITATION SOLAR CHIMNEY TOWER VERTICAL AGRICULTURE
FUZZ FIVE: TRANSITIONAL MYCELIAL MATT FUZZ SIX: OPERATIVE LANDSCAPE
LI
IN F
RE
O ZO FFS NE HO S E RE ST AQ AB U LI AC SH U ED LTU
PO RT PL IM S AN AR Y TS D ON ES ST LI AL NE IN IN ATE AT 48 WA IO % TE N RE R DU CO .5 M CT NF SE IO ICT A LE N IN S R VE E L R IMP SUL OR T IS E TS N RA ATI O IL N NE AL TW H OR IGH K SP CO EE NS D TR UC
T0
PR
70 %
EN ER G
Y
IM
S CO TAT NS E H TR IGH UC S TI PEE ON D
RA IL
TI ON
SEWERSHED WATERSHED
FOCUS 2: MYCORRHYZAL OUTPOST
SA
2135 km2
AL
HYPERION
FUZZ TWO: WAVE ENERGY GENERATION MANIFOLD
FUZZ FOUR: DRYLANDS
RU CT
LOS ANGELES RIVER
FUZZ ONE: AQUACULTURE ZONE
T1
SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS
FOCUS ONE: PRIMARY FOCAL NODE
ST
BURBANK
FLOW PRIME: INFRASTRUCTURAL ARMATURE
FUZZ THREE: MYCORRHYZAL PLATFORM
DE
TILLMAN
INTERSTATE + NATIONAL HIGH SPEED RAIL
TA CT IC
6.1
RA
8M 100B
TA L
50B
CO AS
150
THE AGE OF WATER
SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS SANTA SUSANA MOUNTAINS
CENTRAL + SOUTH AMERICAN HIGH SPEED RAIL PACIFIC FREIGHT+PASSENGER TUNNEL
FLOW
ENERGY PATH
TRANSPORTATION WASTE WATER ENERGY
BIOMASS PRODUCTION URBAN MINING SOLID WASTE PROCESSING SUCCESSION HABITAT DRYLAND AGRICULTURE ALGAL FIELDS WIND ENERGY PRODUCTION SOLAR ARRAY FIELDS MINERAL MINING NUCLEAR ENERGY AQUACULTURE HABITATION WATER RESERVOIR GROUNDWATER INJECTION MICHO
FRINGE
EAT ME
CENTRAL + SOUTH AMERICAN HIGH SPEED RAIL PACIFIC FREIGHT+PASSENGER TUNNEL FOCUS 3: WASTE + WATER DISTRIBUTION FUZZ FIVE: TRANSITIONAL MYCELIAL MATT FUZZ SIX: OPERATIVE LANDSCAPE
In an effort to abate the encroaching desert and in anticipation of future land uses, L.A.’s already deteriorating interstitial enclaves are strategically inoculated with the spores of voracious fungal strains, which thrive on the wood cellulose of aging structures, decomposing the acres of single-family homes to make way for future operative landscapes.
PORT OF LOS ANGELES
LOCAL AREA PLAN #2
FRESHWATER STORAGE SECURITY HABITATION HABITAT
WIND FARM
SOLID WASTE
DESALINATION WAVE POWER GENERATION
AQUACULTURE
Fuzz represents the vast areas of land that will be needed to capture, detain, treat, and infiltrate stormwater, as well as productive regions for energy generation and agriculture. A mycorrhizal inoculation campaign will be deployed to remediate soil, eliminate decaying urban fabric and act as a gateway species for the emergence of productive landscapes such as; reservoirs and injection galleries, agricultural fields, algal energy generation fields, waste treatment fields, and aquaculture zones.
T4
710
THE AGE OF MOVEMENT
110
V NE ITAL TW IN OR FRA KS ST EN RU HA CT NC UR ED AL A ZO QUA NE CU S E LT XP UR AN E D SE CO ND AR Y FO CA LN OD CO ES AS M TA AT LW UR E AV EE SO NE LA RG R, Y W PL IN AN D TS EN EX ER OP PA GY ER ND IN AT FR IV A EL ST 20 RU AN % CT DS EN UR CA ER EE PE GY TE XP S EX EX RT AN P P IA AN OR DS RY TS D FO CA SU LN BT OD ER RA ES NE AE ES TA RI AN AL BL I N IS TR FR HE AN AS D SP TR OR UC TA TU TI RA ON LN NE ET TW W OR OR KS KS DE EM NS ER IF GE Y
THE ALAMEDA CORRIDOR
T3
LAX
LAX
THE AGE OF ENERGY
ALAMEDA CORRIDOR EAST
BE ST ISM GI RE IC NS SS IN ES S T AG AB IN ILI G TY IN FR SE AS CO TR ND UC TU AR RE Y FO CA LN M OD YC ES OR ES RH TA IZ BL AL IS PL HE AT D FO AQ RM UA SE CU ST LT AB UR LI SH EZ ED ON PR IM ES AR EX Y PA SO ND LA R, W IN D IN EN TE RN ER GY AT IO IN NA FR AS LH TR I GH OP UC SP ER TU EE AT RE D IV ES RA EL TA PR IL AN BL IM ES D IS AR TA SC HE B Y A L D PE FO IS HE SE CA D M LN M ER YC OD GE OR ES EM M ED AT 0% IA UR TI EN E ON ER GY AD VA IM PO NC RT ES S
10 10
220B
AT IO N
5
Focus represents the concentration of populations along bundled flow networks. Horizontal geographies of low density sprawl and individualized transportation dependency will be supplanted by vertical and subterranean collective zero-waste regions. A metabolic, ‘no-waste’ urbanism will capture, mine, and reuse all available resources. These new architectures will also include vertical agriculture, wind harnessing, solar towers, and photosynthetic energy generation. The southern and western portions of the armature will primarily serve as the locus for energy generation through off shore wave and tide power systems, and desalination. The northern extents will primarily function in large scale water capture, treatment, and storage.
200B
SE
101
3.5M 1.8
IC
8.4
2.3
180B
SE RT IF
405
4.5M 4
DE
10M
50B
600
6M
THE AGE OF SPORES
74
0B
THE AGE OF WASTE
5
At the extremities of the infrastructural armature, mined abandoned
Mode 3 provides for movement within smaller areas which are often definable neighborhoods and which may be bound by modes 1 and 2. The typology of vehicles within mode 3 operate on the surface and include personal and public rapid tranist.
enclaves become desolate no mans land awaiting absorption into the flow or inoculation.
SOLAR FARM
An offshoot from the Flow network, Mode 2 provides for movement within the larger subareas bound by the Flow through an elevated tram system. Mode 2 also serves through traffic but provides more direct access to abutting land uses than the Flow.
Operating within the Flow and a key component of the bundled infrastructure, mode one is a high speed Maglev rail network that allows for movement across and between large subareas of urban regions.
NYC
FLOW GEOTHERMAL
UNDERGROUND WATER STORAGE
MODE 4
_ scavengers / drifters / nomads
MODE 3
_ low density population
MODE 2
_ medium density population
MODE 1
_ high density population