Los angeles is a city of innovative architecture, but it is defined less by buildings than the enormous scale of its infrastructure -- railways, water works, power grids and, of course, the ubiquitous freeways.
It all addresses obvious practical problems: how to move cars, water, power and trains. But the unintended consequence is de facto "zoning by infrastructure" -- subdivisions of use, sociology, affluence and poverty, unanticipated by the engineers who planned the concrete rivers and freeways.
Let's re-imagine the infrastructure. Let's conceive of it no longer simply as a way to solve technical problems but as a multipurpose planning-and-design instrument to reconnect disparate zones of the city.
Where to begin? The L.A. River, that Maginot Line of poured concrete and infrequent high water that winds from the mountains to the ocean.
Make the river a public amenity. Dam it. Sail in it. Bring adjacent communities to its edges. Bridge it and inhabit the bridges -- commerce, recreation, housing and education will span the renewed river. Clean the water, store it, then release it as a source of hydroelectric power.
Where to start? Between the 1st Street and 6th Street bridges, where the river separates Latino Boyle Heights and downtown. Join the communities at the river.
squirrelly - try www.ericowenmoss.com click on "current" and the City of the Future is the lead item (for now). Instead of opening online, download the link "view design." I posted this link directly.
i just wanted to bump this thread after reading the los angeles times op-ed article in the top link and what the selected people said on, 'what are the troubles in 2007 waiting los angeles' (in itself sounds like go ask jimmy the greek). thankfully people went beyond and voiced some real issues on the near future awaiting the city.
mike davis was rightfully alarming on children and lack of good education and health care thus the very future of social make up.
take a hard left by sean bonner, co-founder of blogging.la, did connected the political issues and physical environment via the humorous tounge and california left turns.
~~~
eric o. moss made his local pitch about a specific site and tried to globalize his solution as an infrastructural application/solution for the sprawled cities with connection problems, i thought he made his proposal too fantastically to be universal.
even though most of his ideas, (not the forms), in the renderings were not that original, they did electrified the recent 'let's do something big' movement because of their playfulness, and at the same time addressing several issues the city will intensely be dealing in the near future.
it did present some design factor solutions to mainstreamed problems by way of using infrastructural layout of LA's particular geography.
at that level project is successful and arrives at bigger audiances to get the slogan going.
this project would have a popular following given the political climate in los angeles with a energetic popular mayor feeling some newly discovered love for large urban scale projects and 'making a difference and make-makes' theme.
eric moss proposal for the site goes to the heart of many everyday dreamers but starts to trickle less and less as the dry creek can no longer support such a cloustrophobia due to programmatic overload.
his proposal seems to kick off the flirtatious glances with recent cornfields competition winner.
i personally like to see some germinations from these type of large infrasize projects believing the future will be about that, instead of; no longer effective residential engine architecture have been rlying in los angeles.
I have a manuscript floating around, lost with Kazys, about Los Angeles having no edges - ie an inversion of William Cronon's hinterlands made the city thesis. If I don't hear back from him soon that it's being published, it will become an archinect feature. Los Angeles could easily be one of the original Infrastructural Cities since it lacks most of the geospatial/political advantanges that generated most world cities - without the infrastructure we'd never have California...
Mar 19, 07 1:28 pm ·
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EO Moss on LA
EO Moss on what's wrong with LA:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-troubles27dec27,0,1912184.htmlstory?coll=la-opinion-center
Pump up the river
Eric Owen Moss
Architect
Los angeles is a city of innovative architecture, but it is defined less by buildings than the enormous scale of its infrastructure -- railways, water works, power grids and, of course, the ubiquitous freeways.
It all addresses obvious practical problems: how to move cars, water, power and trains. But the unintended consequence is de facto "zoning by infrastructure" -- subdivisions of use, sociology, affluence and poverty, unanticipated by the engineers who planned the concrete rivers and freeways.
Let's re-imagine the infrastructure. Let's conceive of it no longer simply as a way to solve technical problems but as a multipurpose planning-and-design instrument to reconnect disparate zones of the city.
Where to begin? The L.A. River, that Maginot Line of poured concrete and infrequent high water that winds from the mountains to the ocean.
Make the river a public amenity. Dam it. Sail in it. Bring adjacent communities to its edges. Bridge it and inhabit the bridges -- commerce, recreation, housing and education will span the renewed river. Clean the water, store it, then release it as a source of hydroelectric power.
Where to start? Between the 1st Street and 6th Street bridges, where the river separates Latino Boyle Heights and downtown. Join the communities at the river.
His own response, found on ericowenmoss.com: City of the Future Handout
EO MOss is disney on acid
Hey Alan....go to see you posting!
Interesting take....I must read on....
Alan, can that doc be found somewhere else (or as the option to download)? Seems kind of heavy and for some reason my comp is locking up.
Any suggestions?
sounds like another case of that fatefull OE
squirrelly - try www.ericowenmoss.com click on "current" and the City of the Future is the lead item (for now). Instead of opening online, download the link "view design." I posted this link directly.
sweet, thanks Alan!
This is what won 1st place btw.
i just wanted to bump this thread after reading the los angeles times op-ed article in the top link and what the selected people said on, 'what are the troubles in 2007 waiting los angeles' (in itself sounds like go ask jimmy the greek). thankfully people went beyond and voiced some real issues on the near future awaiting the city.
mike davis was rightfully alarming on children and lack of good education and health care thus the very future of social make up.
take a hard left by sean bonner, co-founder of blogging.la, did connected the political issues and physical environment via the humorous tounge and california left turns.
~~~
eric o. moss made his local pitch about a specific site and tried to globalize his solution as an infrastructural application/solution for the sprawled cities with connection problems, i thought he made his proposal too fantastically to be universal.
even though most of his ideas, (not the forms), in the renderings were not that original, they did electrified the recent 'let's do something big' movement because of their playfulness, and at the same time addressing several issues the city will intensely be dealing in the near future.
it did present some design factor solutions to mainstreamed problems by way of using infrastructural layout of LA's particular geography.
at that level project is successful and arrives at bigger audiances to get the slogan going.
this project would have a popular following given the political climate in los angeles with a energetic popular mayor feeling some newly discovered love for large urban scale projects and 'making a difference and make-makes' theme.
eric moss proposal for the site goes to the heart of many everyday dreamers but starts to trickle less and less as the dry creek can no longer support such a cloustrophobia due to programmatic overload.
his proposal seems to kick off the flirtatious glances with recent cornfields competition winner.
i personally like to see some germinations from these type of large infrasize projects believing the future will be about that, instead of; no longer effective residential engine architecture have been rlying in los angeles.
LA on what is wrong with Eric Owen Moss
I have a manuscript floating around, lost with Kazys, about Los Angeles having no edges - ie an inversion of William Cronon's hinterlands made the city thesis. If I don't hear back from him soon that it's being published, it will become an archinect feature. Los Angeles could easily be one of the original Infrastructural Cities since it lacks most of the geospatial/political advantanges that generated most world cities - without the infrastructure we'd never have California...
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