WA/SA [waldrip architects/ s.a.] [architecture- los angeles]
Alberti, Sandro 7 Projects for LA, Now; 5 March, 2002 [text1]
Working 9-5, at...
‘WA/SA’, ‘Aloha8’, and ‘Working 9 to 5, at...’
Last week, as part of the release of the LA-Now book, an exhibit opened, presenting 7 projects for urban renewal in Los Angeles. Basically, the overall gist is this: tons of data on Los Angeles would be evaluated and presented (and it was, in volume 1 of the LA-Now texts, as pictures and comparisons of income, educational levels, corUrban housing. porate ownership, distances, local histories, etc.). For the second volume, architects and graduate students would propose projects that would improve upon any of the various existing data gaps, as it were. So here are the 7 developed projects (encompassing 2 schools, 2 urban renewals, 1 sports park, 1 river park, 2 networks, 1 cultural center), as follows:
1. Urban Housing [located in the downtown core, at 7th/ Spring]: This project proposes vertical growth, continuing a logical tradition of urban inter-connection and densification typified by the futurist dreams of Victorian times (coming soon to the big screen in H.G. Wells’ ‘Time Machine’). Abandoned + low-density buildings (mostly multi-story brick structures from the 1920s) would be transformed into updated residential architecture, with pockets of commercial/ landscape/ circulation activity. Atop these similar-height buildings, and connecting all of them, a common roofscape park that would also serve for the growth of new architecture both upwards and downwards (hanging). 2. Univercity [near SCI-Arc, at 1st street crossing the LA River, from Little Tokyo to Boyle Heights]: This would be a new UC campus for downtown LA, combining educational, commercial, and community resources. It would improve the educational level of the local population and would act as an attractive ‘new downtown’ for educated professionals. International studies and foreign-exchange preparation would be a focus of studies at this institution. 3. Play Park [at the NE intersection of 10 and 110 freeways]: A subsidized hybrid park, combining professional and public fields (and housing/ offices). The existing convention center would be demolished, making way for an NFL stadium, soccer field + commercial/ public park. Local games would yield at least $200,000 on any given
are fictions of fen-om: [www.fen-om.com]
Urban housing; map.
Univercity.
Univercity; map.
