As L.A. pats itself on the back for its freshly angular skyline, a new architectural trend — enabled by another city ordinance — threatens to turn the beating heart of modern Los Angeles into a cold, lifeless and unwalkable place. — The Los Angeles Times
This excellent piece by the aptly named Steven Sharp delves into the uglification of downtown Los Angeles via the "parking podium," wherein large buildings dedicate their first few floors to a parking garage to meet code requirements for parking, thereby plunging the pedestrian realm back into an unwelcome "City of Quartz" vibe. Putting the parking in the first few floors is cheaper than digging underground or creating surface lots, but honestly: ugh!
5 Comments
weird photo - lower the camera angle a bit and show there is mixed use/storefront on street level with some trees and probably seating and the article kinda loses traction. Thing that ruined LA for walking was skid row and the futurist skyways of the 70s...you are either floating around like George Jetson or trying to avoid human feces.
Storefronts. Great. Glass panels with shitty signage. How humanizing.
better than the ass end of 100 beater cars behind a giant concrete buttress.
I wouldn't say better, merely a lateral move. If we settle for this sort of token bullshit (storefronts bought from CRL and slapped up over spec retail) we get the cities we deserve, same as parking podiums.
^ Important point. Not that several podium floors are great, but if the ground floor has public uses and is well-designed as open and engaging with the sidewalk... that's not the same as the Fortress City that Davis (mostly) accurately described in the early '90s.
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