Reversible Surface:
The negative space behind the billboard.

Studio Work: Spring 2010 @ University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Tutor: Peter WONG
Site: the Downtown Cultural and Central Business District Site of Los Angeles, U.S.

In this course, each group of students is required to quickly master plan and derive alternatives for a superblock prototype diverse programmatic uses and sustainable devices. Meanwhile, each student should think of it as a diagramming exercise free of detail so that one can find massing alternative for the various parts of the building program. Hence, one student only needs to develop the overall configuration with respect to the limits of the block.

Since the site is locating in the CBD area in downtown Los Angeles, and accompanied with the U.S. 101 Route. “Highway”, “Multi-Cultured”, and “Billboard” were the three words that came to my mind after researching on the city, which later formed the main concept for the structure of this project: the community, the history, and the unique quality of the site.

Due to the significant development of media technology, as it was once a symbol of the city’s culture, the traditional style of billboard is becoming extinct. However, I find the space behind the billboard very attractive and also a chance to reverse the negative into positive via an appropriate solution, which is the essence of my design, in order to protect the disappearing culture.