A walk in Beverly Hills by Jeffery Lu

A WALK IN BEVERLY HILLS Jeffery Lu

Historical + Botanical

A WALK IN BEVERLY HILLS Historical + Botanical

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Overview 1.2 Study Area- Beverly Hills Shopping District 1.3 Built Form History

2 3 4

2.1 General Land Use Regulations 2.2 Zoning Code 2.3 Current Land Use

7 8 9

3.1 Kevin Lynch Analysis 3.2 Botanical Space 3.3 Historic Landmark 3.4 North Santa Monica Boulevard Sidewalk Analysis

13 16 23 27

3.1 Opportunity: A Historical and Botanical Walk 3.2 Historic Landmarks Recognition 3.3 Pedestrian Amenities Enhancement 3.4 Branding and Messaging

29 30 32 34

Chapter 2 Use Assessment

Chapter 3 Character Analysis

Chapter 4 A Historical and Botanical Walk

Appendix

List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20 Figure 21 Figure 22 Figure 23 Figure 24 Figure 25 Figure 26 Figure 27 Figure 28 Figure 29 Figure 30 Figure 31 Figure 32 Figure 33 Figure 34

Study Area Map by Illustrator...................................................................................................................................3 Beverly Hills sign and lily pond..................................................................................................................................4 Built Form Timeline by Illustrator................................................................................................................................5 General Plan Land Use Designation by Illustrator..................................................................................................7 Scene on T-1 Transportation Overlay Zone............................................................................................................8 Scene on Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan..........................................................................................................8 Zoning Map by Illustrator........................................................................................................................................10 Land Use Map by Illustrator....................................................................................................................................11 A major path - Rodeo Drive...................................................................................................................................13 Kevin Lynch Analysis Map by Illustrator.................................................................................................................15 Botanic area by ArcGIS and Photoshop by Illustrator........................................................................................16 Endless V, Hymn of Life:Tulips, Hunter and Hounds, and the Morton Bay Fig Tree from left to right..............16 Beverly Gardens Park user group analysis by Illustrator......................................................................................17 Kusama “Tulips” Garden Plan................................................................................................................................18 Kusama “Tulips” Garden Future Look....................................................................................................................18 Lily Pond Garden Plan............................................................................................................................................18 Lily Pond Garden Future Look................................................................................................................................18 “Hunter and Hounds” Garden Plan......................................................................................................................18 “Hunter and Hounds” Garden Future Look..........................................................................................................18

Figure 35 Figure 36 Figure 37 Figure 38 Figure 39 Figure 40 Figure 41 Figure 42 Figure 43 Figure 44 Figure 45 Figure 46 Figure 47 Figure 48 Figure 49 Figure 50 Figure 51 Figure 52 Figure 53

Writers & Artists Building drawing by Illustrator.....................................................................................................24 Beverly Wilshire Hotel old picture...........................................................................................................................24 Beverly Wilshire Hotel drawing by Illustrator.........................................................................................................24 The Wallis Annenberg Center drawing by Illustrator...........................................................................................25 Corner Stone Laying of the Post Office in 1933...................................................................................................25 Working Scene in the Post Office..........................................................................................................................25 Panorama picture of the City Hall........................................................................................................................25 City Hall drawing by Illustrator................................................................................................................................25 Picture of the park sidewalk on N. SMB................................................................................................................26 Sectional and top view of N. Santa Monica Blvd by Illustrator..........................................................................26 Picture of the undeveloped field on N. SMB........................................................................................................26 Historic landmarks Signage by Illustrator..............................................................................................................29 Historic landmarks Paintings by Photoshop..........................................................................................................30 The condition of pedestrian walking path by Photoshop and Illustrator..........................................................31 Enhancements of North Santa Monica Boulevard and Chase Bank by Illustrator..........................................32 Beverly Hills visitor center........................................................................................................................................33 Beverly Hills brochures.............................................................................................................................................33 Love Beverly Hills Website.......................................................................................................................................33 A walk in Beverly Hills map by Illustrator................................................................................................................33

City Hall Landscape Scene ...................................................................................................................................19 Palms in Rodeo Drive..............................................................................................................................................19 Rodeo Drive map created by Paul Shaffer..........................................................................................................19 fountain in Beverly Canon Gardens .....................................................................................................................20 Beverly Conon Gardens sunlight, shades, and people by Photoshop and Illustrator ..................................20 Beverly Gardens Park Scene..................................................................................................................................20 Beverly Conon Gardens user space preference by Photoshop and Illustrator .............................................21 Historic Landmark locations by ArcGIS and Photoshop ....................................................................................22 World famous lily pond and Beverly Hills sign ......................................................................................................23 Beverly Gardens Park scene on the postcard.....................................................................................................23 Beverly Gardens Park drawing by Illustrator.........................................................................................................23 Front Shot of Writers & Artists Building....................................................................................................................23 Los Angeles Times, Jan 20,1924 .............................................................................................................................23 Writers & Artists Building drawing by Illustrator.....................................................................................................23 Anderton Court old pictures..................................................................................................................................24

Topic

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUTION

Chapter 1: Introduction

1 Overview To many, Beverly Hills is a place for the fortunate to live in comfort, dine and shop at leisure, but Beverly Hills is much more than that. It is rich in heritage and botanic landscape as evidenced by many historic landmarks and public spaces found in corners of Beverly Hills Shopping District. Even though the city has these abundant cultural resources, they are not organized and integrated to provide tourists a diverse walking experience. Nowadays there are more and more people are in favor of cultural tourism, with more than half of American Baby Boomers preferring leisure travel that is educational1, and “73 percent of American Millenilals want to engage a destination’s arts and cultural asset.”2 The goal of this report is to propose a tourism model that is different from the traditional tourism

mode, which is mostly about shopping and dining in Beverly Hills. In this way, we can not only respond to various tourists types today, but also carry forward the hidden gems of Beverly Hills. The structure of this report is divided into four part. First, we give the overall look of the study area. Second, we see the opportunities and limitations from site regulation and current land use. Third, we analyze the site character in order to obtain the context for walk proposal. Forth and the last is to propose a historical and botanical walk.

1. Mandala Research, LLC 2013 2. Destination Analytics, State of the American Traveler, Jul 2014

Chapter 1: Introduction

2 Study Area- Beverly Hills Shopping District

The neighborhood under study is a Beverly Hills shopping district. The boundaries of the area are Park Way to the North, Wilshire Boulevard to the South, North Camden Drive to the West, and North Crescent Drive to the East. Sitting right next to Beverly Hills City Hall, there are several well-known tourist attractions and hot spots in this neighborhood, including a Big Beverly Hills sign, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Rodeo Drive and VIA Rodeo (the cobblestone street). Based on my research, it is clear that these destinations and luxury stores add prestige to the neighborhood, forming its important and unique characteristics.

Hills look narrower and have many stores and activities going on. Also, the uniform physical environment and street furniture are a pivotal element in Beverly Hills shopping district. Almost every inch of sidewalk is perfectly aligned without huge gaps, and the tree pots are either furnished with plants or decorated metal lids. In addition, the pedestrian signs here are a good indicator pointing the way to famous attractions for tourists. These are my first understanding and interpretation of this Beverly Hills shopping district.

The one thing I like the neighborhood the most is the sense of enclosure it creates, comparing many of other streets in LA, streets in Beverly Figure 1. Study Area Map by Illustrator

Chapter 1: Introduction

3 Built Form History Ready to Thrive (1900s - 1920s) The main streets in Beverly Hills Shopping District were constructed in 1907.1 Except for North Crescent Drive, all of these streets had trees, and the Pacific Electric installed light rail services and ran along the North Santa Monica Boulevard two years later.2 Even though Beverly Hills had only a few private development in the 1920s, several public service investments had already been made in the neighborhood. For example, the Beverly Gardens Park, with a lily pond and the Beverly Hills sign in an original, non-electrical form, was created in 1911. The purpose of Beverly Gardens Park was to divide the commercial district to the south from the residential district to the north.3

Started to Prosper (1930s – 1950s) Even though the whole of America was suffering from the Great Depression from 1929 to 1939, this was the period of time that Beverly Hills Shopping District started to thrive. “They had nonstop promotional advertisements, stressing the image of a first rate city. So a lot of it was propaganda. And specialty shops came about,” reported by radio station KPCC. 4 The spot lights lit up the sky celebrating a store’s grand opening, and the streets were not only brightened by street lights, but also by buildings. On the postcard view of Wilshire Boulevard in 1940, we can see two towers and two billboards erecting into the sky, attracting people’s attentions.

Figure 2. Beverly Hills sign and lily pond

1. Water and Power Associates. “Early Views of Beverly Hills.” http:// waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_Beverly_Hills.html. 2. Pacific Electric. “Santa Monica via Sawtelle Line.” http://www.erha. org/pewsms.htm. 3. Friends of Beverly Gardens Park. “History of the Park.” http://www. fobgp.org/history.html. 4. 89.3 KPCC. (2010, March 21) “Beverly Hills Centennial: 5 things you probably didn’t know about the history of 90210.” http://www.scpr. org/programs/offramp/2014/03/21/36595/beverly-hills-centennial-5-things-you-probably-did/

Anderton Court, a three-story, modern building on Rodeo Drive was designed by the wellknown architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954.5 Automobiles were becoming a normal way for people to get around in Los Angeles, and these buildings served as a way to pull drivers into the stores.6 Buildings occupied all the blocks in the neighborhood, and automobiles dominated the streets, while sidewalks were also designed with utility poles, power cables, black-painted street lights, warning signs for light rails, and street trees rather than palms people are familiar with today. Without the safety island in the middle of Rodeo Drive that exists today, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was visually obvious when people looked south down Rodeo Drive from North Santa Monica, and this was one of the major landmarks of the time. Light rails still ran through the south side of North Santa Monica Boulevard during this period, and the area adjacent to the rails used to be the railroad avenue, which has since been replaced with parking structures and vacant ground after railroad services were stopped in 1965 due to the declining profits.7

district has become more modern than ever, and the transformation of North Rodeo Drive probably manifests the differences of past and present the most. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Dior, etc. Today, these luxury boutiques take over the whole North Rodeo Drive, pushing it to the world stage. It is hard to imagine that back in the1960s, North Rodeo Drive was just a normal street with a gas station and a grocer. In 1967, Fred Hayman, “the father of Rodeo Drive,” opened the first boutique- Giorgio, and this attracted other high-end design stores to the district. The VIA Rodeo, an outdoor shopping center,8 was built in 1990 with a cobblestone street and European style buildings. The pedestrian-street-looking, privately owned shopping center has become a world famous tourist destination and selfie spot. 8. The Mercury News. (2011, June 2) “Honors for Fred Hayman, the father of Rodeo Drive.” http://www.mercurynews.com/2011/06/02/ honors-for-fred-hayman-the-father-of-rodeo-drive/

A Modern City (Nowadays) Beverly Hills Shopping District changed drastically in the late 20th century. Comparing old photos with the present built form, it is obvious that many store signs are not lit up anymore; big store signs and billboards disappeared; utility poles were removed and power cables are now underground. The 5. Beverly Hills. “Beverly Hills Community Development.” http://www. beverlyhills.org/citygovernment/departments/communitydevelopment/planning/historicpreservation/localhistoriclandmarks/ 6. Water and Power Associates. “Early Views of Beverly Hills.” http:// waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_Beverly_Hills.html. 7. Pacific Electric. “Santa Monica via Sawtelle Line.” http://www.erha. org/pewsms.htm.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Figure 3. Built Form Timeline by Illustrator

Chapter 1: Introduction

CHAPTER TWO USE ASSESSMENT

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

1 General Land Use Regulations The vision of how the City of Beverly Hills should grow and be is outlined in The General Plan, and it was updated on January 12, 2010, setting the goals of great neighborhoods, excellent public safety, vibrant businesses and shopping districts, and wise water and natural resource management.1 In the General Plan Land Use Designations, there are seven types of land uses in the study area, and the plan regulates the maximum density and height of three major land uses, include medium density commercial, low density commercial, and multi-family residential commercial parking. It is fascinating to see the city government still keeps the railroad in general plan while it is already replaced by parking structures and undeveloped grounds. However, there are no further explanation or plan for this area so far in the Transportation White Paper. In low density commercial zone, there are two buildings that are higher than the maximum height of 45 feet as regulated by the General Plan. The Bank of America Building, built in 1968, is a 12-story, 143-foot-high building on the southeast intersection of North Beverly Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard. Chase Bank Building, built in 1961, is an eightfloor, 110-feet-height office building on the northwest intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. Even though they both exceed the maximum height, it is documented that â&#x20AC;&#x153;Commercial buildings in the immediate vicinity of the project site tend to exceed the current height and density requirements, and were often approved through the use of variances during the 1960s and 1970s.â&#x20AC;? Therefore, I suppose the relevant variances for two buildings were already approved. Other land uses include public building, park and a mixed use specific plan. 1.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; Beverly Hills Community Development. http://www.beverlyhills.org/ business/constructionlanduse/generalplan/

Figure 4. General Plan Land Use Designation by Illustrator

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

2 Zoning Code Commercial The majority of the Beverly Hills Shopping District is composed of C-3 commercial zones. There is one fuel station on the southwest side of North Crescent Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard intersection that is in the C-3 commercial zone. According to the ordinance, there is a conditional use permit for the fuel station in this zone that the proposed use should be compatible with surrounding uses and have an adequate buffer between use and residential areas. Furthermore, to preserve the public health, welfare and safety, the planning commission has the right to impose any condition. The other commercial zone is the C-3B commercial, and it is a two-story building with several rooms inside the building that are currently commercial service use.

RMCP Multiple-Family Residential Commercial Zoning

Parks, Reservoirs, Government (Unzoned)

There are two buildings that are located on the north side of Brighton Way are used as hotels. One is Hotel del Flores, and the other is Crescent Hotel Dining Terrace & Bar. But in the zoning code, a hotel is not a permitted use within the RMCP zone, and the expansion or increase of guestrooms are being restricted. Maybe it is because that the hotels was built before the zoning code that we see the nonconforming situation today. A hotel-owned restaurant takes up the front part of the hotel building, and the zoning code allows the operation of restaurants within a nonconforming hotel located in the RMCP zone with a conditional use permit if there is no live entertainment, parties, or patrons seated after eleven oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock.

Beverly Gardens Park, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and Beverly Hills City Hall are categorized in Parks, Reservoirs, Government (Unzoned).

There are two public parking structures and one public parking lot in the block between Brighton Way and Dayton Way. The two-story parking structure to the north is used exclusively for public parking, while the maximum height should be under forty feet in the zoning regulation. Convenience retail uses are also permitted in the RMCP zone with the limited seating area that is not to exceed eighteen percent of the floor area. There are several commercial uses on the ground floor of the other parking structure, with four upper floors of the parking structure. This building might have exceeded the maximum height of 40 feet. The residential property called Sunrise Senior Living is located on the southwest intersection of North Crescent Drive and Clifton Way, the five-story building is under the zoning code that permits a maximum height of sixty feet when the ground floor is used for housing elderly and handicapped persons.

E-O-PD Entertainment Office Planned Development Overlay Zone The objective of the E-O-PD overlay zone is to provide opportunities for entertainment talent agencies that would not otherwise be allowed in underlying zone C-3 commercial zone. In 2009, the overlay zone was built with a six-floor entertainment office building with retail on the ground floor adjacent to the sidewalks.

T-1 Transportation and T-O Transportation Overlay Zone The two-story parking structures and the empty grounds along the North Santa Monica Boulevard are on a T-1 transportation zone and a T-O Transportation Overlay Zone. In the zoning code, no building can be constructed on T-1 zone except for railroad-related services. However, the specific plan T-O transportation overlay zone permits the surface parking.

Figure 5. Scene on T-1 Transportation Overlay Zone

Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan The Montage Hotel, Bouchon Restaurant, the Beverly Canon Gardens, and a public structure are within the Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan. The public voted to approve the specific plan with 53.5% saying yes in 2005, and the whole project was built in 2008.

Figure 6. Scene on Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

3 Current Land Use Purpose Figure 8 shows the current uses and dynamics of a neighborhood. The “land use” here does not mean zoning and allowed uses by the city government, but instead presents the current land use of every building. In this way, people can get a closer look of the Beverly Hills neighborhood, including the possible interaction between streets and people.

Content and Rationale Making the land use map requires investigating the land uses of every building within the neighborhood. Since huge part of Beverly Hills Shopping district is retail and commercial area, just categorizing it as retails is not sufficient for providing detail on the map, otherwise we would only see a full of red color in the map but not the details. Therefore, this map divides the retail and commercial into four subcategories, including office, retail, restaurant and the service. The office category is a place purely for desk task; the retail category is for selling any tangible products; the restaurant category includes bars, cafés, desert shops and any other eating places; and the service category includes spaces providing services, such as real estate telling companies, banks, hair salons and make up studios. Other uses include Institutional, residential,

public space, construction, and vacant buildings. The reason for adding construction and vacant buildings is not only that they do not fit into other land uses, but also to show the flow of the urban form on the land use map, displaying that the city does not remain static, sometimes it withers and other times a new life is born. Public space is also an interesting use. Since VIA Rodeo is a private land and used as a pedestrian shopping plaza, it is necessary to put it in the category of public space instead of treating it as a normal street. Also, there is an open plaza in a shopping complex on the northwest side of North Rodeo Drive that it is seen as a public space.

is separated into several different uses entirely, such as a building with a salon and a restaurant where a crosshatch of the colors indicates the different uses. This first method is used frequently in the land use map. The second method is to put a stripe of different color in the front of the block with a different background color. The background color indicates the primary use of the building, while the stripe is only part of the door front. For example, one building on North Crescent Drive is a four-story building with three floors of parking and a commercial space on the storefront. In this case, the second method I noted above was used.

Presentation It is actually not an easy task to clearly put all the uses into proposed key legends, because nowadays a lot of stores already stretch out their normal operation modes and combine with services. For example, there is a restaurant that sell clothes, and there is Nespresso store with an area selling coffee machines, but also has a café provides coffee and desserts in their seating area. In addition, there might be more than two different uses in one building. Therefore, two methods have been employed to express the situation of mixed use. One, using a crosshatch pattern when the building

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

Figure 7. Zoning Map by Illustrator

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

Figure 8. Land Use Map by Illustrator

Chapter 2: Use Assessment

CHAPTER THREE CHARACTER ANALYSIS

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

1 Kevin Lynch Analysis Paths

Edges

Kevin Lynch: “People observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the other environmental elements are arranged and related.” Paths are very critical element forming and structuring Beverly Hills shopping district. There are two major paths and one pedestrian path in this neighborhood.

Edges are lines that people cannot use or cross, and they have never been considered as paths, but they are also elements that delineate a certain area. In the observation, although there is no clear and consistent line that block people from entering or leaving, the block itself sometimes becomes an edge with the forms of buildings and structures.

It is difficult to distinguish the major edge and minor edge in this neighborhood. In the research, pedestrians can look through the edge or not is considered as a factor that differentiate major edges and minor edges. The major edges are three parking lots without entrance on the side of North Santa Monica Boulevard, and there are big undeveloped grounds with dirt in front of the parking structures. The minor edge is on the block of The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Since this center is all fenced and people cannot cross even see through the fence to the building. The feeling of isolation from the environment inside the fence can be seen as a minor edge.

The second major path is Rodeo Drive. It is a path not only because its reputation around the world, but also due to the strong identity and imageability forming in front of every person. The four-lanes street is divided by a safety island planted with palms. It is a busy street, not only full of cars, but also pedestrians, tourists, and shoppers. The pedestrian path in the private VIA Rodeo. The cobblestone pavement reflects the european-style buildings, while benches, coffee tables and plants scattered around, forming the sense of enclosure. It is a rather small scale but pivotal path as a bone of this neighborhood.

Figure 9. A major path - Rodeo Drive

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Districts

Nodes

Problems of the image

The district in Kevin Lynchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book is basically an area which shares the same character and is identifiable from the observer. If we see a city as a human being, path is the vessels of the body, and the district would be the heart. Vessels brings nutrition inside and outside of the heart to sustain the whole system, and the heart is the spring of life.

In the Beverly Hills Shopping District, there are three major nodes and three minor nodes. Three major nodes are all in the major paths. The first one is near Beverly Gardens Park, which is a big bus stop with many routes. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to reckon it as a point people enter this neighborhood. The second one is the intersection of North Santa Monica Boulevard and North Rodeo Drive. It is not only this that make it a node, but also the fact that it is the entrance to a major public parking lot. The third node is the junctional point of North Rodeo Drive, Dayton Way and Rodeo VIA. All the luxury brand shops, the famous Rodeo sign, and the pedestrians play an important role making this node a busy point. All the minor nodes are bus stops with more than two routes, and there are office buildings and the city hall nearby. These minor nodes can also serve as points for people to go to work, shop, or live.

There are four major problems of the image in this neighborhood. The first is the bottomless tower, as within the neighborhood, there are several corners where people can only see the top of Beverly Hills City Hall. The second one is an incomplete broken path, which is the construction area of N. Canon Dr. The constructions extends into the sidewalk and pedestrians have to go across the road to pass the construction zone. The third one is directional ambiguity in the intersection of Rodeo VIA, N. Rodeo Dr. and Wilshire Blvd. The multi-intersected point with roads that are not either horizontal or vertical makes people feel confused. The last one is a characterless path on a first floor of big, grey office building in the intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. There are no shops on the first floor, only walls and windows with closed curtains, which is not in agreement with its surroundings.

Even the neighborhood has good entity and imageability with all the design of treepots, signs, and shops, but the Rodeo Drive itself has a higher level of everything. That is why Rodeo Drive, with the blocks on two sides and the cobblestone street, is the very center of the Beverly Hills Shopping District. The minor district would be within the Canon Drive, even there are no path crossing through and only one minor node. But it is a rather diverse district in terms of variety of shops and restaurants. The outside tables enforce the imageability of the district. One thing that has to be noted is that the districts do not have clearly-defined, enclosed lines; rather, they both stretch out to the neighboring area.

Landmarks Kevin Lynch describes Landmark as an external point that people do not enter, but it is a reference point when people map out the neighborhood. There is one major landmark based on this observation: Beverly Hills City Hall. The imageability and visibility are really strong as it is easy to see the beautiful towerlike governmental building from far away. The minor landmark is the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, located in the very southern part, at the end of North Rodeo Drive. Even though it is hard to see from other streets, people can clear see this huge building when walk through Rodeo Drive, and it serves as an ending of the major path.

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Topic

Figure 10. Kevin Lynch Analysis Map by Illustrator

Chapter 1: Introduction

2 Botanical Space Beverly Gardens Park

N. SANTA MONICA BLVD.

Consisting of 23 blocks of green space along Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Gardens Park is a home to a variety of city events and festivals, drawing tourists and residents to visit and enjoy the public space. The three central program blocks are called Kusama “Tulips” Garden, Lily Pond Garden, and “Hunter and Hounds” Garden from west to east. And t hese three central blocks are where one of the most popular art events “The Beverly Hills artSHOW”1 was held at for more than 40 years. The entire Beverly Gardens Park is now undergoing the process of renovation and minor new improvements such as low voltage lighting for improved pedestrian safety.2

S. SANTA MONICA BLVD.

1. Friends of Beverly Gardens Park, History, http://www.fobgp.org/ aboutus.html 2. Capital Improvement Projects Budget, City of Beverly Hills, Apr 2016

BRIGHTON WAY N. CRESCENT DR.

N. CANON DR.

DAYTON WAY

W ILS HI RE

BL VD .

Figure 11. Botanic area by ArcGIS and Photoshop by Illustrator

Beverly Hills City Hall Garden

Kusama “Tulips” Garden

Lily Pond Garden

“Hunter and Hounds” Garden

North Rodeo Drive

Beverly Canon Gardens Figure 12. Endless V, Hymn of Life:Tulips, Hunter and Hounds, and the Morton Bay Fig Tree from left to right

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Use Group Analysis in Beverly Gardens Park User Groups There are many more sign visitors in this park than any other user groups, and they usually like to take pictures with the Beverly Hills Sign. Some of them also took photos with the Morton Bay Fig Tree on the west side of the Lily Pond Garden and the sculptures on the other two gardens. sign visitors usually arrive in the daytime, while there are still more sign visitors than other user groups until 10:00 pm. There was an interesting interruption at 1:00 pm: it was a group of professional filmmakers shooting the scene of a couple taking pictures in front of the signs. During the observation at 1:00 pm, there were a lot fewer sign visitors, and most of them were around the Morton Bay Fig Tree and sculptures instead of the sign itself. Exercisers are people who jog, walk with pets, do yoga and other forms of sports in this park. The peak time of exercisers is from 3:00 to 5:00 pm, when the weather is more pleasant and the sun is not as hot as noontime. Family means parents with children playing in the park. Bus commuters include people who wait for the city buses at the bus station or try to hop on tourist buses. The bus stop is on southwest side of “Hunter and Hounds Garden,” which is also a busy spot for tourist buses. There are some people waiting for tourist buses at the corner of North Santa Monica Boulevard and North Rodeo Drive in the park. The amounts of bus commuters drop during the night due to fewer tourist buses coming by. Challenges During the night, the lights in the park are dimmed, and only the Beverly Hills Sign is lit up. However, it is hard to say if there is no users

during the late night even though there were no users spotted during the 10-minute samples at 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Therefore, it is better to still assume there are some users. The other challenge is to distinguish the user groups and be consistent with the rules of the observation. For example, many bus commuters would sit while waiting for the bus, but in this observation, sitting and relaxing people are those who either sit on grass or chairs enjoying the park. In summary Within this observation, it is not difficult to sense that the park is quite isolated from the surrounding. From Whyte’s film, we know that if the public space becomes too big and overscaled for the users, without well-designed objects to form a space, people are reluctant to stay in the place.1 The terrain of the park is flat and there are no clear lines to separate it from the automobiledominated roads for park users, while only a few objects form the sense of enclosure. The connection of park and people are cut by wide roads. Beverly Gardens Park doesn’t become a park that people can enjoy in all forms, and according to Lindheim’s study, this park is not a “healthy environment”, since the park doesn’t provide a wide range of opportunities for the inhabitants to fit into and affect their lives.2 This might be the reason there are few local users who enjoy the space. The residents feel disconnected from the park. If the Beverly Hills City Government wants to attract all users to the park on a daily basis, the first thing to do is to create a spatial identity that residents get back the sense of in control, but not just a park confined by big roads. However, the sign is still a big attraction for many tourists. 1. Whyte, William. “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”, 1980. 2. Lindheim, Roslyn. “New Design Parameters for Healthy Places”, Places, Vol. 2(4), p. 17-27, 1985.

Sign Visitors

Exercisers

Sitting and Relaxing People

Families

Bus Commuters

Relative User Density (The thicker the more people)

Figure 13. Beverly Gardens Park user group analysis by Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Kusama “Tulips” Garden

Lily Pond Garden

“Hunter and Hounds” Garden

Being the first west block to enter central Beverly Gardens Park and the north gate to North Rodeo Drive, the garden is to celebrate the sculpture work “Hymn of Life: Tulips” from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and other outstanding art pieces such as “Endless V” and “Erratic.” Different from “Hymn of Life: Tulips” is being colorful, both “Endless V” and “Erratic” are stainless steel sculptures that look like sitting or sleeping quietly in terms of its shape. The landscaping in this garden is composed of paths crisscrossing to the four corners of the block with low growing perennials and tulips fill the planting beds. 1

Being the center and focal point of Beverly Gardens Park, Lily Pond Garden is famous for the Beverly Hills sign, the lily pond and the sculpture “The Drummer” by Irish sculptor Barry Flanagan. Once being replaced by lawn due to the lack of maintenance, the Beverly Hills sign, and the lily pond is now put back and funded by Rotary Club of Beverly Hills under the leadership of the author Robert Anderton. The other key element in the central block is the century-old fig tree “Morton Bay Fig Tree”, which was planted by the Rodeo Land and Water Company back in 1914.1

Being the north entrance to the Beverly Hills City Hall, “Hunter and Hounds” Garden features two distinct sculptures and the broad view to Beverly Hills City Hall. The main sculptor is a bronze work “Hunter and Hounds” by Marie Jacquemart in the early 19th Century. It was W.D. Longyear brought the statue from France when he visited the spot where his son was killed in World War I.1 The garden also features one heavily used public restroom that I feel it is smelly and doesn’t fit with the image of Beverly Hills. Same with Kusama “Tulips” Garden, the landscape is composed of paths crisscrossing to the four corners of the block for easy access.

1. Plague on the site

1. Kusama “Tulips” Garden, Friends of Beverly Gardens Park, http:// www.fobgp.org/yesterday4.html

1. Kennel Club of Beverly Hills, Hunter and Hounds, http://www.kennelclubofbeverlyhills.com/the-logo/

Figure 14. Kusama “Tulips” Garden Plan

Figure 16. Lily Pond Garden Plan

Figure 18. “Hunter and Hounds” Garden Plan

Figure 15. Kusama “Tulips” Garden Future Look

Figure 17. Lily Pond Garden Future Look

Figure 19. “Hunter and Hounds” Garden Future Look

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Beverly Hills City Hall Garden

North Rodeo Drive

Before renovation in the 1980s, the Spanish Renaissance-style City Hall was surrounded by Persian and Islamic-inspired gardens designed by landscape architect Seymour Thomas. By 1980s, the Beverly Hills municipal government decided to expand the City Hall into a Civic Center. Humanistic architect Charles Moore and landscape architects Campbell & Campbell designed a new complex adjacent to the original building, and the new facilities such as arcades, courtyards represent a more postmodern landscape of public space with lush gardens of palm trees and big lawns.1

Three blocks of North Rodeo Drive, stretches from South Santa Monica Boulevard (as locals call “Little Santa Monica”) to Wilshire Boulevard, has been a luxury boutiques street since Fred Hayman opened Giorgio back in 1967. As Lewis Blatz observed, “these are the victors... enjoying the spoils of their victory on Rodeo Drive”1 Anthony Hernandez also implied the economic disparity and racial divide exposed on this street in his book “1984.” However, Rodeo Drive in my perspective can be and is now transforming into a place other than these socio-economic tensions.

In 2008, The City of Beverly Hills seized the chance to replace the large area of water consuming lawns with drought tolerant plantings when built the underground parking lots of City Hall and The Wallis.2 Landscape architects Pamela Burton & Company selected plants with colorful blooms makes the City Hall a welcoming and visually pleasing public space.

The plantings on the sidewalks and median stripe create a more enclosed, pleasing place to walk through. The map created by Paul Shaffer in 1995 emphasized the green features of the landscape in Rodeo Drive, describing it as the most elegant shopping street in the world.2 In 2003, Walk of Style was introduced to the street by the City of Beverly Hills and the Rodeo Drive Committee with a sculpture entitled “Torso.” The ficus trees were taken out and replaced with Royal palm and Medjool date palms in the same year.

1. The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Civi Center- Beverly Hills, http:// tclf.org/landscapes/civic-center-beverly-hills 2. Matt Construction, 455 North Crescent Drive Garage: Now You See It, Now You Don’t, http://www.mattconstruction.com/blog/restoration-reuse/455-crescent-drive-garage-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont/

1. Mack, http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/books/46-Rodeo-Drive-1984 2. Glen Creason, CityDig: The Story Behind the Glitz and Glamour of Rodeo Drive, http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/citydig-the-storybehind-the-glitz-and-glamour-of-rodeo-drive/

Figure 20. City Hall Landscape Scene

Figure 21. Palms in Rodeo Drive

Figure 22. Rodeo Drive map created by Paul Shaffer

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Beverly Canon Gardens Beverly Canon Gardens is three lushly landscaped gardens with its own signature fountain located on the south side of the Beverly Hills Shopping District, surrounded by the five-star Montage Hotel and Bouchon Restaurant, while two sides of the garden are adjacent to North Canon Drive and North Crescent Drive, forming a rather long rectangle. The whole garden is about two feet lower than the surroundings, and people need to take steps down to the gardens from the buildings and North Beverly Drive, creating a pedestrian oasis that reflects Southern California estate Gardens of the 1920s and ‘30s. Sycamore trees, topiaries, African tulip trees interwoven and lawns, the landscape creates a pedestrian oasis that reflects Southern California estate Gardens of the 1920s to ‘30s.1 Two different observations were conducted in the gardens. The first is the user preference; the second is about the interaction between sunlight, shadow and garden users. The analysis applies frameworks from Whyte’s short film “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces” in order to investigate the attributes of public space that may be related to user/space interface.2 1. Montage Hotel, Beverly Canon Gardens, https://www.montagehotels.com/beverlyhills/experiences/destination/#destination-1 2. Whyte, William. “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”, 1980

User Space Preference in Beverly Canon Gardens Sittable Space There are about 50 outdoor moveable tables with four unattached chairs on each table. It gives people the power to take control of the space in their own ways. Some people take over a whole table individually, while others like to have a group to communicate. Choices are open for every user. Sun It is interesting that there is no obvious relationship between sun and people. It can be interpreted that the weather in January is considered amiable, not too hot and not too cold. People can enjoy sitting either under the sun or shadow no matter what. However, maybe a different result would appear during the hot summertime. Water There are two rounded fountains and one rectangular fountain in the garden. The user preference analysis divided the garden into ten sections, as shown in the graphic; there are fewer people who stay along the sides of the garden, which is maybe because of the shorter distance from the streets. People congregate near the fountain on the west side, and there is a drastic increase in the number of people sitting in the middle of the garden. As Whyte stated, water is a pivotal amenity in the city, the sound of water become the center for the crowds.

Sidewalk/Street Relationship This landscaped garden is an oasis from all the traffic. First, there is a short step down to the garden from the North Canon Drive to declare the arrival of a different world. This announcement stops traffic from coming in but not pedestrians. During the investigation, there are many people have been spotted looking into the garden like finding an oasis, and walked down to this garden after a few seconds. This user/public space interaction is strikingly similar to the Paley Park in New York City. Food There are restaurants in the buildings right next to the gardens, and the outdoor tables are only a few steps up from the park. Although there are only a few people who bring food from those restaurants to the park compared with sitting at the restaurants’ outdoor tables during the observation period, many people bring their own food to the tables and enjoy the garden. There are many reasons contributing to the fact that there are more people who stay near the middle fountain, and one possible reason behind it is that the outdoor tables from the two restaurants are also located in the middle of the block. People enjoy having their own food when they see other people eating is the simple and powerful rules for park become a good park.1

to three feet. It is not too high, but high enough for people to feel safe when sitting down. Also, bushes are a great natural resource to stop wind from moving through directly. Many people stayed in these three middle sections during the observation period, and maybe it is not only because of the water fountain and food, but also the bushes. In summary All these features have been triangulated to Beverly Canon Gardens what it is, and it is also interesting to see that people love to be in the middle sections, and as long as there are still chairs to sit on, people still come in no matter how crowded and noisy these sections are. Gladwell wrote, “Places to sit, streets to enjoy, and people to watch turned out to be the simple and powerful rules for park designers to follow.” The garden manifests the wonder of a good park design.

Figure 23. Beverly Gardens Park Scene

Trees and plants Trees and plants play an important role as a canopy and for forming the sense of enclosure. People like to stay in a public open space with a little bit of protection, and the height of bushes in the middle three sections is about two 1. Gladwell, Malcom. “The science of shopping”, New Yorker, November 4, 1996.

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Figure 24. Beverly Conon Gardens sunlight, shades, and people by Photoshop and Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Figure 25. Beverly Conon Gardens user space preference by Photoshop and Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

3 Historic Landmark 4

1 Beverly Wilshire Hotel Year Built: 1928 Architects: Walker & Eisen Architectural Style: Italian Renaissance

BRIGHTON WAY

Writers & Artists Building Year Built: 1924 Architects: Roy Seldon Architectural Style: Spanish Colonial Revival

Beverly Hills City Hall Year Built: 1932 Architects: Harry G. Koerner, William J. Gage Architectural Style: Spanish Colonial Revival

N. CRESCENT DR.

The Wallis Annenberg Center Year Built:1933 Architects: Ralph C. Flewelling, Allison & Allison Architectural Style: Renaissance Revivale

N. CANON DR.

Beverly Gardens Park Year Built: 1911;1930 Architects: Wilbur D. Cook Jr. and Ralph D. Cornell

S. SANTA MONICA BLVD.

N. CANON DR.

N. RODEO DR.

N. SANTA MONICA BLVD.

DAYTON WAY W ILS HI RE BL VD .

4 Anderton Court Year Built: 1954 Architects: Frank Lloyd Wright Architectural Style: Art Deco

Millard Sheets Artwork Year Built: 1974 Artist: Millard Sheets

Figure 26. Historic Landmark locations by ArcGIS and Photoshop

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Beverly Gardens Park

Writers & Artists Building

In 1907, Wilbur D. Cook, Jr. delineated these three central blocks as parkland to provide a buffer zone between the residential area to the north and the commercial zone to the south.1

Writers and Artists Buildings located on the northwest corner of Rodeo Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard, Originally Built in 1924 by Roy Seldon Price. Invested by Harry Heegar, The three-story building with mezzanine level and basement was the first and tallest office building in Beverly Hills.1

Built in 1911, the center of the park featured a lily pond with its original Beverly Hills sign, and surrounded by baby cypresses and figs. Building upon Cook’s vision, Ralph Cornell expanded the park to 1.9 miles in 1930, while the electric fountain was designed and placed in the park by Merrel Gage and the architect of The Wallis Annenberg Center, Ralph Flewelling.2 The park has been featured in several films, include “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” It is a landmark in the city that is currently listed in National Register of Historic Places and California Register of Historical Resources for association with significant historical trends, and for the significance in landscape architecture and community planning.

Figure 27. World famous lily pond and Beverly Hills sign

Figure 28. Beverly Gardens Park scene on the postcard

1. The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Beverly Gardens Park, http:// tclf.org/landscapes/beverly-gardens-park 2. Ostashay & Associates Consulting, City Landmark Assessment & Evaluation Report- Beverly Gardens Park, Oct 2013

Even the rent had risen overtimes, it was still an affordable workspace for elites, serving has many well-known writers, artists, politicians, and celebrities. The first tenant was the Honorary Mayor of Beverly Hills: Will Rogers. Other tenants included Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Wilder, and Ray Bradbury, which considered the building a serene sanctuary to express their creativity.2 This Spanish colonial revival building was put through a renovation in 2009. While the facade was restored to its original look, a new building was built from inside. Considered the events, people and architect that happened in this building, Beverly Hills City Hall designated this building to be the Historic Landmark in 2014.3

Figure 30. Front Shot of Writers & Artists Building

Figure 31. Los Angeles Times, Jan 20,1924

1. John Riley, Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1985-1020/magazine/tm-14246_1_beverly-hills. 2. GWP Real Estate Investment & Development, http://www.gwprealestate.com/properties/portfolio/writers_artists.php 3. Ostashay & Associates Consulting, City Landmark Assessment & Evaluation Report- Heegaard Building, Jan 2014

Landmark Colors

Figure 29. Beverly Gardens Park drawing by Illustrator

Figure 32. Writers & Artists Building drawing by Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

Anderton Court

Beverly Wilshire Hotel

The building is located at 332 North Rodeo Drive, which is the middle of main shopping street. It is a three-story concrete commerical structure designed by a worldwide famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, and it is also the last project he built in the Los Angeles Area.

Completed in 1928 by architect Walker & Eisen, the hotel was designed in the Italian Renaissance architecture style with a Tuscan stone and Carrara Marble.1 The hotel is located at the Wilshire Boulevard, facing North Rodeo Drive as a landmark witnessing Rodeo Drive thrives and prospers from the time it was built until now.

Wright’s unique play on the modern and art deco style creates an intersting atmosphere of geometric patterns with its diverse facade and an exposed, angular ramp that climbs up the building.1

Figure 33. Anderton Court old pictures

The Anderton Court has sufficient historical integrity and exceptional architectural value to Beverly Hills Shopping District. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places at the local level because it represents the only retail building designed and constructed by master architect Frank Lloyd Wright in South California.2

Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the primary filming location for the movie “Pretty Woman” in 1990. The five star hotel has also been a preferred place for international celebrities and elites, such as Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Barack Obama, Dalai Lama and the British royal family.2

Figure 35. Beverly Wilshire Hotel old picture

The hotel is full of history and glamor, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, and further was registered as a Beverly Hills Historic Landmark in 2014.

1. LA Architecture Tours, Sightseeing & Tourism, http://www.lasavvytours.com/andertoncourtshops.htm 2. Ostashay & Associates Consulting, Memorandum, Oct 2012

1. Beverly Hills Local Historic Landmark, http://www.beverlyhills.org/ citygovernment/departments/communitydevelopment/planning/ historicpreservation/localhistoriclandmarks/ 2. Beverly Wilshire Hotel, http://www.fourseasons.com/beverlywilshire/

Landmark Colors

Figure 34. Writers & Artists Building drawing by Illustrator

Figure 36. Beverly Wilshire Hotel drawing by Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts The City of Beverly Hills was at a fast growing rate at the beginning of the 20th century, despite the Great Depression, and it came with the need to build a proper post office. After getting funds from the Congress, the Beverly Hills Post Office was constructed on the site of the former Pacific Electric Railroad Station by Ralph C. Flewelling, designer of buildings at UCLA and USC.

Beverly Hills City Hall Located on the northeast side of Beverly Hills Business District, the land of City Hall was purchased from Pacific Electric Railroad in 1930. When the city hall opened in 1932, the Los Angeles Times described the city hall as the “largest and most expensive City Hall of any Municipality its size in the country.”1 Figure 37. Corner Stone Laying of the Post Office in 1933

The Post office officially opened in 1934, becoming the cornerstone an architerctural landmark of the city. There were also some celebrities were spotted at the post office, manifesting the importance of this building.1 After the Post Office services left the building in 1933, the Mayor Vicki Reynolds acquired this building and transformed it into world class performance theatre in 2010 with one brand new building right next to the old building. The skin of the new building, Goldsmith Theatre is an abstraction of opened or half-way opened letters and envelopes that references the story happened on this site before. Nowadays, The Wallis serves as an educational and creative hub for all kinds of art. 2

Figure 38. Working Scene in the Post Office

Beverly Hills City Hall is an H-shaped, Spanish Renaissance style building designed by master architects Harry Koerner and William Gage. The primary historic entrance of City Hall faced west on the North Crescent Drive. Completed in 1981, Charles Moore expands the Civic Center to one block north using Postmodern, Spanish-Art Deco hybrid in elliptical courtyards, colonnades, and buildings. The public entry has been shifted to the east side on Rexford Drive due to the expansion.2

Figure 40. Panorama picture of the City Hall

Beverly Hills City Hall has been the background for some movies. More than that, Will Rodgers, a famous movie actor in 1930’s was the honorary Mayor of Beverly Hills and fostered the construction of the building.3 1. Eve Bachrach, Beverly Hills Landmarking 1932 Churrigueresque City Hall, CURBED Los Angeles, May 2013 2. Ostashay & Associates Consulting, City Landmark Assessment & Evaluation Report- Beverly Hills City Hall, Apr 2013 3. Spectra Company, http://spectracompany.com/beverlyhillscityhall

1. Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, http://www. thewallis.org/building-history 2. Wallis Annenberg center for the Performing Arts / SPF:a, Archdaily, http://www.archdaily.com/53474/wallis-annenberg-center-for-the-performing-arts-spfa

Landmark Colors

Figure 39. The Wallis Annenberg Center drawing by Illustrator

Figure 41. City Hall drawing by Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

4 North Santa Monica Boulevard Sidewalk Analysis North Santa Monica Boulevard in the study area is a 90 feet wide, five-lane street. Serving as the major path of Beverly Hills Shopping District, North Santa Monica Boulevard is oftentimes busy with cars driving through. However, this doesn’t mean it is also a pedestrian friendly pass way.

Figure 43. Picture of the park sidewalk on N. SMB

Figure 44. Picture of the undeveloped field on N. SMB

On the north side of North Santa Monica Boulevard between North Beverly Drive and North Rodeo Drive is Beverly Gardens Park. Even though there are many users on the park, they were not many people walking on the sidewalk. The problem is expected to be improved with the “Santa Monica Blvd Reconstruction Project.” On the south side is a parking structure with a 14-foot-wide undeveloped ground in front of the structure without trees and sidewalk. But there are two signs stating the area is private property owned by Beverly Hills Tower and now is for lease. Although the “Private Property” sign doesn’t tell people not to cross from this property, people might perceive it is not proper to walk across the land. Since this section contains a wide street with the park on the north, and only one-storyhigh parking structure on the south, it is a place without enough sense of enclosure. The ratio of the average height of the building adjacent to the boulevard/park to the width of boulevard and park is about 1:21. There were fewer pedestrian stay or walk through may be because of the matter of fact that there is not enough building wall to provide a sense of shelter and comfort.

Figure 42. Sectional and top view of N. Santa Monica Blvd by Illustrator

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR A HISTORICAL & BOTANICAL WALK

Chapter 3: Character Analysis

1 Opportunity: A Historical and Botanical Walk

The more well-recognized strategies are needed to achieve the goal. First strategy is to recognize and present history landmarks and botanic space. Second is to enhance amenities and extend the green corridor. And the last is to branding and messaging to the users. The outcomes include but not limited to presenting opportunities to introduce histories, enhancing Beverly Hillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reputation through cultural expression, establishing a sense of place, and adding new experiences to tourists.

H I S T O R I C LANDMARK RECOGNITION

PEDESTRIAN AMENITIES ENHANCEMENT

BRANDING A N D M E ES S A G I N G

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

2 Historic Landmarks Recognition

Purpose There are 32 local register of historic properties in Beverly Hills. As the hub of commerce and service in Beverly Hills, there are also high concentrations of historic landmarks, with six historic properties in Beverly Hills Shopping District. Three of them are on North Santa Monica Boulevard, and the other three are on North Rodeo Drive. However, when tourists or residents walk on street, there is no information indicating the importance of their architecture styles and stories. Therefore, offering pedestrians an opportunity to uncover the heritages and getting deeper visiting experiences is one of the primary tasks in this proposal.

Proposal There are several common ways to introduce a historical site and even though the design

part will not be included in this report, there are some suggestions about the design. First, the new interventions are in need to be symphonious with original atmosphere of Beverly Hills. Second, it is important to convey information to our target users precisely and effectively. Signage The city of Beverly Hill can implement two interventions at first hand in order to enhance the user experience without drastically changing the built environment. First, placing a signage to tell the architect and story of the building in front of every historic landmark is one of the most effective way. Also, it would be useful to put a map and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Here You Areâ&#x20AC;? point for the pedestrian to better navigate themselves. Figure 45. Historic landmarks Signage by Illustrator

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

Panting Second intervention is more interesting and interactive and it can be done with a bit distance from the landmarks. Since all the historical heritages have their own front facades, and there are also good angles to get whole pictures of them as what we see in old photos, Beverly Hills city government can indicate where is the point people should look up and enjoy the view.1 By painting some signals on the floor, visitors and residents are able to realize the beauty of these landmarks without occupying any space on the sidewalk. Also, the intervention might also intrigue pedestrianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest to go closer to the landmarks, and know more about its story. 1.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; The idea is inspired by a bike path project by City Yeast in Taipei City

Figure 46. Historic landmarks Paintings by Photoshop

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

3 Pedestrian Amenities Enhancement Purpose In order to boost the historical and botanical identity in Beverly Hills, it is critical to create a seamless walking path and connect the historical and botanical features. The major continuous paths for this walk are North Santa Monica Boulevard, North Rodeo Drive, and Wilshire Boulevard. However, there are major edges and broken connection in south side of North Santa Monica Boulevard and the characterless path on the northwest intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard as discussing previously. The criteria for the walking path is to form a sense of place and create a sense of enclosure.

Figure 47. The condition of pedestrian walking path by Photoshop and Illustrator

N. SANTA MONICA BLVD. S. SANTA MONICA BLVD.

Visitor Center

Limitation BRIGHTON WAY N. CRESCENT DR.

N. CANON DR.

The south side of North Santa Monica Boulevard between North Rodeo Drive and North Beverly Drive is difficult to implement a pedestrian walk, because the space is occupied by trees and plantings, and the width of the stripe is only about two to three feet. Also, the section between North Rodeo Drive and North Beverly Drive on North Santa Monica Boulevard is now owned by Beverly Hills Tower. There are some obstacles and required procedure that the City of Beverly Hills would need to consider.

DAYTON WAY

W ILS HI RE

BL VD .

Continuous path Broken path but fixable Broken path and hard to change

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

Proposal North Santa Monica Boulevard Since the section between North Beverly Drive and North Canon Drive is a 14-footwide undeveloped area, it is more feasible to intervene and place a sidewalk. In the short term, placing sidewalk instead of sandy floor and planting trees are a good way to enable pedestrian more desirable options to walk through the section while creating a more enclosed street. Since this section was used to be a rail station, storyboards that tell the history of the site are also encouraging in order to build a sense of place. Chase Bank The northwest intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard (Chase Bank) is lacking of a vibrant environment for people to stay or walk through, because of vacant storefronts on the first floor with big windows and single pattern tiles on the ground. Therefore, a more interesting implementation and putting stores in the vacant spaces are needed in these section in order create a continuous walk from Rodeo Drive to Beverly Canon Gardens.

Figure 48. Enhancements of North Santa Monica Boulevard and Chase Bank by Illustrator

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

4 Branding and Messaging City branding and marketing is a way to build the emotional connections with visitors and residents, and attract them to have a more intimate interaction with the built environment. In order to promote the walk and have a more continuous experience, the physical interventions are not enough. It is important to hand in hand with The Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau and form a solid “Historical and Botanical Walk Branding and Marketing Plan” to effectively spread the information of this walk. The cheapest way to promote is to make use of resources that are maintained by the city, such as visitor center and city website. Beverly Hills Visitor Center is a good place to advertise the walk. Right now, there is as wall of old pictures in Beverly Hills, which is delivering a message of that history is important to visitors. We can enlarge this experience by being more active by printing self-guided walk brochures and training the service personnel to promote the walk when visitors ask about attractions. The City of Beverly Hills has variety of resources to promote the city and broadcast informations in one website- “Love Beverly Hills.” “Love Beverly Hills” is a well-done city tourism website that contains tips of hotels, restaurants, shopping, things to do, maps and etc.. Also, “Love Beverly Hills” tries to target people from around the world by providing ten languages choices, including, chinese, japanese, and arabic. Nevertheless, from the menu and its color palette, we can get a sense that the website is more aiming for high-end consumerism. In this report, I hope to promote the walk by adding a historical and botanical perspective of Beverly Hills that is different from what it is right now in “Love Beverly Hills.”

Figure 49. Beverly Hills visitor center

Figure 50. Beverly Hills brochures

Figure 51. Love Beverly Hills Website

Figure 52. A walk in Beverly Hills map by Illustrator

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

APPENDIX

Chapter 4: A Historical and Botanical Walk

1 Assignment A Full Report The report is divided into four parts, including an introduction of the neighborhood, a base map, a land use map and a Kevin Lynch analysis map, further discussing the purpose, content and rationale behind each map.

Brief Introduction of the Neighborhood The neighborhood under study is a Beverly Hills shopping district. The boundaries of the area are Park Way to the North, Wilshire Boulevard to the South, North Camden Drive to the West, and North Crescent Drive to the East. Sitting right next to Beverly Hills City Hall, there are several well-known tourist attractions and hot spots in this neighborhood, including a Big Beverly Hills sign, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Rodeo Drive and VIA Rodeo (the cobblestone street). Based on my research, it is clear that these destinations and luxury stores add prestige to the neighborhood, forming its important and unique characteristics. The one thing I like the neighborhood the most is the sense of enclosure it creates, comparing many of other streets in LA, streets in Beverly Hills look narrower and have many stores and activities going on. The feeling of staying in a place safe and peace is what Beverly Hills brings to people. Also, the uniform physical environment and street furniture are a pivotal element in Beverly Hills shopping district. Almost every inch of sidewalk is perfectly aligned without huge gaps, and the tree pots are either furnished with plants or decorated metal lids. In addition, the pedestrian signs here are a good indicator pointing the way to famous attractions for tourists. These are my first understanding and interpretation of this Beverly Hills shopping district.

Base Map

Purpose

people.

all given colors in each land use.

A base map provides the fundamental understanding about a research area, directions, boundaries and its relationship with the surroundings. But a base map does not tell the story of the neighborhood. However, its simplicity and flexibility make base maps very easy to transform and add more elements, and this is the reason base map is so important. It is a foundation for adding more information and producing maps like the Land Use Map and the Kevin Lynch Map.

Content and Rationale

Other uses include Institutional, residential, public space, construction, and vacant buildings. The reason for adding construction and vacant buildings is not only that they do not fit into other land uses, but also to show the flow of the urban form on the land use map, displaying that the city does not remain static, sometimes it withers and other times a new life is born.

Content and Rationale The principle of making a base map is to make it clean and clear. The neighborhood is drawn with black thick blocks, while the grey dashed line forms the regions outside the boundaries to differentiate between them. The blocks are all rounded angles to make the whole picture smoother to the map reader. White spaces between blocks are roads and alleys, and they are not to scale but remain the hierarchy of importance while the widths of streets provide enough space for future uses like adding contents and icons. The street names are written in grey with capital letters, and they are aligned in a single direction, thus clear to the audience while not drawing too much attention from the map itself.

Land Use Map Purpose A land use map shows the current uses and dynamics of a neighborhood. The “land use” here in the map does not mean zoning and allowed uses by the city government, but instead presents the current land use of every building. In this way, people can get a closer look of the Beverly Hills neighborhood, including the possible interaction between streets and

The first thing to do to make this map is to go to the neighborhood and define every building with lines; this step is important for map readers when there are many adjacent buildings with a shared use. For example, with-in one block, without lines around the individual buildings, we would not able to see the difference between a big mall and 10 separate stores. However, separating the buildings is a challenging task, it can be hard to tell if it is just the store front changes store by store or they are built separately when there is no gap between each building. The other challenge of making the map eligible is that sometimes one shop can extend from its own building into the next one, breaking the wall in between. The second part of making the land use map requires investigating the land uses of every building within the neighborhood. Since huge part of Beverly Hills Shopping district is retail and commercial area, just categorizing it as retails is not sufficient for providing detail on the map, otherwise we would only see a full of red color in the map but not the details. Therefore, this map divides the retail and commercial into 4 subcategories, including office, retail, restaurant and the service. The office category is a place purely for desk task; the retail category is for selling any tangible products; the restaurant category includes bars, cafés, desert shops and any other eating places; and the service category includes spaces providing services, such as real estate telling companies, banks, hair salons and make up studios. These sub-categorizations definitely cannot satisfy the need of clearly defining and showing all the details of buildings on the map, but it already covers most of the contexts while still maintaining the clearness of the map with

The institutional use is a tricky one in making this map, there is no doubt that post office, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and the Paley Center for Media qualify as institutional, but public parking lots are also included as institutional as they are provided by the government. One way to distinguish between the fundamental different uses is to add patterns on top of the color. Public space is also an interesting use. Since VIA Rodeo is a private land and used as a pedestrian shopping plaza, it is necessary to put it in the category of public space instead of treating it as a normal street. Also, there is an open plaza in a shopping complex on the northwest side of North Rodeo Drive that it seen as a public space. Color and Presentation Choosing colors is also a crucial part of producing land use map. Keeping in mind the need to balance the map’s appeal with the delivery of important information, I used softer colors for the land use map. This is quite different from the traditional zoning plan making by government. As the colors contrast less than before, this makes the map less harsh than a traditional one. Also, the gradual change of color on the legend according to the color wheel looks more pleasing while staying clear. Appendix

It is actually not an easy task to clearly put all the uses into proposed key legend, because nowadays a lot of stores already stretch out their normal operation modes and combine with services. For example, there is a restaurant that sell clothes, and there is Nespresso store with an area selling coffee beans and machines, but also has a café provides coffee and desserts in their seating area. In addition, there might be more than two different uses in one building. Therefore, two different methods have been employed to express the situation of mixed use. One, using a crosshatch pattern when the building is separated into several different uses entirely, such as a building with a salon and a restaurant where a crosshatch of the colors indicates the different uses. This first method is used frequently in the land use map. The second method is to put a stripe of different color in the front of the block with a different background color. The background color indicates the primary use of the building, while the stripe is only part of the door front. For example, one building on North Crescent Drive is a four-story building with three floors of parking and a commercial space on the storefront. In this case, the second method I noted above was used. Other Constraints and Possible Solutions When doing the field work and documenting all the uses and information, several obstacles hindering me from gaining the most accurate data for each building. For example, there is a building I cannot tell if it’s office, service or residential. I have to go into the building to check the board, and it can be awkward if it turns out to be a residential apartment. Also, there is one building with black board on every window makes it look like a vacant building, but there is a dark-themed restaurant right next to the building. Maybe the building with

black board is adjacent inside as a part of restaurant. It’s also hard to see every building use in its second floor if there is no obvious sign. Therefore, in order to produce a better land use map, a deeper observation is needed next time.

map is about the problems of image. These problems are cutting the environmental entity and people might get lost and isolated in the area with these problems.

Moreover, sometimes land use map can be misleading too. When walking around the neighborhood, even though Beverly Hills has a considerably uniform physical environment, it is still easy to tell that Rodeo Drive has a strong luxury shopping characteristic with fancy decorations on store-fronts while other parts of this shopping district are relatively lowkey. However, on the land use map, because there are more different kinds of uses on North Canon Drive, the North Rodeo Drive might appear boring to map-readers. Hence, a land use map is not enough to tell the story of our neighborhood. And that is why we also need to supplement it a Kevin Lynch analysis map.

Kevin Lynch Analysis Map Purpose Making a Kevin Lynch analysis map offers me a different approach to thinking about the image of this neighborhood. As citizens, when we walk through a city, a mental image of a place forms, and when the image reaches certain degrees of visual quality, the legibility of this city starts to appear. This legibility is closely related to its imageability, identity, meaning and structure. It is very important as a basis for individual growth and structuring the whole of the city (Lynch, 1960). And through the clear display of five elements -- paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks in citizens’ mental image, people can successfully operate, navigating within the environment. Another element on the Kevin Lynch analysis

Content and Rationale of Mapping Paths

The first major path is North Santa Monica Boulevard. The basis of choosing this boulevard as path is that it is the most important street connecting the outside world to this shopping district. When people drive on the road from west to east, the driver would see a water fountain first at the intersection of North Santa Monica Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, and then an expanded green stripe on the left side connected to the Beverly Hills sign would come to the driver’s attention, signaling the driver’s arrival in the Beverly Hills Shopping District. From east to west, passing through the decorated tower building, Beverly Hills City Hall, also means the neighborhood is ahead. The meaning and wide structure of this path build into the legibility of this district. The second major path is Rodeo Drive. It is a path not only because its reputation around the world, but also due to the strong identity and imageability forming in front of every person. The four-lanes street is divided by a safety belt planted with pines. Luxury brand stores try their best to decorate their door fronts to make it one-of-a-kind and obvious but still elegant. It is a busy street, not only full of cars, but also pedestrians, tourists, and shoppers.

The pedestrian path in a Kevin Lynch analysis map is the private VIA Rodeo. It is a private property but current use is a pedestrian walkway. The cobblestone pavement reflects the beautiful buildings, while benches, coffee tables and plants scattered around, forming the sense of enclosure. It is a rather small scale but pivotal path as a bone of this neighborhood. Content and Rationale of Mapping Edges Edges are lines that people cannot use or cross, and they have never been considered as paths, but they are also elements that delineate a certain area. In the observation, although there is no clear and consistent line that block people from entering or leaving, the block itself sometimes becomes an edge with the forms of buildings and structures. It is difficult to distinguish the major edge and minor edge in this neighborhood. In the research, pedestrians can look through the edge or not is considered as a factor that differentiate major edges and minor edges. The major edges are three parking lots without entrance on the side of North Santa Monica Boulevard, and there are big undeveloped grounds with dirt in front of the parking structures. The minor edge is on the block of The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Since this center is all fenced and people cannot cross even see through the fence to the building. The feeling of isolation from the environment inside the fence can be seen as a minor edge. Content and Rationale of Mapping Districts The district in Kevin Lynch’s book is basically an area which shares the same character and is identifiable from the observer. If we see a city as a human being, path is the vessels of the body, and the district would be the heart. Appendix

Vessels brings nutrition inside and outside of the heart to sustain the whole system, and the heart is the spring of life. Even the neighborhood has good entity and imageability with all the design of trees, signs, and shops, and this is quite different from other parts of LA, but the Rodeo Drive itself has a higher level of everything. That is why Rodeo Drive, with the blocks on two sides and the cobblestone street, is the very center of the Beverly Hills Shopping District. The minor district would be within the Canon Drive, even there are no path crossing through and only one minor node. But it is a rather diverse district in terms of variety of shops and restaurants. The outside tables enforce the imageability of the district. One thing that has to be noted is that the districts do not have clearly-defined, enclosed lines; rather, they both stretch out to the neighboring area, and that is the reason there are arrows to illustrate this circumstance. Content and Rationale of Mapping Nodes The nodes in Kevin Lynch’s definition are the points that observers enter the area or the intersections of important streets or even the intense foci of a given area. It can be a station, a crosswalk, a bus stop or the well-known door front. In the Beverly Hills Shopping District, there are three major nodes and three minor nodes. Three major nodes are all in the major paths. The first one is near Beverly Gardens Park, which is a big bus stop with many routes. It’s easy to reckon it as a point people enter this neighborhood. The second one is the intersection of North Santa Monica Boulevard and North Rodeo Drive. It is not only this that make it a node, but also the fact that it is the entrance to a major public

parking lot. The third node is the junctional point of North Rodeo Drive, Dayton Way and Rodeo VIA. All the luxury brand shops, the famous Rodeo sign, and the pedestrians play an important role making this node a busy point. All the minor nodes are bus stops with more than two routes, and there are office buildings and the city hall nearby. These minor nodes can also serve as points for people to go to work, shop, or live. Content and Rationale of Mapping Landmarks Kevin Lynch describes Landmark as an external point that people do not enter, but it is a reference point when people map out the neighborhood. There is one minor landmark in my neighborhood based on this observation: the Four Seasons Hotel, located in the very southern part, at the end of North Rodeo Drive. Even though it is hard to see from other streets, people can clear see this huge building when walk through Rodeo Drive, and it serves as an ending of the major path. The major landmark is not within the neighborhood, but it plays a role as a pivotal reference point for observers: the Beverly Hills City Hall. The imageability and visibility are really strong as it is easy to see the beautiful tower-like governmental building from far away, and it is also a point that people know since it is close to the Beverly Hills Shopping District.

pass the construction zone. The third one is directional ambiguity in the intersection of Rodeo VIA, N. Rodeo Dr. and Wilshire Blvd. The multi-intersected point with roads that are not either horizontal or vertical makes people feel confused. The last one is a characterless path on a first floor of big, grey office building in the intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. There are no shops on the first floor, only walls and windows with closed curtains, which is not in agreement with its surroundings.

References Lynch, Kevin. “The Image of the City”, MIT Press, 1960.

Problems of the image There are four major problems of the image in this neighborhood. The first is the bottomless tower, as within the neighborhood, there are several corners where people can only see the top of Beverly Hills City Hall. The second one is an incomplete broken path, which is the construction area of N. Canon Dr. The constructions extends into the sidewalk and pedestrians have to go across the road to Appendix

2 Assignment B Full Report â&#x20AC;&#x153;Beverly Hills is all about tourists and shopping.â&#x20AC;? The middle-aged woman approached me and expressed her thought about the Beverly Hills Shopping District after learning I was observing the user groups in this neighborhood. It is easy for people to summarize and put a tag on a place without deeper investigation. These tags reflect partial truths, but not all elements of neighborhood. I was also convinced that most users in Beverly hill are shoppers and tourists. However, I gained a new perspective after conducting deeper observations.

Beverly Hills Shopping District The boundaries of the observation area are Park Way to the North, Brighton Way to the South, North Rodeo Drive to the East, and North Crescent Drive to the West. In this research, users are divided into six groups, including tourists, shoppers, restaurant visitors, business people, bus commuters and exercising people. The observation time frame was from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm on February 1, 2017 (Wednesday), a normal weekday afternoon. In the User Groups Identification Map, it is clear that there are many different forms of user groups in North Beverly Drive and North Canon Drive between South Santa Monica Boulevard and Brighton Way, while user groups in both Beverly Gardens Park and North Rodeo Drive are less varied. On North Canon Drive, there are several different kinds of commercial uses, and the restaurants stand out from the others immediately as people walk down the street. Even though the observation time is not during a meal time, all the tables on the sidewalk are packed with people eating with friends, colleagues, dates, and families. It is interesting that the vibrant atmosphere of this street has been created even though those tables

occupy almost one-third of the sidewalk. Although it is hard to tell whether it is good or bad, the street is definitely visibly appealing to many people. Besides restaurant visitors, there are also some different users like business people, tourists, and shoppers on this street. In the previous neighborhood study, North Rodeo Drive is considered a major path due to its strong identity and image-ability. Contradicting the study for the Kevin Lynch Analysis Map, there are actually more different groups of pedestrians walking and staying on Beverly Boulevard, but there are only tourists and visitors walking on North Rodeo Drive during the observation in the weekday afternoon. The different time frame might produce different results. This study reflects that North Rodeo Drive is fancy, and a uniform pathway mainly for tourists and visitors. Even though the street is thought to be walkable, sometimes people may feel it is too formal and intimidating by walking by those extremely expensive shop windows. Also, there are many more people walking on North Rodeo Drive on weekends than weekdays. Almost all the pedestrian flows are North-South bound instead of East-West, and no people walk down to the south side of North Santa Monica Boulevard since there is no sidewalk. The automobile-dominated space might be a factor contributing to the rather smaller flows of pedestrians. Also, there are fewer people walking on the North Crescent Boulevard between North Santa Monica Boulevard and South Santa Monica Boulevard. One possible reason behind is that people like to walk on the street with more shops and door fronts. When those shop windows and store music are reduced, the number of pedestrians decline. In addition, it is interesting to see that many people like to congregate on the corners

blocking other pedestrians. Some of them navigate themselves and see where to go; others just stop to start a conversation with others. Usually, there are more tourists and shoppers than residents and local workers walking down the Beverly Hills Shopping District, especially on weekends. It is easy to consider these visitors as primary users of the neighborhood, given the fact that they compose the majority of users and their spending power to those luxurious brands. However, after dividing users into groups during observation, more and more local workers start to appear, and it is different from the previous presumptions about primary and secondary users. Local workers in this study mean not only business people in suits, but also servers, security guards, delivery men and etc. Some of them stand in front of the stores to give away flyers and samples; some of them walk down the street seeming to have a clear destination in mind; others buy lunch in certain economical restaurants. They are not primary users of the street in terms of the population. Nevertheless, local workers do not just come and go, they are the people make use of the street every single day. North Rodeo Drive is not the place they visit the most; instead, North Beverly Drive and North Canon Drive are the streets where they take breaks and have meals before getting back to work. In my opinion, they are the primary users of the neighborhood. They are crucial to keeping Beverly Hills alive through their services and contributions. On the contrary, the secondary user groups are actually tourists, visitors, and shoppers. They are everywhere in the neighborhood, through the hotspots for them are Beverly Gardens Park and North Rodeo Drive. Instead of being alone, they usually show up on the streets in

a group. Especially in Beverly Gardens Park, it is easy to see a group with more than ten people. During the observation period, three groups of Chinese tourists with at least twenty people in each group visited the park. The tour guides are usually in the front of the group with colorful flags, guiding the groups to the Beverly Hills Sign.

Beverly Gardens Park User Groups There are several user groups in Beverly Gardens Park, which consists of three entire blocks adjacent to North Santa Monica Boulevard. In the graphic, the user groups are shown in a more detailed way. The graphic shows the amount of individuals in each user group in every hour from 12 pm to 12 am. The observing sample time frame is the first ten minutes every hour. It is clear that there are many more sign visitors in this park than any other user groups, and they usually like to take pictures with the Beverly Hills Sign. Some of them also took photos with the Morton Bay Fig Tree on the West side of the central block and the sculptures on the blocks of West side and East side. Sign visitors usually arrive in the daytime, while there are still more sign visitors than other user groups until 10:00 pm. There was an interesting interruption at 1:00 pm: it was a group of professional filmmakers shooting the scene of a couple taking pictures in front of the signs. During the observation at 1:00 pm, there were a lot fewer sign visitors, and most of them were around the Morton Bay Fig Tree and sculptures instead of the sign itself. Exercisers are people who jog, walk with pets, do yoga and other forms of sports in this park. The peak time of exercisers is from 3:00 to 5:00 pm, when the weather is more pleasant and Appendix

the sun is not as hot as noontime. Family means parents with children playing in the park. Bus commuters include people who wait for the city buses at the bus station or try to hop on tourist buses. The bus stop is on the east block of the park close to the North Santa Monica Boulevard, which is also a busy spot for tourist buses. There are some people waiting for tourist buses at the corner of North Santa Monica Boulevard and North Rodeo Drive in the park. The amounts of bus commuters drop during the night due to fewer tourist buses coming by. Challenges There are some challenges when dividing and observing the user groups in Beverly Gardens Park. Firstly, the sample might be skewed from the reality. During the night, the lights in the park are dimmed, and only the Beverly Hills Sign is lit up. However, it is hard to say if there is no users during the late night even though there were no users spotted during the 10-minute samples at 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Therefore, it is better to still show the users on the graphic with thinner lines. On the other hand, the timeline is created with two separate days of observation. It is not easy to be on the site for a whole day, and different days might produce different results. Nevertheless, sometimes it is also a reality that researchers are not always able to observe the neighborhood for such a long time. The toughest challenge is to distinguish the user groups and be consistent with the rules of the observation. For example, many bus commuters would sit while waiting for the bus, but in this observation, sitting and relaxing people are those who either sit on grass or chairs enjoying the park. In addition, the observer must be flexible with changes and reset. In the beginning of the investigation, walking and exercising are separate, but many people jog for a while and then start walking.

Hence, walking was included with exercisers after the whole observation. In summary Overall, plotting users in the park and further producing the user groups timeline is one of many ways to understand the dynamics between users and the public space. Within this observation, it is not difficult to sense that the park is quite isolated from the surrounding. From Whyte’s film, we know that if the public space becomes too big and over-scaled for the users, without well-designed objects to form a space, people are reluctant to stay in the place (1980). The terrain of the park is flat and there are no clear lines to separate it from the automobiledominated roads for park users, while only a few objects form the sense of enclosure. The connection of park and people are cut by wide roads. Beverly Gardens Park doesn’t become a park that people can enjoy in all forms, and according to Lindheim’s study, this park is not a “healthy environment”, since the park doesn’t provide a wide range of opportunities for the inhabitants to fit into and affect their lives (1985). This might be the reason there are few local users who enjoy the space. The residents feel disconnected from the park. If the Beverly Hills City Government wants to attract all users to the park, the first thing to do is to create a spatial identity that residents get back the sense of in control, but not just a park confined by big roads. However, the sign is still a big attraction for many tourists and visitors around the world.

Beverly Canon Gardens User Groups Beverly Canon Gardens is a public park located on the south side of the neighborhood,

surrounded by The Montage Hotel and Bouchon Restaurant, while two sides of the garden are adjacent to North Canon Drive and North Crescent Drive, forming a rather long rectangle. The whole garden is about two feet lower than the surroundings, and people need to take steps down to the garden from the buildings and North Beverly Drive. Two different observations were conducted in this park and produced into two graphics. The first is the user preference; the second is about the interaction between sunlight, shadow and garden users. The analysis applies frameworks from Whyte’s short film “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces” in order to investigate the attributes of public space that may be related to user/space interface. Sittable Space There are about 50 outdoor moveable tables with four unattached chairs on each table. It gives people the power to take control of the space in their own ways. Some people take over a whole table individually, while others like to have a group to communicate. Choices are open for every user. Sidewalk/Street Relationship This landscaped garden is an oasis from all the traffic. First, there is a short step down to the garden from the North Canon Drive to declare the arrival of a different world. This announcement stops traffic from coming in but not pedestrians. During the investigation, there are many people have been spotted looking into the garden like finding an oasis, and walked down to this garden after a few seconds. This user/public space interaction is strikingly similar to the Paley Park in New York City. Sun

The interaction of people and sunlight is studied in graphic 4. It is interesting that there is no obvious relationship between sun and people. It can be interpreted that the weather in January is considered amiable, not too hot and not too cold. People can enjoy sitting either under the sun or shadow no matter what. However, maybe a different result would appear during the hot summertime. Food There are restaurants in the buildings right next to the gardens, and the outdoor tables are only a few steps up from the park. Although there are only a few people who bring food from those restaurants to the park compared with sitting at the restaurants’ outdoor tables during the observation period, many people bring their own food to the tables and enjoy the garden. There are many reasons contributing to the fact that there are more people who stay near the middle fountain, and one possible reason behind it is that the outdoor tables from the two restaurants are also located in the middle of the block. People enjoy having their own food when they see other people eating is the simple and powerful rules for park become a good park (Gladwell, 1996; Whyte, 1980). Water There are two rounded fountains and one rectangular fountain in the garden. The user preference analysis divided the garden into ten sections, as shown in the graphic; there are fewer people who stay along the sides of the garden, which is maybe because of the shorter distance from the streets. People congregate near the fountain on the west side, and there is a drastic increase in the number of people sitting in the middle of the garden. As Whyte stated, water is a pivotal amenity in the city, the sound of water become the center for the Appendix

crowds. Trees and plants Trees and plants play an important role as a canopy and for forming the sense of enclosure. People like to stay in a public open space with a little bit of protection, and the height of bushes in the middle three sections is about two to three feet. It is not too high, but high enough for people to feel safe when sitting down. Also, bushes are a great natural resource to stop wind from moving through so directly. Many people stayed in these three middle sections during the observation period, and maybe it is not only because of the water fountain and food, but also the bushes. In summary All these features have been triangulated to Beverly Canon Gardens what it is, and it is also interesting to see that people love to be in the middle sections, and as long as there are still chairs to sit on, people still come in no matter how crowded and noisy these sections are. Gladwell wrote, “Places to sit, streets to enjoy, and people to watch turned out to be the simple and powerful rules for park designers to follow.” The garden manifests the wonder of a good park design.

References Gladwell, Malcom. “The science of shopping”, New Yorker, November 4, 1996. Lindheim, Roslyn. “New Design Parameters for Healthy Places”, Places, Vol. 2(4), p. 17-27, 1985. Whyte, William. “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”, 1980. Appendix

Built Form History Beverly Hills was Ready to Thrive (1900s - 1920s) The main streets in Beverly Hills Shopping District were constructed in 1907. Except for North Crescent Drive, all of these streets had trees, and the Pacific Electric installed light rail services and ran along the North Santa Monica Boulevard two years later. Even though Beverly Hills had only a few private development in the 1920s, several public service investments had already been made in the neighborhood. For example, the Beverly Gardens Park, with a lily pond and the Beverly Hills sign in an original, non-electrical form, was created in 1911. The purpose of Beverly Gardens Park was to divide the commercial district to the south from the residential district to the north. Started to Prosper during the Great Depression (1930s – 1950s) Even though the whole of America was suffering from the Great Depression from 1929 to 1939, this was the period of time that Beverly Hills Shopping District started to thrive. “They had nonstop promotional advertisements, stressing the image of a first rate city. So a lot of it was propaganda. And specialty shops came about,” reported by radio station KPCC. The spot lights lit up the sky celebrating a store’s grand opening, and the streets were not only brightened by street lights, but also by buildings. On the postcard view of Wilshire Boulevard in 1940, we can see two towers and two billboards erecting into the sky, attracting people’s attentions. Anderton Court, a threestory, modern building on Rodeo Drive was designed by the well-known architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954. Automobiles were becoming a normal way for people to get around in Los Angeles, and these buildings served as a way to pull drivers into the stores.

Buildings occupied all the blocks in the neighborhood, and automobiles dominated the streets, while sidewalks were also designed with utility poles, power cables, black-painted street lights, warning signs for light rails, and street trees rather than palms people are familiar with today. Without the safety island in the middle of Rodeo Drive that exists today, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was visually obvious when people looked south down Rodeo Drive from North Santa Monica, and this was one of the major landmarks of the time. Light rails still ran through the south side of North Santa Monica Boulevard during this period, and the area adjacent to the rails used to be the railroad avenue, which has since been replaced with parking structures and vacant ground after railroad services were stopped in 1965 due to the declining profits. A Modern City (Nowadays) Beverly Hills Shopping District changed drastically in the late 20th century. Comparing old photos with the present built form, it is obvious that many store signs are not lit up anymore; big store signs and billboards disappeared; utility poles were removed and power cables are now underground. The district has become more modern than ever, and the transformation of North Rodeo Drive probably manifests the differences of past and present the most. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Dior, etc. Today, these luxury boutiques take over the whole North Rodeo Drive, pushing it to the world stage. It is hard to imagine that back in the1960s, North Rodeo Drive was just a normal street with a gas station and a grocer. In 1967, Fred Hayman, “the father of Rodeo Drive,” opened the first boutique- Giorgio, and this attracted other high-end design stores to the

district. The VIA Rodeo, an outdoor shopping center, was built in 1990 with a cobblestone street and European style buildings. The pedestrian-street-looking, privately owned shopping center has become a world famous tourist destination and selfie spot. “The universal consequence of the crusade to secure the city is the destruction of any truly democratic urban space,” wrote by Mike Davis in “Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space” (1992). The loss of its original public space has been an issue in the Beverly Hills Shopping District too. With the Kevin Lynch analysis, we find major edges and a minor edge to stop people from crossing and enjoying the spaces. The major edges are three parking structures with big undeveloped grounds in the front, which was utilized as a Railroad Avenue for people to hop on light rails. The minor edge is the fence of The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, while the building was Beverly Hills Post Office that people can walk across the lawn. The connection of the people to the buildings are cut by these defensive structures. When walking down the shopping district, it is also easy to spot police officers patrolling, symbolizing the extreme incorporation of the urban security into the built environment.

commercial, low density commercial, and multi-family residential commercial parking. It is fascinating to see the city government still keeps the railroad in general plan while it is already replaced by parking structures and undeveloped ground. However, there are no further explanation or plan for this area so far in the Transportation White Paper. In low density commercial zone, there are two buildings that are higher than the maximum height 45 of feet as regulated by the General Plan. The Bank of America Building, built in 1968, is a 12-story, 143-foot-high building on the southeast intersection of North Beverly Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard. Chase Bank Building, built in 1961, is an eightfloor, 110-feet-height office building on the northwest intersection of North Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. Even though they both exceed the maximum height, it is documented that “Commercial buildings in the immediate vicinity of the project site tend to exceed the current height and density requirements, and were often approved through the use of variances during the 1960s and 1970s.” Therefore, I suppose the relevant variances for two buildings were already approved. Other land uses include public building, park and a mixed use specific plan.

General Land Use Regulations

Zoning Code

The vision of how the City of Beverly Hills should grow and be is outlined in The General Plan, and it was updated on January 12, 2010, setting the goals of great neighborhoods, excellent public safety, vibrant businesses and shopping districts, and wise water and natural resource management. In the General Plan Land Use Designations, there are seven types of land uses, and the plan regulates the maximum density and height of three major land uses in the neighborhood, include medium density

Commercial The majority of the Beverly Hills Shopping District is composed of C-3 commercial zones. There is one fuel station on the southwest side of North Crescent Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard intersection that is in the C-3 commercial zone. According to the ordinance, there is a conditional use permit for the fuel station in this zone that the proposed use should be compatible with surrounding uses Appendix

and have an adequate buffer between use and residential areas. Furthermore, to preserve the public health, welfare and safety, the planning commission has the right to impose any condition. The other commercial zone is the C-3B commercial, and it is a two-story building with several rooms inside the building that are currently commercial service use. RMCP Multiple-Family Residential Commercial Zoning There are two buildings that are located on the north side of Brighton Way are used as hotels. One is Hotel del Flores, and the other is Crescent Hotel Dining Terrace & Bar. But in the zoning code, a hotel is not a permitted use within the RMCP zone, and the expansion or increase of guestrooms are being restricted. Maybe it is because that the hotels was built before the zoning code that we see the nonconforming situation today. A hotel-owned restaurant takes up the front part of the hotel building, and the zoning code allows the operation of restaurants within a nonconforming hotel located in the RMCP zone with a conditional use permit if there is no live entertainment, parties, or patrons seated after eleven o’clock. There are two public parking structures and one public parking lot in the block between Brighton Way and Dayton Way. The two-story parking structure to the north is used exclusively for public parking, while the maximum height should be under forty feet in the zoning regulation. Convenience retail uses are also permitted in the RMCP zone with the limited seating area that is not to exceed eighteen percent of the floor area. There are several commercial uses on the ground floor of the other parking structure, with four upper floors of the parking structure. This building might have exceeded the maximum height of 40 feet.

The residential property called Sunrise Senior Living is located on the southwest intersection of North Crescent Drive and Clifton Way, the five-story building is under the zoning code that permits a maximum height of sixty feet when the ground floor is used for housing elderly and handicapped persons. Parks, Reservoirs, Government (Unzoned) Beverly Gardens Park, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and Beverly Hills City Hall are categorized in Parks, Reservoirs, Government (Unzoned). T-1 Transportation and T-O Transportation Overlay Zone The two-story parking structures and the empty grounds along the North Santa Monica Boulevard are on a T-1 transportation zone and a T-O Transportation Overlay Zone. In the zoning code, no building can be constructed on T-1 zone except for railroad-related services. However, the specific plan T-O transportation overlay zone permits the surface parking. Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan The Montage Hotel, Bouchon Restaurant, the Beverly Canon Gardens, and a public structure are within the Beverly Hills Garden Specific Plan. The public voted to approve the specific plan with 53.5% saying yes in 2005, and the whole project was built in 2008. E-O-PD Entertainment Office Development Overlay Zone

Planned

The objective of the E-O-PD overlay zone is to provide opportunities for entertainment talent agencies that would not otherwise be allowed in underlying zone C-3 commercial zone. In 2009, the overlay zone was built with a six-floor entertainment office building with retail on the

ground floor adjacent to the sidewalks.

Color Range by Store Façade in Rodeo Drive North Rodeo Drive, between South Santa Monic Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, is wellknown for all the luxury boutiques. However, it is not only all the brands themselves make the street famous since we can find these brands in other high-end shopping malls. The store façade colors and materials may also play an important role forming the characteristics of Rodeo Drive. In the Rodeo Drive color range analysis, I took the section between Brighton Way and Dayton Way to examine which kinds of color groups stand out more proportionally. There are 19 stores facing North Rodeo Drive in this section, and the color range is based on colors used in each store façade. However, the percentage and proportion of the color groups are only based on my visual estimation. The result shows that there are four groups or colors: gold, black, pastel, and others. Gold: The Color of Wealth, Success and Extravagance People have the impression that gold symbolizes wealth, status, and extravagance in many countries, and this impression has been manifested in Rodeo Drive. There are eight stores using the gold color to represent their boutique, and each store uses this color in a different way. The first building, Cartier, on the north uses gold in the opaque window display and mesh curtain, while the 17th store, Harry Winston covers the store walls and even doors with metal-like, reflective gold to highlight the prestigious impression of the boutique. However, too much gold is associated with the egotistical and self-righteous. Other stores use gold in a more low-key way, applying the color onto the metal-like decorations and store signs.

Black: The Color of Mystery, Power and Minimalism Black is powerful and sophisticated, and the color is highly utilized in the fashion industry. More than half of the stores in Rodeo Drive use this color to represent the store image by displaying in different ways. For example, the 14th building Valentino and the 16th building Dolce & Gabbana use an all-black, opaque, wood wall and smooth plastic-looking walls respectively with clean, transparent windows and glass doors to create the feeling of mystery and power. Pastel: The Color of Soft and Earth Pastel is a magical color group that can cover many different kinds of colors, but it is more closely associated with nature in a soft, smooth, cool, and subtle way that people feel relief seeing. Almost every store uses a pastel color as an element in the façade with different materials, such as concrete and smooth, plastic-looking walls. The tone of pastel storefronts make the street less distracting and strong. Others The first store, Cartier and the fourth to the seventh stores- under Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel- decorate their awnings in a bold red. The red color is very bright, clear, and strong and it pops up and catches the attention of pedestrians. Another color used is green. There are only two stores that use this color, but they do so in different ways. One of them planted a tree with dark green in the open space of Anderton Court, and the tree is now as tall as the building.

Appendix

Perception Range by Façade Material in Rodeo Drive The Color analysis itself is not enough to explain the fancy, luxury image of Rodeo Drive. Different stores have played with different materials in their façades to create and promote their own personalities. The following research is to examine the texture perception and reflection of each store’s façade material in the North Rodeo Drive between South Santa Monica Boulevard and Dayton Way. Perception In this research, the scale of perception is from unity to diversity. In the graphic, we can see a spectrum of materials go from unity to diversity. When the texture is more simple and united, it is easier to create the feeling of elegance, because elegant design of façade will age will and still be considered as elegant years later. There are also many textures with complicated patterns and decorations that convey the feeling of elegance. Marbles are a common approach to staying elegant while the texture looks diverse. In this analysis, we can also find that there are only three stores with raw wooden textures, and two stores with red bricks. Red bricks and woods are warm and welcoming materials. Reflection The color gold is a symbol of wealth and luxury, and so is marble. In addition, there is one more common way to create a similar atmosphere: reflection. One reason may be because many jewels are slightly transparent or reflective. When the material is a bit reflective, you can see the reflection of sunlight on the surface. The more reflective surfaces make the customer see themselves on the marble, metallic gold

surface, silver surface and other pricy materials. Because pedestrians and consumers are able to see themselves moving when walking past these reflective materials on the Rodeo Drive, and even though the materials itself are not diverse, the interaction of human beings with the surfaces make people perceive it as dynamic, diverse textures. In Anthony Hernandez’s book “1984,” he took a picture of the woman applying makeup in the Bellini’s plaque. “People who go to Rodeo Drive consciously attire themselves—it’s not a place you go to be invisible, and none of the subjects he’s captured could be accused of looking relaxed.” On the pedestrian catwalk luxury street with reflection of people themselves and others, people might feel stressed and selfconscious that they are always on display.

Summary The history, land use regulations, and built form as I illustrated are closely related. From the history of the place, we see how Beverly Hills has grown and prospered. From the land use regulations, we understand that each building’s use, form, and management are under the control of the City of Beverly Hills, though there are some uses that do not conform to the code. From the built form analysis, we realize how a built environment responds to people within its goal, history and the zoning code.

Reference Water and Power Associates. “Early Views of Beverly Hills.” Retrieved from http:// waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_ Beverly_Hills.html. Pacific Electric. “Santa Monica via Sawtelle Line.” Retrieved from http://www.erha.org/

pewsms.htm. Friends of Beverly Gardens Park. “History of the Park.” Retrieved from http://www.fobgp.org/ history.html. 89.3 KPCC. (2010, March 21) “Beverly Hills Centennial: 5 things you probably didn’t know about the history of 90210.” Retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/programs/ offramp/2014/03/21/36595/beverly-hillscentennial-5-things-you-probably-did/ Beverly Hills. “Beverly Hills Community Development.” Retrieved from http://www. beverlyhills.org/citygovernment/departments/ communitydevelopment/planning/ historicpreservation/localhistoriclandmarks/

League of Women Voters of California Education Fund. “Measure Beverly Hills-A Beverly Hills Gardens Specific Plan City of Beverly Hills.” Retrieved from http://www.smartvoter. org/2005/03/08/ca/la/meas/BeverlyHills---A/ Empowered by Color. “The Color Gold.” Retrieve from http://www.empower-yourselfwith-color-psychology.com/color-gold.html X-rite Pantone. “SPRING COLOR UPDATE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PASTELS.” Retrieved from http://blog.xrite.com/spring-color-updatepsychology-of-pastels/ Alyssa Coppelman, RICH AND MISERABLE: PORTRAITS OF SHOPPERS ON RODEO DRIVE IN 1984, Future Shoot, Sep 2014

Water and Power Associates. “Early Views of Beverly Hills.” Retrieved from http:// waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_ Beverly_Hills.html. Pacific Electric. “Santa Monica via Sawtelle Line.” Retrieved from http://www.erha.org/ pewsms.htm. The Mercury News. (2011, June 2) “Honors for Fred Hayman, the father of Rodeo Drive.” Retrieved from http://www.mercurynews. com/2011/06/02/honors-for-fred-hayman-thefather-of-rodeo-drive/ Davis, Mike. “Fortress L.A. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles.” New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Beverly Hills Community Development. Retrieved from http://www.beverlyhills.org/ business/constructionlanduse/generalplan/ Planning Commission Report, Beverly Hills, http://beverlyhills.granicus.com/MetaViewer. php?view_id=26&clip_id=2084&meta_ id=117224 Appendix

4 Beverly Hills Shopping District - User Groups Identification Analysis Map

Appendix

5 Rodeo Drive - Color Range by Store Facade

Appendix

6 Rodeo Drive - Texture Perception Range by Facade Material

Appendix