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A vote this week by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has put the city on a path to virtually end youth incarceration, the first major city in the United States to do so. — Next City
Following an 18-month study guided by formerly-incarcerated teens, city officials have agreed to a plan that will close San Francisco's Youth Guidance Center juvenile jail by the end of 2021. The move will make San Francisco the first large city to eliminate its youth incarceration program. ... View full entry
The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. — The Los Angeles Times
Homelessness is surging in Los Angeles County and across California, where most major cities have seen double-digit increases in their share of residents experiencing homelessness since last year. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Los Angeles Times, “At this point of... View full entry
The 5th and Hill development, slated for an L-shaped property wrapping the historic Pershing Square Building, is a product of real estate investment firm JMF Development Co. Plans call for the construction of a 53-story, 784-foot-tall building which could feature either 1) 160 condominiums or 2) a combination of 31 condominiums and a 190-room hotel. Both use options include a mix of restaurant space and amenities, with parking to be located in a five-level podium and two subterranean levels. — Urbanize LA
The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council's Planning and Land Use Committee is holding a public meeting on the 21st of May, where one of the projects discussed will be the proposed 53-story tower, new images of which have recently been made public. The mixed-use structure is designed... View full entry
Developers of what’s posed to be the tallest building in Los Angeles and west of the Mississippi River are moving forward with their plans to transform the site of a Downtown hotel into a glittering 77-story hotel and condo tower. [...]
The neighborhood council’s approval, if given, would be taken into account by Los Angeles City Council committees as the project moves through the planning approval process.
— Curbed LA
First proposed last summer as a supertall Bunker Hill skyscraper that could take the crown of tallest building in Los Angeles and the western United States, the building was recently presented by a spokesperson of the Chinese development firm, Shenzhen New World Group, during a meeting of the... View full entry
The rapid transformation of downtown Los Angeles’ skyline is being fueled in good measure by huge investments from Chinese companies eager to burnish their global brands and capitalize on L.A.’s real estate boom.
Now some of those projects have become a focus of federal agents seeking evidence of possible bribery, extortion, money laundering and other crimes as part of a corruption investigation at City Hall.
— Los Angeles Times
The FBI search warrant lists a number of high-profile property developers and real estate companies from mainland China that have considerably shaped the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles with monumental high-rise projects in recent years, such as Shenzhen New World Group, Shenzhen Hazens... View full entry
The Arts District in downtown Los Angeles is filled with several must-see locations. Now home to one of the world's first fully immersive entertainment art park, Wisdome LA allows for visitors to enter into unforgettable audio and visual experience. The park features five fully immersive domes ... View full entry
Quickly becoming a must know name in the realm of furniture and design, Stockholm-based furniture brand Hem makes opens its first US showroom. In collaboration with Madera, the brand will be partnering with Endemic Architecture's founder and director Clark Thenhaus to design a site-specific... View full entry
With a $630-million construction loan in hand, Related Cos. will begin site preparation this month for The Grand, a long-awaited Frank Gehry-designed tower complex in Downtown Los Angeles.
The approximately $1-billion development, slated to replace a parking structure across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall, was conceived more than a decade ago as a public-private partnership between Related and various city and county agencies.
— urbanize.LA
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.About a decade delayed, the Frank Gehry-designed The Grand development (formerly known as Grand Avenue Project) will finally start coming to life atop Bunker Hill in Downtown Los Angeles. Pre-construction work is scheduled to commence this month on the plot... View full entry
This Saturday, June 30, 2018 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil The Assembly. The Assembly is a new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different disciplines of design... View full entry
Move over Wilshire Grand: A planned 77-story skyscraper wants to be the tallest building in Los Angeles and west of the Mississippi. That’s no accident.
Unlike the Wilshire Grand—which was, purportedly, not intentionally planned to be the tallest tower in the city or beyond—this skyscraper was definitely intended to a record-holder, says Jeff DiMarzio, whose firm DiMarzio Kato Architects is designing the project at Figueroa and Third in Bunker Hill.
— Curbed LA
Downtown Los Angeles is reaching for new heights: last week, the $1-billion, 88-story Angels Landing Development submitted plans to the city, and now another (potentially) supertall tower vis-à-vis the iconic Bonaventure Hotel has been proposed by Chinese developer Shenzhen New World Group. ... View full entry
The 1.26-million-square-foot project, which would rise at the northwest corner of 4th and Hill Streets in Downtown Los Angeles, will feature 120 condos, 450 apartments, 480 hotel rooms, a 45,000-square-foot charter school, and 50,000 square feet of commercial space, according to a case filing with the Planning Department. Handel Architects is designing the $1-billion project. — Urbanize
Join Archinect in celebrating the opening of Archinect Outpost and the launch of Ed 2 "Architecture of Disaster" on June 15th, 7-10 PM. RSVP here to reserve your spot! Archinect Outpost is an exciting new retail initiative in downtown LA's Arts District, a rapidly transforming creative hub home... View full entry
The buildings were constructed and built by the Chandler Family. The different sections of the block have different cornerstones set by succeeding generations. – at Los Angeles Times — Twitter
With the news that Patrick Soon-Shiong is moving the LAT’s newsroom from its historic HQ, to El Segundo, Ben Welsh Editor @LATdatadesk took readers on a wander through the interlocking buildings, at 1st and Spring. https://twitter.com/palewire/status... 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
The Bonaventure has become a focal point for the debate on Postmodernism, ever since its discovery as a Postmodern hyperspace by [cultural theorist] Fredric Jameson some years ago…It’s a landscape that’s highly fragmented. It’s a space that de-centers you, makes you feel lost. And in this feeling of being lost and dislocated, you feel that your only recourse is to submit to authority. You’re helpless, you’re made helpless, you’re peripheralized, you’re lost in these spaces. — Ed Soja, eastofborneo.org
In light of John Portman's passing, here is a 6 minute clip with urban theorist Ed Soja discussing the postmodern nature of the infamous architect's Bonaventure Hotel located in downtown Los Angeles. h/t to Orhan from this thread. View full entry
