L.A.

NOW Volume Three and Volume Four

A Case for Downtown Living
Five Proposals
UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
 00
02
introduction

14
L.A. Now Volumes Three and Four
20 Thom Mayne Project Director, Professor, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
proposals

Eui-Sung Yi Project Coordinator

Board of Advisors
32
34 Robin Blair Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles County
Con Howe Director, Los Angeles Department of City Planning
volume 3 : downtown Arts District proposal

John Kaliski Principal, Urban Studio, Los Angeles

DiurnalCity

Jan Perry Councilwoman, District 9, City of Los Angeles

Ian Robertson Robertson Company, Los Angeles
Dan Rosenfeld Urban Partners, LLC, Los Angeles
56 Richard Weinstein Professor, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
Deborah Weintraub City Architect, City of Los Angeles
ElastiCity

L.A. Now Jury

Diego Cardoso Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles County
Robert Espinoza Community Redevelopment Agency, Los Angeles
76 Jeffrey Kipnis Professor, Ohio State University, Columbus
78
Michael Hallmark Consultant
Chavez Pass

Sylvia Lavin Chair, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design

Mark Mack Professor, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
Nicolai Ouroussoff Architecture Critic, New York Times
Albert Pope
volume 4 : Chavez Ravine proposal

94 Professor, Rice University

Robert Somol Professor, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
Stadium City

Doug Suisman Suisman Urban Design, Santa Monica

George Yu Principal, George Yu Architects, Culver City

Panel Participants, A+D Museum

114 Neil Denari Professor in residence, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
William Fain Principal, Johnson Fain Architects, Los Angeles
Elysian Greens

Scott Johnson Principal, Johnson Fain Architects, Los Angeles

Merry Norris Consultant
Lorcan O'Herlihy Principal, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, Culver City
Nick Patsaouras President, Polis Builders, Los Angeles
134
downtown Arts District TC

136 Roger Sherman Lecturer, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design

Publication Editor
Eui-Sung Yi

Director of Special Projects, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design

156
Caroline Blackburn
Chavez Ravine

Graphic Design Production

Pakling Chiu Masako Saito Eui-Sung Yi
170
Ken Ford (Graphic Concept) Myungsoo Suh
people & culture natural habitat
research

Publication Assistance
Geoff Aiken David Garnett Jennifer Landau
184
Nate Chiappa David Grant Alice Kimm
Brian Davis Penny Herscovitch Narineh Mirzaeian
Liang Feng Jane Hyun Kevin Short
198
The L.A. Now Volumes Three and Four project and publication are made possible
through generous funding provided by
transportation

American Institute of Architects

Graham Foundation
Richard Koshalek President, Art Center College of Design
218 Jan Perry Councilwoman, District 9, City of Los Angeles
UCLArts
housing

UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design

case studies

John Williams Clark Construction, Bethesda and Costa Mesa

stadium

232

238
end
 01

TC
03

introduction
15
TABLE OF CONTENTS 21

proposals
Introduction
Thom Mayne
Dilemmas for our Time: Understanding L.A. Now 33
35
Richard Weinstein
A Case for Downtown Living

volume 3 : downtown Arts District proposal

DiurnalCity
Eui-Sung Yi
Proposals
The Discontents and Pleasures of L.A. Now
John Kaliski
Project Description 57
DiurnalCity

ElastiCity
Pakling Chiu

Volume Three Proposals

Masako Saito
Myungsoo Suh
ElastiCity 77
Raffi Agaian 79
David Garnett

Chavez Pass
Narineh Mirzaeian
Additional Proposals
Svyatoslav Gavrilov

volume 4 : Chavez Ravine proposal

95
Chaitanya Karnik
Alexios Fragkiadakis

Stadium City
Costanza Guerrini
Jacob Kwan
Chavez Pass
Volume Four Proposals

Geoff Aiken 115

Liang Feng

Elysian Greens
Karen Lee
Stadium City
Nate Chiappa
Jennifer Landau
Kevin Short 135

TC
137
Elysian Greens

downtown Arts District

Brian Davis
Tyen Masten
Nina Yu
Research and Analysis
Downtown Arts District 157

Chavez Ravine
Chavez Ravine / Elysian Park
Natural Habitat
People and Culture
Transportation 171
natural habitat people & culture

Case Studies

L.A. NOW
research

High Density Housing

American Baseball Stadiums
185

199
transportation

219
UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design Volumes Three and Four
housing
case studies

A Case for Downtown Living

Five Proposals
stadium

233

239
end
introduction

02
 03

introduction
INTRODUCTION
Thom Mayne
March 2006

As a frontier for urban experimentation and innovation, Los Angeles has become a paradigm for the twenty-
first century global city. Given its influential position, it is essential that the city investigate solutions to large-
scale urban issues beyond the current paradigms of planning and critically consider strategies for urban
growth that take into account its immense complexity and constant flux. The ideas put forth in L.A. Now:
Volumes Three and Four propose new directions and formulate desires for the future of Los Angeles.

The methodology establishes a middle ground between the spatial, intuitive, and qualitative processes of ar-
chitecture and the analytical, quantitative procedures of urban planning. The resulting solutions interrogate
a broad range of socio-economic, political, cultural, demographic, and infrastructural issues in spatial and
architectural terms.

This integrative investigation of alternate solutions responds to the myriad exigencies of the real world, yet
remains unburdened by the political and administrative status quo. As a proposition of possibilities and de-
sires, this work is intended to inform subsequent urban planning and development and to change the very
nature of the conventional planning process.

Acknowledgments

L.A. Now: Volumes Three and Four continues the investigations of my research studio at UCLA ’s Department
of Architecture and Urban Design, which grew out of discussions with Art Center College of Design president
Richard Koshalek, on developing proposals for downtown Los Angeles. Our initial vision could never have
been realized without Eui-Sung Yi’s sustained energy and deep commitment to the project. I would also like
to acknowledge UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design Chair, Sylvia Lavin for her support, and
my students’ vast, masterful and probing efforts in collectively undertaking such an ambitious endeavor.
introduction

04
 05

introduction
DILEMMAS FOR OUR TIME: UNDERSTANDING L.A. NOW
Richard Weinstein
This third and fourth volume of L.A. Now poses several important dilemmas for architects who want to think
about cities. To begin with, most architects of significant talent have focused their energies on singular struc-
tures, and the critical debates in theory have largely supported these design investigations and failed to formu-
late as productive a discussion of the city at a larger scale. The work on L.A. Now and the provocations of Rem
Koolhaas are lonely exceptions. The New Urbanists at this point dominate the field with those who promote
transit-oriented development. So far, an alternative contemporary urbanism is best at criticizing commodifica-
tion, theming, sprawl, and New Urbanism, and not so good at formulating a plausible alternative—much less
one that is capable of influencing development nationwide.

A second dilemma is the emerging body of information on population growth, inadequate infrastructure, en-
vironmental degradation, and traffic. Somehow, the growing urgency of these problems has so far failed to
mobilize the best thinkers, but the pressure is mounting, and it is hardly possible or honorable to continue in
denial.

A third dilemma is, how does one begin in the face of infinite information? How does one locate the facts around
which it is possible to improvise a new theoretical position that could lead to constructive change, or even to a
new vision with formal implications? And to what extent would the means of implementing such a vision feed
back into its very formulation, or would such an operation undercut the enterprise?

A BEGINNING
To make the work on L.A. Now possible, the chair of UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design,
Sylvia Lavin, had to invent a studio format that lasted for a full school year, which she titled the “research stu-
dio.” This provided the time to gather information, document the site, attempt to understand it in the context
of change in the larger city, and formulate design proposals. The pressure to consider the urban situation as
a problem for design came from Thom Mayne; his attention to such issues is rare for an architect who is well
established as a creative force.

Whatever shortcomings can be identified in L.A. Now: Volumes Three and Four arise from the clash between
high aspirations and the unfamiliar territories that Mayne and his team of students set out to cross. From time
to time, the project was reviewed by a “board of advisors” consisting of city officials, real-estate developers, and
others familiar with the community and large-scale developments—a reality that rarely intrudes with urgency
on the education of an architect. These meetings served to model events as they might occur, identify limits,
and make a plausible case for circumventing those limits when necessary. At the same time, the research
phase provided an opportunity to define the problem with a quality of information that decision makers are not
usually presented with and that may alter the way in which they view an urban situation.

A PROJECT
The subject area of the research studio is a large territory, and its future should be taken under serious policy
review. The studio has the capacity to “game” the future of the site to explore alternate outcomes freely—but
within the limits of plausibility. As such, the resulting designs represent an unexplored middle ground between
unconstrained speculation and overdetermined, timorous public urban design.

The L.A. Now project is an emerging model of how the resources of a university, directed by a major architec-
tural talent, can interface with an enlightened business and political establishment to anticipate what could
happen if a strategic intervention occurred before vested interests so limited the range of opportunities that
optimum change was foreclosed in favor of business-as-usual. And it is business as usual that has brought us
to a flash point of urban problems that require exactly the kind of anticipation and innovation represented by
L.A. Now: Volumes Three and Four.
 06
introduction

A CASE FOR DOWNTOWN LIVING

Eui-Sung Yi

780 people move to the Los Angeles metropolitan region daily, according to the results of the 2000
U.S. Census long-form survey. By 2020, the greater metropolis—encompassing Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Bernardino, and Orange Counties—will absorb an estimated increase in population roughly equivalent to the
current population of present-day metropolitan Los Angeles. Of the 3.2 million new inhabitants, an estimated
805,000 people (equivalent to present day San Francisco) will call the city of Los Angeles their home. This popu-
lation increase will place a severe strain on the capacity for all levels of infrastructure—energy, transportation,
water, and housing—to service the city and the region.

For decades, the attraction of Los Angeles has been its cultural and geographical position in the world. The
city’s enduring mythos continues to attract people from the rest of the United States and the world, especially
from Asia and Central America. As a nexus of international traffic and a steward of secure middle class living,
“Los Angeles”—the metropolis—is straining under its own image and promise.

The California Department of Finance forecasts that the new population will be distributed evenly over the
entire field of the metropolis, with minor concentrations in the secondary cities. This prediction presumes the
status quo of horizontal expansion in the form of sprawl, where housing development indolently yet persistently
spreads to the next piece of available land. Throughout its history, Los Angeles has taken advantage of its
expansive setting, sprawling in every direction until reaching a seemingly insurmountable geological bound-
ary—whether ocean, mountains, or desert—and then proceeding to expand further, often into those inhospi-
table geographies. The city is ranked in the top five nationally for unconstrained sprawl. As Los Angeles grew
by three million people from 1970 to 1990, the city consumed an additional twenty percent of its orchards and
farmland—in total 252,160 acres. Yet this development pattern displaces people further from the principal cen-
ters of commerce, which mostly remain in major city centers. In order to sustain a viable regional equilibrium,
we must investigate alternative development strategies.

For major cities, the strategy of redensification provides a realistic and essential alternative to sprawl and its
associated problems. As subdivided housing development reaches a critical impasse and rural fields surround-
ing cities predictably transform into suburbia, housing must inevitably be developed in city centers; as the popu-
lation expands and single-family residential units become a limited commodity, there must be a redistribution
of housing typologies, in favor of multi-unit housing; and as population density becomes a critical reality, ideals
of public transportation, sustainable energy, and public housing must be reexamined.

downtown Los Angeles

 07

introduction
metropolitan Los Angeles 2000 2020 (projected) growth
14,300,000 17,760,000 3,480,000
(or 1 Los Angeles)
population
1. Los Angeles 3,823,000 4,628,400 805,400
2. Long Beach/Torrance 605,000 1,000,000 395,000
3. Anaheim/Garden Grove 500,000 850,000 350,000 1
4. Pasadena/Glendale/Burbank 454,100 750,100 296,000
5. Riverside 255,000 420,000 165,000
6. San Bernardino 190,000 360,000 170,000
7. rest of the metropolis 170,000
4

5
3

4 6

1
7 5

[ ] = 5000

the greater metropolis

projected population growth centers, 2020

Park La Brea Village Green

 08
introduction

City of Los Angeles

high density development model (zone R3, R5, CM, MR)
websites:
factfinder.census.gov (2000 U.S. Census)
scag.ca.gov

It is estimated that fifty percent of Los Angeles County’s industrial facilities are obsolete due to their inaccessi-
bility by larger modern trucks and an inability to upgrade to changing market demands. As it becomes increas-
ingly difficult for the city to preserve single-family residential neighborhoods (R-1 zones) due to population
increases, the demand rests on these outmoded industrial and commercial zones to absorb new residents. Los
Angeles City Council’s Adaptive Reuse incentives continue to rejuvenate dilapidated industrial neighborhoods
and contribute to the collateral economic improvement to the community and the region. Concentrated along
the traditional fringes of the city, Van Nuys, Long Beach, and downtown Los Angeles have sustained the local
manufacturing economy for fifty years.
The zoning maps on the right separate the low density zones of R-1, OS (Open Space), A (Agriculture) from the
high density of R-3/5 and commercial manufacturing. The third map proposes a new combined zoning strategy
that locates future opportunities for high density housing. As manufacturing types change, future develop-
ments can realign to integrate Los Angeles’ traditionally separated uses, such as commercial and high-density
housing. The best candidate for this development lies in the eastern half of downtown Los Angeles.
 09
city of Los Angeles

introduction
general zoning
OS
A, RA
RE, RS, R1, RU, RZ, RW1
R2, RD, RMP, RW2, R3, R4, R5
CR, C1, C1.5, C2, C4, C5, CW, ADP, LASED, WC
P, PB
CM, MR, CCS, M1, M2, M3, SL
PF
HILLSIDE

R1, OS, A only

R3, R5, CM, MR only

 10
introduction

Future housing development trends will likely oscillate between suburban sprawl and urban densification. The
question becomes: how can seductive amenities and spacious, autonomous lifestyles, inherent in the lure of
suburban sprawl, be reconstituted within an urban framework? The projects in this volume further interrogate
the problem of urban development in the context of a growing, shifting population, and begin to pose solutions
to this question.

500,000 workers – roughly equivalent to the population of Washington, D.C.

or Las Vegas – commute daily to downtown Los Angeles.

It is estimated that by 2020, the average freeway speed will be 20 mph for 8 hours daily. (Note that 20 mph is
slower than the 25 mph speed limit for most residential streets.) The California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans) reports that cumulative hours spent in congestion have increased by 60% from 1990. The annual cost
of lost time and fuel is currently $129 million. The Commuter Origin diagrams (pg 208) outline the dispersed
and decentralized areas where the 500,000 downtown commuters live. Judging from the driving patterns, a
critical mass of the population sits amidst gridlock on a daily basis heading to their jobs downtown.

Yet the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) states, “there is very limited ability to
add more highway capacity” due to right-of-way, financial, and environmental issues. The city’s recent failure
to get approval to expand the 101 freeway and lengthen the 710 freeway is just one recent setback. The current
proposal to address the anticipated 30% increase in traffic is to add more High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes:
an additional 206 miles to the existing 380 miles. However, HOV is merely a stopgap measure—a method of
buying time while commuting culture is re-addressed. Even the miles of HOV lanes may well prove inadequate
for the onslaught of over 3 million additional inhabitants. Clearly, commuters need a realistic, viable alternative
route to work from the major residential centers of the Metropolis.

Recently, the public transportation infrastructure servicing the greater metropolis has seen a remarkable rise
in construction and use. Ridership on the Metrolink has increased annually, and the Blue Line to Long Beach,
the new Gold Line to Pasadena, the westbound Exposition LRT and resurrected Redline subway, and the two
new Metro Rapid bus lines are all promising. Though no one believes this public transport system will afford
a family in Los Angeles complete car-freedom, the elimination of one car (in a typical household of two cars)
and/or the reduction of a car’s use during weekdays can substantially reduce the burden on existing freeway
infrastructures.

City of San Diego

sprawl control

Transit Oriented Development Case Study:

San Diego

From 1990 to 2000, San Diego has undergone a
remarkable boom in housing construction and
commercial revitalization, as the region grew
by 316,000. By 2020, the regional population is
projected to increase by 785,000 persons, al-
most equivalent to the increase for the city of
Los Angeles. By 2030, a total of one million ad-
ditional persons will live in the region, creating
a critical population-density crisis.
In anticipation of the population influx, San
Diego has implemented an urban develop-
ment plan, named REGION2020.The strat-
egy will “limit sprawl from 600,000 acres to
200,000 acres by focusing most of the growth
in incorporated cities near transit stations
and major bus corridors, in mixed-use cores,
near employment centers, or in redevelop-
ment or infill areas.”
The San Diego zoning maps (right) have been
amended to match the zoning on the Los
Angeles maps, to indicate the concen-
tration of potential high-density housing.
The high-density residential zoning ab-
sorbs the commercial and manufactur-
ing districts located along the industrial
waterfront. The appropriation of these
areas, and their connection to an emerg-
ing vibrant commercial downtown, lays
the foundation for multi-unit urban
housing in San Diego.
 11

introduction
Los Angeles 2000 2020 (projected) growth
2 1
3,823,000 4,628,400 805,400 3
(or 1 San Francisco)
population 5
1. downtown 36,000 250,000 214,000
4
2. Van Nuys 163,000 233,000 70,000
3. Northridge 40,750 100,750 60,000
4. Eagle Rock 24,000 79,000 55,000
5. Hollywood 222,030 267,030 45,000
6. San Pedro 72,150 94,150 24,000
7. Venice 38,000 50,000 12,000 8
8. rest of the city 375,400
7

3
4

8 5

7
City of San Francisco City of Los Angeles

downtown Los Angeles

250,000 persons

City of Los Angeles 6

projected population growth centers, 2020

R1, OS, A only R3, R5, CM, MR only

 12
introduction

Transit oriented development (TOD) serves as a model of a housing strategy that ensures access to the public
transit system. Both the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the MTA have encouraged
densification as a strategy to address the housing and transit crisis. The public has asked the MTA to review
TODs, with the first proposed project located near Long Beach. It is worthwhile to note that the rail companies
historically earned their revenues from development along their routes, not from ride fares. As most of the
freeways were laid within old existing rail right-of-ways, TODs or “Transit Villages” seem an appropriate return
to the union of these two franchises.

L.A. Now projects a maximum population of 35,000 for either the downtown
arts district or the Chavez Ravine site —fourteen percent of a potential mar-
ket of 250,000 downtown residents.

The 500,000 commuters to downtown represent 1 million residents, assuming an average of two persons per
household. If housing opportunities can be made attractive, a substantial percentage of these commuters could
live within blocks of their workplaces. Assuming that half of these two-person households have alternate work-
places that make moving prohibitive, the other half—250,000—can become a housing force within downtown.
This potential halving of the load of highway commuters to downtown would reduce 7 billion vehicular miles,
save 220,000 hours of commute time, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 million pounds annually, and save
500,000 gallons of gasoline daily.

As the culture of downtown residential neighborhoods evolves, the infusion of major commercial and retail de-
velopers will provide another thrust of investment and growth in the next decade. With new transportation and
recreational amenities conveniently located within blocks of the project sites, these sites have the potential to
become principle anchors for downtown.

Hancock Park
 13

introduction
3
downtown 2000 2020 (projected) growth
36,000 250,000 214,000
(or 1 Barstow)
population
1. manufacturing 1,700 45,700 44,000
2. South Park 730 40,300 39,570
3. Arts District -project site 570 35,000 34,430
4. Little Tokyo 7,000 41,000 34,000 6
5. historical core 18,000 50,000 32,000 1
6. Bunker Hill 8,000 38,000 30,000
7. financial core 7
8. Fashion District
5
2
4

=
downtown Los Angeles Washington D.C. Project Site
+10,000-28,000

7 4 3

5
2
1

downtown Los Angeles

projected population growth centers, 2020

Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw
introduction

14
 introduction
15

volume three:
downtown Arts District
volume four:
Chavez Ravine
introduction

16 In a metropolis comprosing multi-

nodal communities, the ability to con-
nect these urban nodes determines
the future sustainability of these
communities. The twentieth century
saw infrastructure grow proportion-
ately with the growth of the urban
fabric. But in the first decade of the
twenty-first century, infrastructure
can no longer accomodate its us-
ers by dividing, splicing, splintering
and branching. Rather than locate a
new footprint and secure land rights,
infrastructure has to enhance and
exploit untapped or poorly conceived
existing connections.

cultural institutions
F Walt Disney Concert Hall
G Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
H The Museum of Contemporary Art
civic institutions
C Department of Water and Power
D courthouses
E U.S. Bank Tower
financial districts
I office towers C G
F
commercial and entertainment
A Staples Center D
B department stores /
hotels / clubs H
E
I

B
et
re
St
r

e
we

Av

downtown connections
Flo
et

d
re

an
St

Gr
a
ro

core amenities
gu
Fi

website: A
usc.edu/dept/geography/losangeles/lawalk/spark/index.html

0 100ft 500ft 1000ft

0 1/3mile 1/2mile 1 mile

 introduction
The proposals here examine the 17
potential of Flower Street, Grand
Avenue and Figueroa Street as
connective spines between Chavez
Ravine and downtown Los Ange-
les. A new set of commuters with Dodger Stadium
less than ten minutes of driving can 569,069 sq. ft.
serve downtown and infuse the cur- 0.94% Downtown Los Angeles
rent cultural and commercial insti-
tutions with increased patronage
and revenues. This becomes the
seed from which a continual co-de-
pendency can build between those
living on the hill and the services at
the bottom of the hill. Eventually,
downtown Los Angeles can shed
the stigma of being an empty urban
center after work hours and, like all
great metropolitan downtowns, be-
come a new nocturnal destination.

Chavez Ravine and Elysian Park volume four site: Chavez Ravine
1,932.8 acres 323.47 acres
84,194,467 sq. ft. 14,089,963 sq. ft.
0.76% metropolitan area 0.013% metropolitan area
downtown Los Angeles volume three site: Arts District
1,390.3 acres 227.7 acres
60,469,042 sq. ft. 9,916,923 sq. ft.
0.54% metropolitan area 0.09% metropolitan area

site comparison
downtown Arts District and Chavez Ravine
websites:
zimas.lacity.org/
navigatela.lacity.org/index01.htm
introduction

18

Chavez Ravine and Elysian Park, 1958

Bunker Hill Cesar Chavez Boulevard Chinatown

downtown Los Angeles
 introduction
19

Dodger Stadium under construction, 1961

Chavez Ravine Dodger Stadium Elysian Park

top of Chavez Ravine 110 Pasadena Freeway
 introduction
proposals

20
introduction
proposals
21

proposals
introduction

THE DISCONTENTS AND PLEASURES OF L.A. NOW

22 John Kaliski
proposals

I was a bit surprised to receive Thom Mayne’s invitation to follow the progress and work of the students who par-
ticipated in L.A. Now; a project Mayne organized and led through his research studio at the UCLA Department of
Architecture and Urban Design. For twenty years, from the perspectives of both the private and public sector, I
have argued for and attempted to practice an urban design and architecture that is different than the underlying
ideas, forms, and desires of the projects represented in L.A. Now. When I worked as the Principal Architect of
the Community Redevelopment Agency of the Ctiy of Los Angeles, I was always struck by vast amount of input
from a multitude of voices that each project generated and how that input guided projects towards less density,
smaller scales, more open space and greenery, and respect for traditional city forms. In general I believe, based
upon this experience and the built evidence of the contemporary city, that when architecture is defined as large-
scale infrastructure, poor urbanism invariably follows.

In contrast, in the UCLA projects, whatever fascination there might be with the small-scale and organic city-
making is more than overcome by powerful fascinations on the part of both teacher and student with the “XL.”
As a corollary, when faced with urban-scale challenges, the protagonists of this studio too often for my tastes
responded with building—or buildings as topology—solutions. While the student work was in my opinion at-
tuned to the present program needs of Los Angeles, the relentlessness of the horizontal and vertical carpet of
building propositions that were promulgated metabolically obviated any sense of human scale.

I suppose Thom purposely wanted someone contributing to the studio criticisms that would bridge this gap, who
was more comfortable with an urban design that grapples with design strategies that grow from understand-
ings of building-by-building incrementalism, typological coding, and landscape urbanism. I also know from his
comments during the studio and from his work that for Thom, his interest in the XL does not negate an interest
in urban-design tactics grounded in the reshaping of the existing public common, the streets, sidewalks, open
spaces, and adjacent envelopes that frame these places. During the course of observing the progress of the L.A.
Now work, I even suspected that the students felt that their massing diagrams were in keeping with many of the
principles that form the core of my personal belief systems. Still, the emphasis in this studio on big architectur-
al solutions, its consequential costs, need for heavy-handed land acquisition tactics to ensure implementation,
and unspoken reliance on now standard joint public-private sector development strategies became too easy a
capitulation to a type of real-estate economics that ignores too many of the pressing problems of the American
City such as affordable housing, requirements for economic restructuring to assist with job production, and the
creation of well-appointed and maintained common spaces.
 introduction
23

proposals
I tried to contribute to the studio the thought that contemporary urban design must wrestle with the democratic
urbanism of the contemporary city, the tussle of community meetings, and the political forces that shape the
city to realize both consensus and form. No doubt as a professional expert Thom invited me to make these
points, even as he pursued with the students architectural schemas that I was at first glance bound to disagree
with. As a critic with a different point of view, I was a poor substitute for the polyglot mix of voices that will in-
evitably shape the most innovative—in the sense that they are responsive to the voices of everyday life—cities
in industrialized countries.

Yet, despite the critical and intellectual differences I might have with Thom and this studio, I would hardly reject
this work as irrelevant to the making of the city and architecture; the opposite is true. The L.A. Now project
cannot be dismissed, for it constructively fascinates the mind and the eye of all that see it, and as such attracts
critical notice and interest, both negative and positive. It is in essence a productive exploration into the means by
which urban design will be practiced in coming years and thus a force for urban contemplation and discussion
and change. Why this is the case is worth exploring. I sense that the interest in the fantastical urbanism that is
seen here lies in the subliminal optimism of the studio’s design methodology, a reliance on a design as opposed
to planning process for the production of urbanism.
Residing within the unimplementable gigantism of the architecture of this design studio is a manifold that real-
izes brilliant urban design propositions. True, the students raced towards overwrought building ideas, but they
also, in the process of generating these ideas, grounded them in acute urban design recommendations. Each
project contained an idea that moved me; a linkage of Los Angeles City Hall to the Los Angeles River via a net-
work of open space; a sectional zoning that attends flexibly to emerging patterns of contemporary everyday life;
a Figueroa Street parkway that directly connects for the first time downtown with the Golden State Freeway; a
residential “Stadium City” placed over the vast parking scrim that mars both Los Angeles’s iconic baseball sta-
dium and its surrounds; a reinvigorated Elysian Park that actively serves and gathers the masses that surround
it. The power of a design vision as opposed to planning process is the former’s heightened capacity to synthesize
otherwise unmanageable data and social inputs into acute concepts that are easily understood—precisely be-
cause they are visual. I believe the L.A. Now project garners continued interest because it well demonstrates the
unique capacity of design to generate clear ideas and consequent debate at the earliest stages of planning.
introduction

A second aspect of this studio that I think is critical to any discourse regarding the design of cities at this time
is its insistent integration of informational databases and new visualization technologies. At each step of the
proposals

24 studio, Thom urged the students to fold the data flows that shape contemporary urban life into the techniques
of design in a digital age. Whether traffic- and transportation-based, census-based, flood plain-based, open
space-based, economic-based, or otherwise-based, the sustained research into the actual conditions of the
city produces results that are a reflection of the possibilities of present everyday life seen through the filter of
to the range of pressures, fluxes, and opportunities that impact the contemporary city. The City of Los Angeles,
under simultaneous demographic, economic, and building restructuring, is seen as needing an architecture
and urban design that is hyper-responsive to an immediately present future.
While one can argue with the formal results, for me the L.A. Now process suggests that the architect can place
him or herself in a position to tap the broadest range of knowledge systems at work in the city today without
resorting to a simplistic and sentimental urbanism of image as opposed to substance. More important, I believe
the method and results fascinate a broader public well-versed in the use of I-Pods, Nintendos, Play Stations,
and Sim City because they trust that the digital architectural tools of the present, which allow for instantaneous
public visualization and discussion of the broadest range of alternative futures, work better and more deeply
than the tools of the past and thus lead to a better and more livable future. Unlike normative city planning and
urban design that now always looks to a singularly defined and supposedly golden past—and as a result at best
realizes an urbanism of quietude—these projects bespeak a progressive optimism about controlling and direct-
ing the dynamic forces at work in the city today.

Given Thom’s roots in a late 1970s postmodernism of representation, interest in “dead tech” in the 80s, and
his formal and craft-based explorations of the 90s—all pursuits that looked to architectural tradition to realize
architectural futures, his interest in projecting present urbanism, as exemplified in the L.A. Now studio, also
explains an essential aspect of the vitality of his recent work, which is at times overlooked. Whether at Diamond
Ranch High School, the University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center, the Caltrans District 7 Headquar-
ters, or any of numerous other efforts, Morphosis utilizes a process parallel to that of the UCLA studio. These
buildings combine research and advanced visualization to project humanism in contemporary urbanism, and
thus realize a critical architecture that at once captures the imagination of both the profession and the public.
Perhaps at times this architecture suffers from the same gigantism and lack of human scale that marks the
UCLA projects, but it is always forward-looking and infinitely more satisfying in its complexly ameliorative pos-
ture towards the struggles of daily life than any architecture or urbanism that turns its back on the present.

Thom Mayne is always full of questions, transmits his love of critical questioning to co-workers and his stu-
dents, and through this positive criticality will, I trust, be among the first to both glimpse and realize the in-
spired and technologically based human-scaled urban incrementalism that the L.A. Now studio does not yet
fully realize—yet anticipates with great vigor and delight. Even as this Pritzker Prize-winning architect creates
forms that test conventional understandings of architecture and urbanism, and barrels forward with sometimes
uncomfortable built propositions, he always takes the time, whether with his colleagues or in the educational
design studio, to ponder, absorb, transform, and bridge contrary positions and ideas into new expectations for
architecture and urban design.
introduction
proposals
25
introduction

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
proposals

26 L.A. Now: Volume Three: Downtown Arts District

L.A. Now: Volume Four: (Take the Hill!) The Great Switch: Elysian Housing and Dodger Stadium

In the summer of 2000, Richard Koshalek, president of Art Center College of Design, approached Thom Mayne,
principal of Morphosis, to direct a study of Los Angeles that would offer suggestions for its future development
and growth. During a year-long intensive research studio at UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban
Design, Mayne and a group of students first undertook the project of analyzing Los Angeles and, subsequently,
designing speculative urban proposals for its downtown core.

A large portion of this effort focused on the collection of a substantial amount of data on the Los Angeles region,
given the realization that no project could be properly understood in isolation from the larger picture. This
initial research was compiled into a book that was published by the University of California Press in January of
2002 as L.A. Now: Volume One.

Based on this research and analysis, the students then designed interpretive strategies to accommodate the
city’s fragmentation, heterogeneity, emergent orders, and non-linearity. Each of these projects established a
basis for working within the broader context of the city and engaging programmatic and spatial adjacencies
unearthed in the initial research phase. The academic context of the studio allowed for urban proposals not
possible within the strictures of conventional, real-world planning and development. The University of California
Press published these projects in January 2002 as L.A. Now: Volume Two.

L.A. Now: Volume Three offers a set of proposals based on research and analysis to introduce housing into a
specific site in Los Angeles’s downtown core. Bounded by the 101 Freeway, the Los Angeles River, Alameda
Steet, and Fourth Street, the Arts District site lies between downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. Taking
into account the increasing population and the rising demand for housing in the central district of downtown,
Volume Three examines the implications and viability of housing on the fringes as well. The projects take
advantage of the area’s adjacency to several culturally rich neighborhoods and the Southern California Institute
of Architecture, as well as the planned connection of the Gold Line from Pasadena. Though this neighborhood
currently has an underdeveloped identity, it has the potential to evolve into a vital cornerstone of downtown.

L.A. Now: Volume Four continues speculation on Los Angeles’s future, employing the conceptual framework
established in the first three volumes while shifting focus to a different geographic node within greater Los
Angeles—Chavez Ravine. Volume Four presents new research and proposals for simultaneously relocating
Dodgers Stadium to downtown Los Angeles and developing housing in Elysian Park. The projects reclaim
Chavez Ravine as a residential area, fusing its identity with Elysian Park and examining the hyper-densification
a stadium brings into the city. The polarization of program and site spurs an intense investigation of the role
of varied infrastructure systems—nature, culture, and transportation—as critical infusions into urban housing
and stadium development plans.

The research studio’s laboratory ethos has resulted in a valuable information base and proposals that encourage
the community to rethink Los Angeles and its future. The intent of the L.A. Now series is to invigorate critical
interest in Los Angeles, and to spur future ventures and projects.
 introduction
commonalities

proposals
1. All projects shall support an integrative policy of space and building making. 27
All proposals and their programmatic components must react, engage and enter a physical and formal dialogue with all
existing and proposed conditions. The spaces and structures should collectively intertwine to frame and enhance the other’s
central concept.

2. All projects shall induce development through an infusion of critical mass.

3. All projects shall encourage infrastructure to enter a lateral rather than a hierarchical relationship with each other
Infrastructure refer to transportation, service, politics and habitation systems. All infrastructure components will be developed
to its final and ultimate deterministic potential.

4. All projects’ boundaries shall exist within a territory of discussions and agendas.
All proposals shall establish a critical relationship with its adjacent districts via the projects’ edges and parameters.

5. All projects shall facilitate alternative modes of movement.

All proposals will examine implications of reducing automobile transportation, intelligent parking and eliminating secondary
and tertiary roads on the site. Not only will this promote public transportation and a healthier environment, this mandate will
generate attractive real estate opportunities.

6. All projects shall pursue an intelligent use of limited resources.

The project site’s size can substantially affect and contribute to an enhanced natural and environmental living conditions.

7. All projects shall support a broad notion of identity in relation to

the various levels of urban scales: metropolis, city, downtown, and neighborhood.

8. All projects shall characterize, enhance and codify quantified regional data.
All proposals’ merits are determined by a foundation of comparable statistics and data (demographics, economics,
infrastructure). The data informs critical mass decisions and design strategies, forming the basis for a comparison to an
appropriate case study.

9. All projects shall support a flexible, evolutionary and adaptable state of inhabitation and use.
All proposals shall assume users, through an accretional process, will coerce, assimilate and modify given architecture and
urban conditions to befit their evolving lifestyle and future demographic patterns.

variables
1. Large Infusion
Stadium-Multi-purpose Public Center / Educational Institution / Cultural Institutions /
Religious institutions / Retail Shopping Center

2. Infrastructure Organization
Maximize local and regional public transport / Minimize parking density / Pedestrian infrastructure / walkways

3. Economic Configuration
Public: Infrastructure / Stadium-public center / Education / Some cultural institutions
Private: Housing / Retail / Hotels / Entertainment / General services / Shopping /
Commercial (Offices + Production + manufacturing) / Technology services

4. Density
High Density
Low Density

5. Demographics
Economic class
Ethnic group

6. Natural Condition / Landscape

River / Green spaces / Energy resources / Park Use / Pollutants
introduction
proposals

28

ElastiCity
volume three

a new zoning envelope

ElastiCity presumes to augment the traditional
planning typological model via a new
topological zoning envelope tuned to specific
site conditions. The undulating form becomes a
skin highly molded to the demands of localized
conditions.

population: 35,000
total residential area: 19,000,000 sq. ft.
total building area: 26,000,000 sq. ft.

DiurnalCity
volume three

24-hour city
Commuter evacuation after work has become
a primary restriction on the level of activities
available in downtown Los Angeles. DiurnalCity
proposes a complex shifting of programs and
uses to attract, extend and sustain a new
lifestyle within downtown Los Angeles, 24
hours a day.

population: 23,000
total residential area: 15,111,000 sq. ft.
total building area: 30,670,177 sq. ft.
 introduction
proposals
29

L.A. Mall
volume three

a new green heart for downtown

The L.A. Mall offers downtown its largest green
park which will anchor the master plan of the
Los Angeles River’s edge development toward
Griffith Park. The buildings that define this
green hearth are programmatic extensions of
the existing urban fabric.

population: 33,700
total residential area: 18,950,800 sq. ft.
total building area: 23,430,300 sq. ft.

Suburban Spill
volume three

intersection of four adjacent communites

By extending the surrounding neigborhood
urban fabric into the site, the resulting collison
of east-side suburban residential, north-side
transportation, west-side culture and south-
side manufacturing generates the contextual
quiltwork of Suburban Spill.

population: 17,650
total residential are: 8,847,780 sq. ft
total building area: 20,319,000 sq. ft.
introduction
proposals

30

Stadium City
volume four

new village around Dodger Stadium

Stadium City proposes to situate an urban
community around Dodger Stadium by laying
a porous housing mat over an excavated site.
Open space and amenities are extracted from
the mat based on programmatic necessities
and historical precedents. Stadium City offers
over 2,000 condominiums with large private
gardens and 160 town squares linked to parks
and schools.

population: 21,250
total residential area: 9,860,000 sq. ft.
total building area: 18,740,000 sq. ft.

L.A.Live/Elysian Housing
volume three

stadiums + convention center + Union Station

This scheme proposes swapping housing wtih
Dodger Stadium and recognizing the enhanced
benefits of these new locations. The housing sits
on the last great single site in Los Angeles and
the stadium poses to challenge and contribute
to the emerging vibrancy of downtown.

population: 24,000
total residential area: 21,000,000 sq. ft.
total building area: 81,000,000 sq. ft.
 introduction
proposals
31

Elysian Greens
volume four

housing on ravine edge doubles Elysian Park

By concentrating the housing development on
the edges of Chavez Ravine, Elysian Greens
returns most of the site back to green space,
thereby doubling Elysian Park. The housing
concentration along the cliff affords more units
with city views and provides an urban front to
the city. Elysian Greens engages the Chinatown
and Solano Canyon communities by extending
a connective infrastructural bar and relocating
the Stadium near the new Los Angeles State
Historic Park, respectively.

population: 16,000
total residential area: 7,153,890 sq. ft.
total building area: 8,623,390 sq. ft.

Chavez Pass
volume four

new Figueroa Express Corridor

Chavez Pass integrates the grid of downtown
and the topology of Elysian Park with the infra-
structural thoroughfare of the new Figueroa
connection. The new Figueroa extension begins
with a newly re-located Dodger Stadium next to
Staples Center and continues uninterrupted
through Chavez Ravine and Elysian Park to
connect with the 5 Freeway and the communities
north of Elysian Park.

population: 35,000
total residential area: 10,000,000 sq. ft.
total building area:11,000,000 sq. ft.