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The Hammer Museum, housing Los Angeles' 3rd largest collection of artistic innovation, has announced a public launch of a $180 million capital campaign in their multiyear expansion plan. A masterplan to improve every facet of the museum has been underway since 2000 lead by Michael Maltzan... View full entry
If no one in 2018 would argue, as a young writer named David Brodsly did in 1981, that the "L.A. freeway is the cathedral of its time and place," or that it's the spot where Angelenos "spend the two calmest and most rewarding hours of their daily lives," as British architectural historian Reyner Banham put it with almost laughable enthusiasm a decade earlier, there's no doubt that both the practical and metaphorical meanings of the freeway continue to preoccupy Southern Californians. — Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne reflects on Southern California's ongoing love-hate relationship with its freeways. View full entry
Community leaders and affected homeowners have mixed reactions regarding a consultant’s recently released recommendations on how to best provide relief for residential communities besieged with Hollywood Sign tourists.
The recommendations, released in January and commissioned by Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu, ranged in impact from the jaw-dropping, like the idea of installing a second Hollywood sign, to the mundane, like improving signage for lost tourists.
— Los Feliz Ledger
The Los Feliz Ledger gives a detailed account of various recommendations currently being discussed among community leaders to drastically improve access to L.A.'s iconic landmark sign while also easing the traffic burden on locals in the adjacent Hollywood Hills neighborhoods. One idea from a... View full entry
One year after Los Angeles unexpectedly won the right to host the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the spaceship-like project is now ready to push dirt in Exposition Park. Protective fencing now encircles the site of filmmaker George Lucas' $1-billion legacy project, which replaces two parking lots at the intersection of 39th Street and Vermont Avenue. The eventual four-story, 115-foot-tall building will feature[...] Lucas' 10,000-piece collection, a library, two theaters, classrooms, and offices. — urbanize.LA
Image courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.Exposition Park in South Los Angeles has already a number of high-profile construction projects going on (new MLS soccer stadium and Coliseum makeover to host the 2028 Summer Olympics) or on the books, and the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative... View full entry
The number of those living in the streets and shelters of the city of L.A. and most of the county surged 75% — to roughly 55,000 from about 32,000 — in the last six years.
But the crisis has been decades in the making. If homelessness continues to escalate at current rates, it will swamp even the best efforts.
— Los Angeles Times
Despite declaring homelessness in the city an 'emergency' and committing drastically increased funds to housing and services, Los Angeles is failing to improve the lives of its unsheltered citizens. View full entry
Anthony Morey, who many here on Archinect will recognize as Archinect's editor-at-large, starting editorial columns such as Cross-Talk, Fellow Fellows and From the Ground Up, has been just announced as the a+d museum's new Executive Director and Curator. Prior to this announcement, Anthony... View full entry
Justin Timberlake may have just completed his halftime performance at the Super Bowl, but before that, he was busy roaming around the historic Bradbury Building in Los Angeles with his good friend and country star, Chris Stapleton. The duo have a song together on Timberlake's new album Man of the... View full entry
The Los Angeles region once again topped the list of areas with the worst traffic congestion for the sixth year in a row, according to a report by INRIX, a company that specializes in car services and transportation analytics.
Drivers in and around Los Angeles spent 102 hours battling traffic congestion during peak hours in 2017, INRIX's said. By contrast, New York City motorists spent 91 hours battling peak-hour congestion. New York was No. 3 on the INRIX list. No. 2 was Moscow.
— Los Angeles Times
Congrats L.A. — you lived up to your reputation as America's most congested city once again! Among the metro areas surveyed, "the U.S. accounted for 10 of the top 25 cities worldwide with the worst traffic congestion in the INRIX study," the LA Times reports. Help us Elon, or we'll start... View full entry
Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2018 Archinect's Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss... View full entry
Gehry has completed new — and nearly final — designs for the Grand, an open-air complex of apartments, condominiums, movie theaters, restaurants and shops that promises to enliven a city block that has been mostly dead for half a century. [...]
The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for [...] Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs
— Los Angeles Times
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.But wait, there's more: the LA Times writes that developing the block on Grand Avenue would finally unlock a design feature Gehry himself "baked into his design for Disney Hall" a long time ago — the ability of the concert hall's curvy metallic facade to receive... View full entry
Los Angeles city officials and property owners are making progress on retrofitting the types of apartment buildings that proved especially vulnerable in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. [...]
As of this month, retrofits on 608 “soft-story” buildings are complete and another almost 4,000 retrofits are in progress, according to the mayor’s office. More than 13,000 of an estimated 13,500 soft-story buildings have been issued orders to comply, the first step on the road to retrofitting.
— Curbed LA
Commemorating the 24-year anniversary of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake which devastated the greater Los Angeles area on January 17, Curbed LA reports about the status of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti's effort to retrofit all of the city's 13,500 "soft-story" buildings — like the ubiquitous, and... View full entry
The $600-million project, called 1111 Sunset, would include high-rise condominium and apartment towers, town houses, shops, restaurants and two acres of public open space designed by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architect behind New York’s High Line elevated park. [...]
The 98-room boutique hotel is to be designed by Kengo Kuma. It would be the major Los Angeles project for the high-profile Japanese architect known for melding his structures to their natural surroundings.
— Los Angeles Times
Image: SOM/Palisades.First announced last October, the redevelopment of the William Pereira-designed former Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District HQ, right on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park, is further taking shape. Besides new renderings of the 1111 Sunset Boulevard... View full entry
Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2018 Archinect's Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss... View full entry
A developer looking to erect a hotel tower designed by Frank Gehry on Santa Monica’s iconic Ocean Avenue has reworked its plans and released a new rendering of the project.
Originally proposed five years ago as 22 stories, the hotel has been reduced to 12 stories—or 130 feet—to comply with the city’s new development plan for downtown. It’s just one part of a larger project that would also include a museum, shops, ground-floor open space, and 79 apartments.
— Curbed LA
The newly released rendering shows the Gehry-designed hotel tower as a considerably shortened and reworked version of what was originally proposed in March of 2013 — before the city's new height rules and design guidelines for downtown Santa Monica were implemented. For comparison, check out the... View full entry
Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2018 Archinect's Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss... View full entry
