Competition CleantechCorridor CompetitionPublication 2011

8/9/2019 Competition CleantechCorridor CompetitionPublication 2011

1/167

CleantechCorridor

An Open IdeasCompetition

--–-------------------------------------------–––––––––––––––––––––--––––––––––––––––––––––

SCI-Arc

Edited by David Bergman and Peter Zellner


2/167


3/167

Credits

Editors: David Bergman, Peter ZellnerDesign and Photography: Seth FerrisPhotography Archive:USC Libraries Special Collections

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be re-

produced or transmitted in any form orby any means, including photocopy, re-cording or any other information stor-age and retrieval system, without priorpermission from the Southern CaliforniaInstitute of Architecture. Copyright ©2011 SCI-Arc

Southern CaliforniaInstitute of Architecture960 East 3rd StreetLos Angeles, CA 90013

Acknowledgements

The Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor& Green District Competition is spon-sored by the Southern CaliforniaInstitute of Architecture and TheArchitect’s Newspaper.

The competition is presented bythe Community Redevelopment Agency ofthe City of Los Angeles, City of Los

Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs,Quercus Trust, and Latham & Watkins LLP.Competition partners include the Mayorof the City of Los Angeles’ Office ofEconomic and Business Policy, Los Ange-les County Metropolitan TransportationAuthority, Clean Tech LA, and U.S. GreenBuilding Council, Los Angeles Chapter.

We would especially like to extendour gratitude to our jury for their timeand commitment to this project. We thankStan Allen, Hsinming Fung, Cris B.Liban, Michael Maltzan, Dennis McGlade,Romel Pascual, Nikolas Patsaouras and

Donald Spivack.

This project is made possible in part

by a grant from the City of Los Angeles,Department of Cultural Affairs.


4/167


5/167

Contents

------------------------------------------------------About SCI-Arc 6------------------------------------------------------About the Future Initiatives Program 7------------------------------------------------------Competition Credits 9------------------------------------------------------The Exception is the Rule 11

Eric Owen Moss

------------------------------------------------------The Self Sustaining City 13 Sam Lubell------------------------------------------------------Cleantech Discussion 15 David Bergman and Peter Zellner------------------------------------------------------Competition Jury Commentary 25------------------------------------------------------Industrial Los Angeles 1900–1935 33

------------------------------------------------------Industrial Los Angeles 2011 49------------------------------------------------------Professional Winners 75------------------------------------------------------Student Winners 115------------------------------------------------------Selected Entries 133


6/167

6

Eric Owen MossDirector

Hsinming Fung Director of Academic Affairs

The Southern California Institute of Architecture is dedicated to educatingarchitects to imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited

institution offering undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate programs inarchitecture.

SCI-Arc’s faculty is composed of approximately 80 esteemed architects,theorists, writers, and artists renowned for confronting conventional archi-tecture and education. Studio interaction is open and intensive. Students arerigorously challenged to re-examine assumptions, and to create, explore, andprovoke the boundaries of architecture.

Through public lectures, panel discussions, events, and gallery exhibi-tions, SCI-Arc embraces its connection to the community, and establishes anintimate relationship to both Los Angeles and its 500 students, many of

whom choose to study here from countries worldwide. Attracting local andinternational students, faculty, and members of the interested public insideand outside of architecture, SCI-Arc is at once a school and a forum for cul-tural discourse.

Located in an open space building that runs a quarter-mile long andstands over 30 feet high, SCI-Arc’s studios are spacious and bright. Originallybuilt in 1907, the Santa Fe Freight Depot was eventually phased from use,and the building remained vacant through the 1990s. Covered in years lay-ered by graffiti artists, it wore the beginnings of an emerging Arts District,which would gradually infuse and renew the eastside of downtown Los Ange-

les. Sensing the strength of its pulse, SCI-Arc made it home in 2000. TodaySCI-Arc is a lively and integral part of a historic and future-tense culturalcenter, surrounded by a diversity of residential options, urban infrastructure,and attractions.

About SCI-Arc

Hernan Diaz AlonsoGraduate Programs Chair

John EnrightUndergraduate Program Chair


7/167

7

David BergmanCoordinator

SCI-Arc Future Initiatives (SCIFI) is a one-year post-professional degreeprogram leading to a Master of Design Research (M.DesR) in City Design,Planning, and Policy. Open to applicants with a professional degree in archi-tecture or a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in any field, the program requiresattendance in the fall, spring, and summer terms.

SCIFI is focused on promoting innovation within design, policy, andplanning in response to the economic, social, and environmental futures ofglobal cities and regions. Future Initiatives is dedicated to supporting investi-gations into the impacts of urban and planning policy, transnational financialmarkets, real estate speculation, and socio-economic globalization on theevolution of local urban fabrics.

SCIFI provides an integrated curricular focus on urban issues of scale. Itis positioned as a local, national, and international center for the discussionof urban futures, contingent and variable planning strategies, and the devel-opment of advanced tools for urban research and design. Combining inten-

sive research into the near-term future of cities with the use of currentopen-source design tools, SCIFI aims to invent new ways of modeling andtesting variable urban design scenarios.

Working over three sequenced terms, SCIFI students develop solution-seeking urban research and urban design methods/techniques/processesgrounded in the study of the history of the city, urban and regional develop-ment methods, city planning, and city management tools. Students integrateskills from across SCI-Arc’s programs including design technologies, culturalstudies, and hard technology applications. The SCIFI program is calibrated toincrementally build research skills, urban design expertise, and unique stra-

tegic thinking about cities and urban regions. By working from the unique,local, and particular, to the large, global, and generic, SCIFI students gainexpertise in the subject of city-making through a comprehensive, nuancedunderstanding of a city’s history and design across scales. This carefulsequencing of context and city-scale-based teaching, merged with intensiveworkshop-based learning, is intended to inculcate increased control over thesubject of city formation, paralleled by a growing mastery of new urbanresearch methodologies and urban design tools.

SCIFI culminates in the production of thesis design or research projects.Working with core and visiting faculty, students generate deliverables that

form the basis of a dissertation-quality research portfolio. The goal is for stu-dents to apply these experiences as part of an ongoing dialogue with the cityformation process.

About theFuture Initiatives

ProgramPeter ZellnerCoordinator


8/167


9/167

9

Competition Credits

CompetitionOrganizers

Hsinming FungDirector of Academic Affairs, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Hodgetts+Fung

Sam LubellCalifornia Editor,Architect’s Newspaper

Peter ZellnerFuture Initiatives Program

Coordinator, SCI-ArcPrincipal, ZELLNERPLUS

David BergmanFuture Initiatives ProgramCoordinator, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Metropolitan Researchand Economics (MR+E)

Competition Jury

Stan AllenDean of the School of Architecture,Princeton UniversityPrincipal, Stan Allen Architects

Hsinming FungDirector of Academic Affairs, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Hodgetts+Fung

Cris B. Liban, D.Env., P.E.Environmental Compliance andServices Department Manager,Los Angeles County MetropolitanTransportation Authority


Michael MaltzanPrincipal, Michael MaltzanArchitecture

Dennis McGladePresident/Partner OLIN, RLA, FASLA

Romel PascualCity of Los Angeles Deputy Mayor,Energy and Environment

Nikolas PatsaourasPast president of the Board of theWater and Power CommissionersFormer board member of the MTA

Donald SpivackDeputy Chief of Operations andPolicy, Community RedevelopmentAgency of the City of Los Angeles

CompetitionPanelists

David BergmanFuture Initiatives ProgramCoordinator, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Metropolitan Researchand Economics (MR+E)

Ralph BertramBertram-Boincean-Danielak

Hsinming Fung

Director of Academic Affairs, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Hodgetts+Fung

Mia LehrerPrincipal, Mida Lehrer + Associates


Eric Owen MossDirector, SCI-ArcPrincipal, Eric Owen Moss Architects

Romel PascualDeputy Mayor, City of Los Angeles

Thomas SeriesDirector, Labtop Architects

Antonio VillaraigosaMayor, City of Los Angeles

Peter ZellnerFuture Initiatives ProgramCoordinator, SCI-ArcPrincipal, ZELLNERPLUS

ProgrammingEvents

August 9, 2011Competition Announcement

September 15, 2011Registration Deadline

September 30, 2011Submission of Entries

October 5, 2011Jury Convened

October 9, 2011Announcement of Winners and PanelDiscussion

October 9–27, 2011Exhibition of selected entries


10/167


11/167

11

“Cleantech Corridor” sounds like a public relations slogan.

It’s not. Rather, it suggests the prospect of a entirely re-imagined planning concep-tion for Los Angeles. The Cleantech Corridor on the east perimeter of down-town is precedent setting, step one. Does the city have the will and thecapacity to establish that precedent?

Heretofore unseen design objects continue to add to the lexicon of experi-

mental Los Angeles architecture. The pro forma is to speculate on form,space, and material we don’t yet recognize.

We want the exception to rule the rules. But, to date, the same can’t be said of the sporadic city planning discourse onthe re-conception of infrastructure-zoned Los Angeles.

Horizontality über alles is the enduring LA planning pro forma. Take offfrom JFK heading west, and you’re immediately over LA.

Will the future of the city suggest the city of the future, or simply a re-do ofwhat we’ve already done? Looking east from the quarter mile long SCI-Arc,across Santa Fe, over the railroad tracks, on to the erstwhile LA river withpower grid towers lining its concrete banks, next to the disheveled and large-ly abandoned 1940’s ex-manufacturing and industrial zone, the 134 freewayrunning north/south, and finally the largely Hispanic Boyle Heights perime-ter—SCI-Arc looks out on all that.

And that’s quintessential LA City: no green, no housing, and the fourdefining infrastructure components—river, tracks, power grid, freeways—

city, long zoned by water, power, train, and automobile consultants.Anti-urban, urban Los Angeles whose primary organizational structure,

intended or not, is largely a consequence of technically defined civil engi-neering decisions that, over many years, continue to obligate sociological,political, economic, and cultural lives. A city facing backwards, whosehuman prospect is consistently subordinated to a misplaced technocracy.

A recent Los Angles City Planning Director asked me [rhetorically] whyshould the train engineers continue to design the city?

Why indeed?

So SCI-Arc sponsored an examination of the prospects for an urban revolu-tion in Los Angeles, subsuming the divisive infrastructure on the edge ofdowntown with alternative planning conceptions of the SCI-Arc to BoyleHeights Zone.

Infrastructure, no longer divisive, but as the foundation for a re-imaginedcity—the Cleantech Corridor. Perhaps in planning, as in architecture, theplanning future of Los Angeles promises the conceptual city of the future.

The Exception is the RuleEric Owen Moss

Director, SCI-Arc


12/167


13/167

13

Inventive new uses for mushroom shapes, a river that acts as a communitycenter and energy hub instead of as a storm drain, and districts that breatheand recycle. The winning competitors in the Cleantech Corridor and GreenDistrict competition were asked to rethink and redesign the 2,000-acredevelopment zone on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles, which thecity has set aside for cleantech manufacturing and related uses. Many, includ-ing LA Mayor Villaraigosa, have said that the district will be the hub of thecity’s future economy.

The winning professional scheme, “Project Umbrella” revolves around

large Mushroom-like structures called solar evaporators that would not onlyserve as memorable symbols for the area, but via a system of black watertreatment and clean water dispersal, would transform large parts of the citygrid into greener and more attractive public spaces.

The second professional prize went to a scheme called LABTOP, whichremoves cars from the area through a local rail line and creates a system oflightweight housing on top of the area’s existing warehouses. Third prizewent to a scheme developed by a team including Buro Happold and Mia Leh-rer & Associates that created integrated systems for energy creation (includ-ing solar arrays and hydroelectric power), waste management, transpor-

tation, and water runoff.The winning student design went to “Messy Tech,” developed by a team

from the University of Virginia School of Architecture. The project seeks tomaximize the area’s inherent “messy” jumble of uses and infrastructures andto develop a system of energy generation, water treatment, and circulationcorridors to create a vibrant and green new neighborhood.

In a time when the city, and the country, are facing severe environmentalproblems and struggling to find new sources of economic revitalization in theprolonged downturn, the Cleantech corridor should provide a model for thenext phase of US urban development. Progress is already being made. Since

the competition, the city has named local firm John Friedman Alice KimmArchitects to design their cleantech manufacturing center: 75,000 squarefeet of office and demonstration space for cleantech research and develop-ment companies, located inside an existing masonry building.

The Self Sustaining CitySam Lubell, Editor

The Architect’s Newspaper


14/167


15/167

15

Peter Zellner In the context of the Future Initiatives program, this is now thesecond competition that we’ve run on a subject related to urbanization anddevelopment in Los Angeles. Our first competition, held last year, was transitfocused (A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: Innovative Transit Solutions for LosAngeles) and, of course, this one is focused on the subject of the CleantechCorridor. I think it would be interesting if we could start our conversation bytrying to frame some of the issues we tried to address in setting up the com-petition in the context of other planning and land use initiatives in andaround Downtown LA and along the LA river. Perhaps then, we can begin to

touch on why it would be necessary or interesting for architects to actuallyparticipate in and comment on a process that is quite often, nominally, runby engineers or bureaucrats.

David Bergman I think it’s important to place all of this in some context,which is to try and understand, first of all, what Cleantech is and why itshould necessarily have any physical expression in the city. So, if we talkabout Cleantech as a cluster of economic activities that involve using sustain-able technologies that are, at their core, innovative in nature—such that thereis a focus on the development of new technologies, processes, and tech-

niques—then the Cleantech Corridor should become a center for innovation.The productive milieu matters significantly, and if it is only a type of indus-trial activity that may be perfectly clean, but there’s nothing about it that’sparticularly innovative or new, then why do it? For example, storage andwarehousing of equipment that could be deployed for alternative energyindustries, solar panels, or some routinized productions—something that isalready a mature industry that doesn’t require any new significant technolog-ical breakthroughs like, say, wind turbine maintenance and repair – wouldn’tseem interesting. Those would all sort of qualify, from the economic develop-ment standpoint, as adding clean technology jobs to the economy of South-

ern California, but don’t really get at the opportunity that seems to beimplicit in district development. There’s a role for design here.

PZ I think what’s interesting, of course, is that this is where you and I, I think,importantly, read the same situations through very different lenses. I under-stand where you’re going with this—that there are forms of urbanization thatdon’t need architects or quite often don’t employ architecture because it is, as you noted, routinized. Therefore, it becomes a subject of a generic urban lan-guage, let’s say, which is then applied to source facilities or warehousing facil-ities or industrial facilities. But, one thing we should remind ourselves, of

course, is that’s only the attitude within the North American context. Youknow, if you go to Europe, you would find architects being commissioned totake on exactly these sorts of building types and developing unique solutionsfor mundane programs. Walter van Dijk of NL Architects recently spoke atSCI-Arc and demonstrated how even the most banal things like a waste treat-ment plant can be given to an architect and receive a kind of aesthetic or, let’ssay, architectural—not even aesthetic, we should strike that word—can begiven architectural meaning. I think that at the crux of this, of this

Cleantech DiscussionA discussion on the Cleantech Corridor Competition

between David Bergman and Peter Zellner,Coordinators of SCI-Arc’s Future Initiatives Program.


16/167

16 CleantechCorridor

competition, is the question, “Why does architecture matter in the context ofany form of large scale urban development?” In my mind, the answer wouldbe that architecture matters because it shows that we can give attention to thethings that we live around and in. And so, whether it’s a warehouse or it’s aco-generation plant, these things actually are architectural opportunities. Ithink our culture has forgotten that much of the great architecture of thenineteenth century was actually designed for very quotidian, industrial uses.Yet, what’s challenging is that architecture at the scale of something like theCleantech Corridor is always brought to the table as dressing. This is not alament; it’s just a kind of observation. We ran the competition because thetendency is for these things to be looked at from a macroscopic point of view,a macro economic view. And I think what you’re saying is, at least in the ini-tial discussion, what implications are on the ground.

DB This is why the Cleantech Corridor seems interesting to me, as opposedto any other subject that we could have chosen. It does strike me that, on thelevel of planning the district at a macro scale to the micro scale, of thinkingabout an architectural language at the level of the individual project or struc-ture, there’s an opportunity here for architecture to really contribute by add-ing value and catalyzing transformation. And that is what the brief of ourCleantech competition is—a challenge to the general community. That is tosay: let’s take this strip of the city that has, historically, had an industrialfunction, but because of the condition of the existing fixed capital stock, hasnot been particularly well suited to contemporary industrial activities. Wethen to step back and to say, “What is it about this place? Why is it logical forthis to be a locus of activity for these Cleantech industries? What can cata-lyze and make that happen?” I think this is where we enter into the discoursefrom our program and though SCI-Arc, to say that design can have an inte-

gral role in that transformation, so that it’s logical.

PZ I agree with you, but I think it’s not only that, it’s really that it flows bothways. I think that architects, by and large, don’t understand the macroeco-nomic mechanisms that drive the city and therefore tend to be at the veryend of the urban development cycle. Therefore, we don’t participate, let’s say,as deliverers of an architectural resolution to a particular urban problem,until everything has been kind of set in place. And so, the architect is gener-ally strapped into, for lack of a better word, a kind of gilding-the-lily functionin city-making, sort of dolling-up something that already has a particular

dimensional, functional, and economic quality or logic. And that’s why, whenone goes out to the Inland Empire, so much of the retail distribution center,malls and housing developments have no architecture per se. They’re justvery large functioning pieces of a kind of big circuit.

DB Right. They’re a kind of infrastructure in themselves, without any kind ofcultural or architectural intention.

PZ Right, or at least none that we know of. But what I’m trying to get at is thatwhat’s interesting about our program at SCI-Arc, in the context of staging

public competitions, is our ability to weld an understanding of a worldviewthat might be germane to the Cleantech Corridor’s economic performance toan architectural understanding or vision of the city that quite often doesn’twant to have to assign only an economic value to things. It wants to assigncultural value to those things.


17/167

17 Bergman andZellnerDiscuss theCompetition

DB That’s just why I think Cleantech is so interesting because, at this momentin our development as an economy, as the industrialized world faces anotherone of its periodic crises; as we are challenged to start thinking about alterna-tive energy, sustainable technologies, and reformulating the manufacturingprocess and the process of production and consumption, really, there’s a rolefor architecture and design to step into the conversation and demonstrate howthe tools, perspectives, and attitudes of design professionals can, in fact, leadurban transformation in a specific place. That is to say, if I am a potentialCleantech tenant or somebody who would use or occupy this Cleantech space,I suppose there’s any number of places within Southern California, let alonethe rest of the North American economy or the global economy, where I coulddo this production. There’s no reason I couldn’t be down in Wilmington orHarbor City, which has very similar character with newer industrial buildingstock than in the Cleantech Corridor.

PZ Let me ask a question then. Let’s then be very specific now, because thecompetition was staged around particular piece of the fabric of the city of LosAngeles that has been, let’s say, considered a territory for redevelopment forquite some time, for several decades. The L.A. River and its environs have hadnumerous redevelopment strategies thrown at them to them for over a quartercentury. Cleantech is just one of many ideas, maybe the latest, for the area. So,maybe what’s interesting is to specifically talk about the nature of the Clean-tech Corridor zone as it is extant today. And then, perhaps, we can segue froma kind of reading of what’s there, to a reading of what the Cleantech Corridormight bring to the City. The competition entries offer some very differentalternate futures for that site; some futures that don’t track necessarily withthe official story.

DB Absolutely. The logic of the official story, might lead to redevelopment ofthe Cleantech zone into an industrial park that’s competitive with industrialparks in Tustin, or Santa Clarita for that matter, or anywhere else such asShanghai or Guadalajara, anywhere in the world. So, the question is: what is itabout a place that means that Cleantech is logical in this location?

PZ Well, without being entirely suspicious of, let’s say, the process, it seemsthat Los Angeles is still struggling, as a city, to come to terms with its role inthe world and in this new century, because it has never been the greatestindustrial center in the world nor in the United States. But, that said, there has

always been an aspect of industrial activity that has been relevant to its econo-my and, therefore, LA has generated some of the corridors that you described.I guess the question is: why Cleantech Downtown now?

DB And that’s a good question. There’s a cynical answer. Do we want to talkabout the cynical answer?

PZ Sure. I think it is worth it, briefly. What’s the cynical answer?

DB The cynical answer is that it’s some face-saving after the loss of an expect-

ed project.

PZ Well, no. I think there’s an even more cynical answer which is nothingseems to work as of late. Let’s try this on: A ‘new suit for a “new” man’ sort ofthing. My guess is that the logic behind the Cleantech Corridor is underpinnedby a lot of very wishful thinking.


18/167


DB Absolutely, so let’s even step further back, which is to say that if there iswishful thinking going on, why limit that wishful thinking to being: A. On thescale of what is immediately recognizable in sort of a suburban, industrialcondition; and B. easily achievable elsewhere—anywhere throughout theUnited States. Why limit that wishful thinking to a mundane victory, whenwe could call it a Cleantech Corridor if we got a concrete tilt-up that had awind turbine assembly plant on the site; maybe licensing the technology froma Chinese company with parts that are imported from around the industrial-ized world, and screwed together in Southern California adding two hundredand fifty jobs? Is that a Cleantech victory? In the current environment, theanswer might be “Yes, it is,” but I think the challenge of our program—thechallenge of our institution, SCI-Arc—is to ask the question that forces peopleto think about bigger victories—to think about an alternative future for thecity beyond what’s immediately recognizable. That’s where our competitionwas successful, where we were able to have those kinds of discussions.Because in the corridors of decision making and in the world of plan imple-menters, economic developers, property owners, speculative developers, andinvestors, vision isn’t always on the table.

PZ Sure. I think that the real-politik in Los Angeles continues to be that plan-ning is an ad-hoc developer-driven process. It is a parcel-by-parcel, project-by-project, developer-by-developer driven city. LA never really had vivid slices ofimagination made real in the form of great urban planning or the utopianplanning of places like Brasilia or even the scale of and kind of infrastructuralimplementation that we see in China and the Near East today. That said, Ithink one of the interesting qualities of Los Angeles, of course, is that it is theoutcome of a very laissez faire and democratic series of procedures that haveproduced a pretty fascinating landscape: a really interesting admixture of

some great things, some not so great things and lot of kind of, you know, crap,the functional mechanisms that interlace it all together. That’s where the com-petition gets interesting; when it starts from the realization that the officialprocedures, which seem so orderly and, let’s say, intentional, in no way actual-ly ever want to take into account the chaos that’s right outside our doors. Thisis why I’m always interested in the topic of planning in LA. When you readabout the kind of intense effort that goes into the production of urbanism inLos Angles, whether it’s in the EIR reviews or the public processes of someother sort, nobody ever questions the fact that if you look out the window, theoutcomes aren’t as convincing as the rhetoric of the procedures. We have a lot

of great individual pieces of architecture. We have very few great boulevards,if any; and you know, we don’t do infrastructure so well as an architecturalundertaking either. But that said, I think that’s what makes the place special.To some degree, it makes our program and it’s situation in this locale interest-ing, in the sense that we have asked competitors to look at these conditionswith open eyes and to attempt to kind of forge a new way of working that isn’tcynical; that isn’t, let’s say, about being compromised…

DB So, with that, do we want maybe to discuss a little bit about some of thewinning entries? Do we want to go through them?

PZ We should, but what I would say before we get into the projects is that, inthinking about the competition entries, I’d like to offer a sort of rubric orframework for the winning projects. We can debate whether this frameworkworks or not, but it seems to me that some projects fall into a kind ecologicalurbanism and that is a category. Other projects seem much more interested inengaging the kind of mechanics of Cleantech and the implications that thesemight have on architectural solutions. That, then, is another category of work.


19/167


Two further categories, both equally make-believe but by different degrees,include one that might be focused on the kind of macro-economic and urbanimpacts of Cleantech as a vehicle for radical transformation of the landscape.Finally, there is a category of total fantasy, in which we found a real willing-ness to re-imagine the world, not just the Cleantech Corridor, and architec-ture itself in very different terms. Those are some of the different categories.We can cut them down or we can work them as we wish, but I just wanted tosee if we could capture what was awarded a prize as well as frame some of theentries that did not win, but which we have included in the publication.

DB I think that’s a very good set of categories to think about. I would add twomore, or say the following: maybe these are subcategories within the onesthat you’ve identified. I really saw, from the successful entries, two basicstrategies. The first is the development of a performative infrastructure, sothat there’s an infrastructural investment that does a particular task in a newor innovative way that adds value to that portion of the city. The secondapproach is an amenity-based approach; that is to say, a design interventionthat creates an amenitized environment that makes it more plausible orattractive for these Cleantech activities to occur. These strategies are bothevident in the winning entry because it was particularly successful at com-bining a performative infrastructure in the form of the evaporative mush-rooms and having them, essentially, metabolize a streetscape where onepresently doesn’t exist; thereby creating a focus of differentiation within thecity. It becomes plausible to imagine that the types of economic activities thatwe want to stimulate—the types of social activities that are the goal of therejuvenation of this corridor of the city, or maybe it’s even not a rebirth, may-be it’s initial birth—can be allowed to happen. I think this is really the root ofthe success of that particular entry; it creates an infrastructural system and

produces amenities for the city. In this case, it is a machine that mitigates anenvironmental deficit, and, in turn, creates new public zones in the urbanenvironment.

PZ Well, the first place entry clearly takes the position that ecologicallyderived urbanism can be catalytic in the sense that, in a chemical way, youcould add this component to this system, combine it with this resource,which in this case is waste, and it would, literally, allow a new urbanism toblossom. That’s pretty fascinating, no? Whereas the second place entry isreally much more about a series of retrofits to an existing landscape and it

focuses much more on new architectural opportunities without really attend-ing too carefully to, let’s say, the eco-technological aspects of Cleantech.

DB Absolutely.

PZ The second place scheme doesn’t seem invested in actually describingwhat would happen inside of these containers, but rather says this is anopportunity to allow the program of Cleantech to act as a kind of spur for therenovation of the district using, I think, quite traditionally attractive architec-tural techniques and elements.

DB The strategy of the second place entry focuses entirely on the amenityside and the creation of social conditions by installing public art, by paintingthe streets, by creating exciting urban spaces…

PZ By bringing in elephants.


20/167


DB That’s right, and, literally throwing in, yeah, a pink elephant that creates asort of exuberant chaos that is a hallmark of Los Angeles urbanism. Theapproach that they’re demonstrating is very much rooted in the understand-ing of Los Angeles as a city, as a cultural place, and the phenomena of life inthe city. It doesn’t necessarily need to produce Cleantech.

PZ Right. Ironically, this entry was produced by a team based in Paris which,without offending the French too much, is a city that hasn’t really producedmuch in an industrial way in quite some time. Paris produces culture andcongestion. And so, it’s funny, well I mean in some ways, well, it’s not fun-ny—it’s probably telling that this would be their solution. The L.A. basedteam in third place actually manages to combine some of all of these tenden-cies. It does seem to try to derive a kind of urban language from the program.But it’s interesting that the language kind of waivers between a kind of tech-nocratic expression in the hard parts, which are bridges and other pieces oftransit and mobility retrofit, and a soft language, which is the green infillwhich would presumably grow in place once the more skeletal componentshad been kind of soldered onto the landscape.

DB If the second place was about fixing and creating the social environmentthrough the Cleantech Corridor, the third place entry really does place animportant emphasis on the traditional physical infrastructures of the city.The third place scheme is primarily a project that is interested in the riverand it makes an argument that if you fix the river, you fix the adjacent lands.In fixing the river, you create the conditions to have all of the outcomes thatare stated in the brief of Cleantech and the performance that we expect ofCleantech to come about. And so, if we look at it, I think, in some respects itis almost held, not in opposition, but in contrast to the second place one,

which is really about creating sort of interesting and groovy social environ-ments that people are going to want to be in. And taking that kind ofapproach to another one that’s talking about making physical investments,once those physical investments take place, the rest of the city can fill in, in amuch more beneficial or legible manner.

PZ Sure. I wanted to mention two of the honorable mentions before we tryand wrap this up. One project is by Escher GuneWardena Architecture. Inlooking at it now, I realize that there’s another theme or category in theentries at work here and that is kind of attempt at social engineering through

urbanism. The other entry I wanted to mention is by Andrew Zago, but we’llget to that in a second. Escher saw the Cleantech Corridor as more than justinfrastructure—they argued for a “…geographic and social economic con-nector between currently disparate parts of the city.” They didn’t go intomuch more specificity, but I think it’s very clear that from their diagrams thatthey are drawing a series of rhythms across the river to connect East LosAngeles to Downtown. And, interestingly, if you recall the scheme, theyimplant a series of living units that seem like mid-rise social housing alongthe river. In their scheme, there’s a series of kind of very minimally describedprototypes for high-rise living on the East bank of the river. I think that is

pretty fascinating.

DB There are arguments for and against industrial activities being co-locatedwith residential uses. Traditional planning sees them as creating incompati-bilities that, over time, will either denude the value of the residential locationor interfere with the ability of industrial activity to take place. They’re mak-ing an argument, and it’s an intriguing one—that, in fact, these are not incom-patible uses. And it’s almost a notion of bringing residential life into the


21/167


district, first, as a strategy for seeding an economic transformation of theindustrial activities that take place. In some respects, it’s a reaction to thechronic issue of urbanism in Los Angeles, which always has problems withhousing availability, a real and serious social problem, and the second of frag-mentation. So, they are using the Cleantech Corridor to bridge physical andsocial fragmentation between East Los Angeles and Downtown LA.

PZ One thing I think that their scheme recognizes, and maybe it’s just notmentioned as explicitly in some of the other schemes, is that the promise ofclean technology is two fold. One innovation is that it doesn’t pollute theenvironment, but the other is also that it would change forever the idea thatcertain uses that are nominally industrial are antithetical to residential usesor just, you know, urban life in general.

DB Right. And there’s a particular argument that’s interesting about thatbecause you’re talking about a very early mode of production at the begin-ning of the development of capitalism, of the cottage based production. Andthere’s been a lot of discussion about the electronic cottage, but what’s inter-esting about it is that technology, like rapid prototyping, like computer assist-ed design, all of these whole-speed technologies that we use, robotics etc.,really are allowing for the return of cottage-type production, but with a twist.What ultimately killed cottage production was the genius of capitalism. Thegreat innovation of capitalism was the social division of labor. Under capital-ism, everybody has a specific task in production; those tasks require differ-ent skills, and, as a result, that’s the beginning of wage labor, and wagedifferentiation. But what we’re seeing now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is a collapsing of that social division of labor. That social divi-sion of labor in the twentieth-century city in North America expressed itself,

spatially, very clearly; and this suggests that in the twenty-first century, wemay see a collapsing of that spatial division of labor.

PZ Well, if I may just interject, that division of labor, according to Marx andEngels, produced this sort of false consciousness that led to other sorts of rev-olutions. In other words, because of the sort of alienation that they tell us cap-italism produces in cultures and in social groups; the distancing ofproduction, you know, from consumption, we end up with divides classesand divided cities. 19th century capitalism produced class structures thatmade cities like Liverpool what they were, very Dickensian. And so, in some

ways, it’s very interesting to reflect on the fact that the localization of design,implementation or production and consumption into one spot, I think, prom-ises to make all cities very different. They may end up being much moreMedieval, very localized nodes within a global chain. It does end up suggest-ing that the distributed network of information that’s everyone on the planet,is in some ways, also strangely is isolating. You would imagine that somepoint with a completely functional Cleantech Corridor would mean that youwould never have to outsource anything again.

DB That’s right. The social implications of it are that the distinctions blur

between who is capital, who is labor, who owns the product. The commoditythat’s produced and consumed becomes blended and unclear. I do think thatis something that we’re seeing in the beginning of the twenty-first century.We’re seeing it very strongly here in Los Angeles and in the urban environ-ment. And it’s expressing itself in a real strong desire for more kinds of live/work spaces, but we haven’t really thought about them at the district level.Live/work space, I suppose maybe at the level of the arts district; is in someromantic notion that’s happening at that scale. But really, to start thinking


22/167


about live/work, as opposed to being a niche, as to being the next wave ofaccommodating both living space and production space within the city issomething new. Now, whether it’s Cleantech or something else, almost isn’t.

PZ Right. That might take us, then, to the final professional entry, an Honor-able Mention, by Andrew Zago. Interestingly, Zago Architects saw the com-petition as an opportunity to pursue other ideas about what Cleantech couldintegrate or be combined with in the city; and, specifically, they brought intransit. In this instance, a high-speed real complex was added to the corridorto offer a “contemporary reinterpretation of Baroque urbanism.”;what theycall a “series of heavy clouds which renew new creative hubs for experimen-tal work in the arts.” And, finally, the scheme adds a center for new art. It’scurious also that the rest of the Zago scheme tries to recombine the urbanfabric. You may recall that there is a kind of hieroglyphic urban system, ahousing system that extends along the banks of the river and touches parts ofthe corridor. This is a sort of insular urbanism. Zago’s agenda in his projectwas to, in some ways, ignore the technical and sociological—well, maybe notsociological, but, let’s say, environmental or more overtly environmentalaspects of the brief as we set it—and really just to work on the problem of LosAngeles. And so he calls the project “Los Angeles Interrupted.”

DB This was a successful project and, as in most competitions, I think, pro-duced a successful project, at least one, that ignores the brief. And it goes onto make a compelling argument that is visually coherent and arresting. Itmakes a meaningful comment about broader issues without directly address-ing any of the requirements or ideas that are tied to Cleantech per se. It’sessentially a cultural development argument with a train station, but I thinkwhat allowed this to move forward was the elegance of the argument as it is

presented visually.

PZ This is exactly why a critical voice would say this is exactly what archi-tects don’t get about cities and city making—that it is not about form, thatCleantech it is not a design opportunity as much as an economic develop-ment opportunity, and therefore the Zago scheme would not be consideredrealistic. But, I would argue that Zago’s approach is absolutely the correctresponse because it allows us loop back to the beginning of our conversation.The reason we ran this competition was to solicit ideas that moved beyondthe kind of routine functionalizing effort as urbanism. You know, the due dil-

igence language of the engineer, for lack of a better word, and the developerand the industrialist as city design. Really thinking out how the program ofclean technology could be transformative as it is applied to the city of LosAngeles is crucial. The idea that the Cleantech initiative could leave behind,for future generations I would suppose, some evidence of an interactionbetween the cultural, sociological, economic and political forces at work inthe city would be the value of the exercise. One could argue that all great cit-ies known for their architecture were produced in periods of rapid social orcapital growth. But the ones that stick out the most, Paris and its train sta-tions for instance, are the ones that took the opportunity to move beyond the

kind of nominally functional problem of how to bring infrastructures ofsome sort into the city. The cultures that matter as urban centers thoughtabout the sort of social places, the amenities that you mentioned, that makecities great. My point is that the goal of this competition was to really ask, aswe did with the transit competition, some important questions about whatthe role and value of design—urban design, architectural design—are, withinthe development of things that are usually treated as a kind of question of, you know, doing the right math, essentially.


23/167


DB Right. And I think that the challenge of the Cleantech Corridor goes backto the question of why is there a Cleantech Corridor? Why is the initiativehere and not someplace else in the city of Los Angles? Why isn’t it in the MidCities Corridor Redevelopment area? Why not at Harbor Gateway? And theanswer is that it is of some political expediency and the direction of somedevelopment efforts. And I think we need to get out in front of that ordinaryprocess and say that this is actually a real opportunity to be transformative;and it requires a set of values that are expressed culturally through the designprocess, that have the ability to make the Cleantech Corridor somethingentirely different. And it needs to happen in this place as opposed to else-where, and it needs to be reflective of this moment in our cultural develop-ment. Even infrastructure can have the ability to tell you an awful lot aboutthe culture that produces it through all of its elements. Even in Los Angeles,where we have this idea that it’s all engineering, you just need to go to look atthe Fourth Street Bridge behind our school to understand that the culturalvalues of the society that produced the Fourth Street Bridge were telling adifferent story much more than just simply dealing with crossing a river—aspan crossing a void in the geometry of the earth. I think now is our momentat the beginning of the twenty first century to take seriously what our cultur-al values are and imprint those on our infrastructural and publicenvironments.

PZ Well, touché. I think we should end it there, David. That’s very poetic andvery beautiful. (Laughter) That’s exactly forty-five minutes, you know that?

DB Oh, that’s good.


24/167


25/167

25

The Cleantech Corridor Jury was convened on October 5, 2010 in SCI-Arc’sLibrary to review over 70 entries from 11 countries.

The jury was made up of Stan Allen, Dean of the School of Architecture,Princeton University and Principal, Stan Allen Architects; Hsining Fung,Director of Academic Affairs, SCI-Arc and Principal, Hodgetts+Fung; CrisB. Liban, D.Env., P.E. Environmental Compliance and Services DepartmentManage, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority;Michael Maltzan, Principal, Michael Maltzan Architecture; DennisMcGlade, President/Partner OLIN, RLA, FASLA; Romel Pascual, City of Los

Angeles Deputy Mayor, Energy and Environment; Nikolas Patsaouras, Pastpresident of the Board of the Water and Power Commissioners, Formerboard member of the MTA; and Donald Spivack, Deputy Chief of Opera-tions and Policy, Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of LosAngeles. The jury session was moderated by David Bergman and Peter Zell-ner, coordinators of the Future Initiatives program and Sam Lubell, Editor ofthe Architect’s Newspaper.

What follows are excerpts from the wrap-up and final commentary ses-sion of the four-hour-long jury session.

Peter Zellner

SCI-Arc, specifically its Future Initiatives program, in collaboration with theArchitect’s Newspaper, ran the Cleantech Corridor Competition as an ideascompetition. This competition, effectively our second attempt to generateinterest around large scale urban issues in Los Angeles, followed our firstpublic competition, entitled “A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: Innovative Tran-sit Solutions for Los Angeles,” which focused on the passage of Measure R, ahalf-cent sales tax in Los Angeles County that will provide as much as $40

billion for transit-related projects across the City of Los Angeles over thenext 30 years. The goal of these Open Ideas Competitions is two-fold. One isto bring large scale urban design issues into the public discourse as well as tothe school. The second is disciplinary, in the sense that we feel the competi-tions have a function in terms of the teaching of architecture. At SCI-Arc, wefeel we have a certain obligation to try and drive that discourse forward andnot simply to accept urban planning solutions for LA, which, while political-ly viable, don’t really innovate.

So, with regards to this jury, I think part of our job is to effectively curatethe winners. And I feel that if you think in those terms, there does seem to be

a pretty good consensus that the whole Umbrella scheme—which is some-what utopian—is the first place winner; collectively, the three winners wehave chosen really cover many of the opportunities the Cleantech Corridorpresents that you would want out there for public discussion, given theissues that are on the table. We’re putting forward one scheme, the winner,which is innovation and technology driven, but is almost working with thecity as a very large piece of street furniture. Then we’re picking anotherscheme, the second place entry, which steps back and takes a comprehensive

Competition Jury Commentary


26/167


view of the site as a whole. Finally, we have supported another plan, in thirdplace, that operates in a middle ground as a reworking sort of street corners,infrastructure and local architectures, taking a kind of strategic view of it alland then making it all very imageable.

In conclusion, I just wanted to say one thing on behalf of the school. SCI-Arc’s mission today is expanding and I really think, for me, that’s what’sinteresting about this discussion. In my mind—and this is my opinion as an

architect—the aggregate urban design and planning at the scale of the Clean-tech Corridor cannot only be about economics and infrastructure, planningthe city from 10,000 feet and never touching the ground. It has to be recog-nizable to the public as being in their interests, and this is where architecturecomes in and I think where SCI-Arc can innovate. I think that to get tractionon something like this, you have to get the public excited, and to do that, youhave to actually understand what the cultural implications are. What sort ofculture does the Cleantech Corridor build—an urban culture or just an eco-nomic plan? Is this a new sort of social condition or just more warehouse dis-trict with a fancy name? How does it affect people? That is where architecturemay enter the discussion and where SCI-Arc—because we are literally at thecenter of the Cleantech Corridor—may be able to leverage its skills andknowledge for a better urban plan. Because we will now be permanently situ-ated in the neighborhood, we will be the direct benefactors of a good Clean-tech Corridor plan that supports a more diverse approach. I think that’sultimately why we wanted to stage this competition. We feel strongly—or atleast David Bergman and I feel strongly—that SCI-Arc, in some ways, shouldparticipate and have a voice in this matter because, as a school of architec-ture, because as architects, we can translate things that are very abstract gen-eral plans and master plans into viable urban forms. All that said, I still don’tquite understand or get what Cleantech really is, from an urban design pointof view, or what it might mean for LA beyond the usual generic definitions.So, maybe we’ve started to bring a definition to it here in LA. However, Ithink it’s clear that initiatives like the Cleantech Corridor create opportuni-ties to show how cities like LA will evolve in this century. That, for me, iscrucial in the end. I think that, ultimately, the technical challenges associatedwith the Cleantech Corridor can be resolved through good engineeringand intelligent planning. However, what SCI-Arc can begin to put on the tableis the form of the urban culture and the architecture that the Initiativeshould drive.

Nikolas Patsaouras

From the beginning, I was going to the practical, the do-able, the pragmatic,the code based approach. And, as you know, I was involved with the SteelCloud (1989, Asymptote Architecture’s winning design entry for a habitableliving monument over the Hollywood Freeway). However, that got burned,because the design was truly futuristic. So maybe, you know, as the Greekssay, if it’s a bird, there’s no way out of the yogurt (laughter).

So I was coming into this jury, seeking a practical do-able approach. But,

as you may have noticed, I came around. I am very, very happy with theresults because for those of you who know me, you know that I am a risk tak-er and that I like the wow factor. And so, I feel that both entries, the first placeand the second place entries, will provoke debate and they will provoke con-versation. I am very, very happy. I was not, from the beginning, prepared tovote for one or two, but I voted because I believe that the public will embracethe designs, and it will help define, as you said, what the Cleantech Corridoris. I think the public, including me from the beginning, thought it meant a


27/167

27 Jury Commentary

number of buildings for engineers and scientists to conduct their work. Thiscompetition sought a different line of what the Cleantech Corridor is.

Donald Spivack

I’m very happy to have been part of this because, number one, it was a very

good jury in terms of the breadth of disciplines that are represented, and two,it’s extremely timely—particularly from the perspective of the city and rede-velopment agency in terms of trying to make something happen in this area.It will clearly contribute to being able to get a focus on this part of the city.

I think one of the important things is that, while there is no clear defini-tion as to what a Cleantech Corridor is or what Cleantech really represents,there is the opportunity to begin that conversation as to what would helpmake an area get on the map as a Cleantech Corridor, without having to havethat definition. One of the things that this will do, in combination with theparallel work that’s coming out of the Urban Land Institute, is provide theopportunity to bring more attention to it and to get more dialogue on thispart of the city, which is a part of the city that long has been ignored by,among others, the city and is now poised to start getting the attention that itreally should have been getting for many, many years. The infrastructure inthe area has been ignored. Building stock in the area has been ignored, andthese are both problems to deal with, but which are also opportunities. So,we are in a position where we can start to do some innovative things, andwhat the competition helps to do is put on table some things to provokethought about how to be innovative in this community.

The one that got the first prize, I think, has a lot going for it in terms ofbeing something that certainly can have attention paid to it. It’s different. It’snothing people have seen before. It is something that can attract attention. Itcan generate—and I think it will—a lot of different opinions, which would behelpful because it will help to get this area on the map. At the same time, it’ssomething that addresses a number of things that are important to Los Ange-les, among the top of these being water quality and water purification. Sincethis really is something that is driven by water quality and water purification,it certainly is important to the whole sustainability issue that we’re trying todeal with here. And yet, it’s at a scale where it can be done in a relativelysmall amount of space, which makes it a lot more doable than some of theother things that would be very large scale or would require a lot of landacquisition to be able to provide. It also is the kind of thing that could beanchored with other types of investments. You could do it in the creation of asmall public open space. You can do it in the creation of a small market area,such as the area where the Incubator is now being placed. It can be done inconnection with some fairly minor, but transportation based, plans as a wayof getting some kind of a hub into the area. So, from the perspective of itbeing iconic, from the perspective of it being small enough to be doable, andfrom the perspective of it being very different and attention getting, this willhelp to bring the whole issue of the Cleantech Corridor to the table.

This is in contrast to the second and third place ones, one of which is kind

of a mix between things that are, to some degree, iconic and to some degree,kind of comprehensive to the area. The other one is a series of probably verydoable things that tie into one another, but more from a perspective of long-range plan. So this is something that could be quite immediate and could fitinto the context of some of the other schemes that really do address longer-term plans. One of the advantages of the second place scheme is that it alsohas a feature in it that builds on the existing fabrics of the neighborhood. Itworks with the existing street system. It works with the mix of uses that are in


28/167


the area. The third place scheme has going for it, among other things, the factthat it clearly recognizes and ties into the adjacent parts of the city. Thatmakes it possible for people in adjacent neighborhoods to see a connectionfrom the work that is coming out of today as to how it affects other neighbors.Plus, it includes a phasing scheme that allows people to start thinking aboutsome specific items that might also be doable in a relatively short term. So,looking at the top three, there are a number of features about all of them thatshould attract attention, that could get people to start talking about and think-ing about what to do in this community and can, therefore, move the atten-tion to the Cleantech Corridor of the Los Angeles River and theneighborhoods that include the older portions of Downtown in a direction of,hopefully, some positive movement.

Stan Allen

It’s been a pleasure to be here, and it’s always good to have an excuse to cometo Los Angeles. I’m here as somebody who has some expertise in questions ofarchitecture and urbanism, but not somebody who could claim to know thereal details of the site and all of the planning issues that are involved. And tosome degree, that’s an advantage and to some degree, a disadvantage.

I think the first thing I would want to say is that I think that the organizersand the partner organizations really deserve a lot of credit. There’s a lot of, Ithink, very important, very innovative thinking behind the proposition ofthis competition. We’ve had 30 years at least just to think about what we dowith the Post Industrial American city. For too long, we have sort of defaultedto this notion that knowledge industries should step in when industry leaves,and, with all sort of due respect to Richard Florida, that the vision of the city

that comes out of that, I don’t know that it’s really sustainable in the long run.So, it seems to me to go back and think that, on the one hand, yes, you’regoing to embrace the new technologies and new manufactured technologies.You’re going to embrace green technology, but you’re still going to put manu-facturing back into the American city. That, to me, is really the reason to beoptimistic because it’s a different vision of the city. It’s a vision of the city thatsays cities are places that make things as well as simply places for consump-tion. So, in that sense, I think it’s the very fact that this competition and thediscussion and debate around it exists that is a really positive thing for a newvision of the future of the city.

To come to the specifics of the projects, it’s always easy to say what youmiss. As we look through the range of projects, it does seem to me that theriver, which is such an asset to this part of the city, was probably not given asmuch attention as it could have been. I was also missing a kind of strategic ele-ment to the projects, the recognition that cities change incrementally overtime, and we have to work strategically and locate areas where you put yourinvestments; you put your interventions and then you look at catalytic effectof those interventions over time.

There’s another thing about the entries that I should note, just collective-ly. There was nothing I really hated, and that worries me a bit. I don’t know.

Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, but when you put a call out, you justhope that there’s somebody out there doing something so wacky and wild andoutrageous and over the top that you’re just going to say, “No, no. that isimpossible, just impossible.” I actually didn’t see any of that, but maybe that just speaks to the mood of the discipline right now. But, at the end of the day,a competition is not judged necessarily from what’s left out but the quality ofthe main entries, and I think we can move forward very confidently with thethree that we’ve picked out. I think what gets me excited about the three that


29/167

29 Jury Commentary

we’ve picked, if you look at them collectively, they begin to map out the dif-ferent territories where we, as architects, landscape architects and plannersand urbanists can really make a difference in the city.

The first one is very sort of immediate and imageable and hands-on. Itcould be implemented fairly quickly and have a very direct local impact, thatthen hopefully, over time, would transform larger parts of the city. The sec-ond one I would describe as more tactical. That is to say, it’s making intelli-gent use of the available resources on the ground and repurposing them andpushing them to the next level, while the third one steps back and provides astrategic overview. So, seen together, this seems to be a pretty progressiveagenda for what the disciplines of architecture, urban design, and landscapecan be in the future.

Michael Maltzan

One of the things that did strike me about this competition was that it’s a verydifficult scale. Many of the projects struggled with that. I think that wasbecause they had two possibilities in the brief: either approaching the projectas an architectural project, more specifically local in its scale, or to approach itas comprehensive, almost classic, urban planning. But, I think there’s also aquality to the site that is particular to Los Angeles, especially given the scaleof the city. It’s a very specific scale, and it has potential to be both of thosethings, architecture and urban planning. Because of that, it demands someresolution of both of those scales. It can’t exist just as a more abstracted anddistant view of the city from an urban planning standpoint. It can’t really besolely and specifically an architectural project—it has to find some way ofproducing both of those scales—both the comprehensive approach to a dis-

trict and an urbanism given many complexities and qualities of the site. Aproject like this does require some level of imageability, which is generallymore in the realm of architecture—at least it’s one of the things that architec-ture does very well; it has the ability to represent. The blending of those twoscales and the ability to represent that complexity was present in the mostsuccessful of the projects.

Stan touched on manufacturing and industry as the underlying provoca-tion for this project and this is a very interesting thing—that commerce, at thelevel of industry, is a program type that we have not really thought of verymuch in terms of urban design. But, I would add that creative industry is

something that is very particular to many new cities, especially cities like LosAngeles that can’t depend much anymore on large multinational corporationslike the aerospace industry. This competition allows us to think about whatcities can no longer depend on, and that gives a new set of possibilities, itseems to me, to think about what industry and commerce means now.

I was surprised about, and I’m not sure if it’s a criticism or not, but I didn’tdiscover anything that I strongly disliked or that was “ugly” or ungainly in aprovocative way. I do think that Los Angeles continues to be one of the mostimportant laboratories when thinking about creative approaches, progressiveapproaches to urbanism, and what that means to me is that it is a place in

which the unexpected can and should be a part of the conversation. I do thinkthat there is a possibility proposing not just an imageable or a comprehensiveurbanism, but that there should be room for a provocative approach to whatthe problems of this city are, not only in terms where we find ourselves rightnow, but in terms of what would be a future vision of the city. And even in thetop three, I would say there was a level of pragmatism that existed in all ofthose schemes, and I think that there’s room for projects that might dispensewith pragmatism. There’s room for that kind of project as well.


30/167


Sam Lubell

This is just amazing. You’ve really been an excellent jury. Looking at some ofthese schemes ourselves, you brought up a number of issues that we hadn’tthought about—for instance, talking about things like the boundaries of theCleantech Corridor and how they don’t necessarily have to be as fixed as wemight think. I would not have thought about that if this jury had not raisedthat point. Some other issues that the jury raised seem worth stating here.One would be phasing: what it means to build over time and what the Clean-tech Corridor might be in 10, 20, 30 years. Another issue raised was whetherto think of the site as tabula rasa or to work with the existing buildings.Another interesting point was the contrast between understanding the valueof practical schemes versus an extremely wacky approach, how those mightdiffer. The last thing I wanted to say was something unrelated. It was thatbesides the top three, there were some ideas that I noted that I thought mightbe worth just remembering. One of the ideas that pushed the envelope was akind of rolling carpet, a green space that kind of meandered out and became afocal point that connected the whole area. I thought it was really smart. So,it’s good to think in terms of other sorts of categories.

David Bergman

There certainly were other categories that came out through this discussion.Provisionally, they were: change the infrastructure; change how buildingsoperate; change the relationship of the district to the city. Those were thethree broad strategies that come out to me on my—on our—initial passthrough. And I think even just developing strategy at that level is an impor-

tant conversation into the civic process because we’re going to need to makea strategic choice as to what we emphasize, as opposed to just letting it devel-op out in a least cost, laissez-faire manner. There were a number of them thatsaid—you know, including, for example, the—one of our honorable men-tions, the Infiltration scheme, we said, “Okay. We’re going to change it so thatthere’s now a water storage infrastructure that becomes a function of thegreen tech district.” And others are more based on the performance of specif-ic buildings in terms of their sustainability and putting design features.

Cris B. Liban

I just wanted to say that, it has been a privilege to serve with this group of jury members. And, you know, it’s important that we spent a great deal oftime going through all the different projects in detail. Just hearing some ofthe comments on the top winners, it’s great that there is so much focus onintegrating the environment in a very innovative and revolutionary way.Being at Metro also provides a different perspective on how these projectscan possibly work their way through our own efforts on sustainability. I cameto this discussion as an engineer looking for new implementable ideas, and if

I think about many of the entries, many are doable projects. You know,they’re not just pie in the sky ideas that you can only accomplish with lots ofmoney. Finally, I would like to say here that the competition entries, especial-ly the winner, set an example for sustainable projects that promote renewablecities, and renewable urban strategies. That is something that our agencywants to further engage.


31/167

31 Jury Commentary

Dennis McGlade

I found the competition to be very interesting on many levels . TheLos Angeles River is the reason why Los Angeles is here, and I find it veryinteresting that 21st Century industry is relocating on its banks . A bit of dis-appointment in most of the entries is that most of them didn’t make a noteof the river. It is a historical continuity of Los Angeles to the place—throughgeological time, not just cultural time.

I think the competition also raised the issue of what does the new citylook like in the United States and in the world? How does it look differentthan what we were familiar with as children? And it also gets to what donew parks look like? What do parks do besides give us emotional and psycho-logical comfort, you know recreation and restoration? What do theydo for other the living systems and the physical systems of how the planetworks on a bigger scale?

Many years ago, I was graduate with Ian McHarg. I think it’d be very grati-fying to him to see how much of the conversation about the planning andarchitecture in the last ten years has snowballed to issues of sustainabilityin a natural environment and conservation and restoration. And that waspretty much in the forefront of most of the entries that we had today. So itwas very good.

Lately many people have been wondering if California’s arc of new ideasis setting. They used to say it happened in California ten or 15 years beforethe rest of the country. I don’t think it is setting because we opened an officehere. We think it’s still about ten or 15 years ahead of the rest of the country.

And I think this whole idea of looking at industry as a regeneration ofurban growth and not just service industry or intellectual property is good. InPhiladelphia now, it’s basically we either have hotels or we have universities

and medical schools. There’s nothing else in the city anymore. So I like thisidea of technology as industry and making it clean technology that generatesthe type of employment, the type of salaries, and the type of education thatthe industry brings to the city will help grow the middle class in the city.

I don’t think of the Cleantech industry as being solely a producer ofhi-tech gizmos only. It will also offer consultant services. I see it employingengineers, landscape architects, and architects who consult throughoutthe country dealing with issues of remediation of river systems and thingslike that.


32/167


33/167

Industrial

Los Angeles1900–1935


34/167



35/167

35 Industrial Los Angeles 1900–1935

Aerial view of Los Angeles showing Alameda Street,7th Street, 9th Street, and San Pedro Street, 1939©California Historical Society


36/167


6th Street Viaduct spanning the Los Angeles River, 1900©California Historical Society


37/167


Birdseye view of downtown Los Angeles,showing natural gas storage tanks©California Historical Society


38/167



39/167


Bridge at 4th Street and Lorena Street in Los Angeles©University of Southern California


40/167


Los Angeles Furniture Mart, 2155 E. Seventh St., 1958©University of Southern California


41/167


42/167



43/167


View of the bed of the Los Angeles River near 7th Street©California Historical Society


44/167



45/167


Aerial view of Union Terminal Market,downtown Los Angeles, 1930-1935©University of Southern California


46/167



47/167


Panoramic view of Los Angeles, showing 6th Street,Figueroa Street and Flower Street, 1916©University of Southern California


48/167


49/167

Industrial

Los Angeles2011


50/167


51/167

51 Industrial Los Angeles 2011

Southbound rail way tracks below 3rd Street bridge


52/167



53/167


Los Angeles River from 4th Street bridge


54/167


55/167


7th Street Bridge faceing west withview of downtown Los Angeles


56/167


Underside of 7th Street bridge looking southeast


57/167


58/167



59/167


Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus Depotat Alameda Street and 7th Street


60/167



61/167


American Apparel factory at Alameda Avenue and 7th Street


62/167


Lot at Santa Fe Avenue


63/167


Powerlines at Santa Fe Avenue


64/167



65/167


Metropolitan Transportation Authority Headquarters andLA County Jail from 1st Street and Santa Fe Avenue


66/167


Truck depot at Mateo Street


67/167


Toy Factory Loft Building at Mateo Streetand Industrial Street


68/167


Los Angeles Unified School District bus depot andHomeboy Industries from Chinatown Gold Line Station


69/167


70/167



71/167


Truck garage adjacent to Toy Factory Loft Buildingat Mateo Street


72/167



73/167


SCI-Arc at intersection of Santa Fe Avenueand East 3rd Street


74/167


75/167

Professional

Winners


76/167



77/167

77

Project Umbrella sets out to reinterpret and enrich Los Angeles’s existinginfrastructure by implementing a point-based renewal strategy that willgradually transform the city grid into a greener and more attractive publicspace. Mushroom-like structures named ‘solar evaporators’ tap into the city’ssewage, collecting and clarifying the black water originating from the sur-rounding blocks. The clear water is distributed and released into the streetsthrough a process of evaporation and condensation, triggering a transforma-tion of the conventional streets into a network of lush, cultivated landscapes.

Green webs spreading out from the evaporators generate incentives for

new, sustainable developments within and around them. T he central urbanplazas become focal points within a gradual process of transformation thatwill affect the way people will see, use, and experience their city. Theyare platforms for new types of social activity and form nodes within an elabo-rate transportation network that will stimulate the use of public and non-motorized modes of transportation as a new means of exploring the futurecity of LA.

Strategy

In order to successfully convey a proposal for an urban renewal project on acity-wide scale, it is necessary first to outline, however briefly, the focus andappropriate boundaries for the Umbrella proposal. It assumes that, in a nearfuture, regulatory measures as well as technical advances will inevitablyboost the overall sustainability of the buildings within the city, and therefore,the city as a whole. Additionally, considering that large scale restructuringoperations of existing urban tissue are resource wasting and unselective pro-cesses, deeming them unsustainable by nature, the only valid approachwould be one that can grow from within the city’s existing configuration.The LA grid ties together all urban activities and could be a backbone for

urban developments of any kind, including sustainable urban renewal. Thatis why project Umbrella sets out to reinterpret and enhance the city’s existingpublic infrastructure, preparing it for a sustainable future that stimulates analternative use of the city.

The Umbrella project therefore is an acupunctural, rather than a full-blown urban renewal strategy, which will slowly implement, rather thanforce, the conditions necessary to create a sustainable urban environment,starting from within the city’s public streets and locally creating incentivesfor future developments.

On a local scale, each evaporator will generate conditions that stimulate

sustainable businesses, housing, recreation, etc. to develop freely in responseto the changing conditions of the grid. Based on the speculative nature ofprivate interest and commercial forces, the effects of an evaporator on its sur-rounding tissue can be described in three ways:

UmbrellaFirst Place

Constantin BoinceanRalph Bertram

Aleksandra Danielak


78/167


3 Nodal

The evaporator is a node within thepublic transit system of the city.The green streets stimulate walkingor biking to and from the centralplaza, where the transfer to publictransport can be made.

As a result, the resolution ofthe grid will locally scale downaround the evaporator, boasting alarge array of different typologiesthat coexist at walking/biking dis-tance from the central plaza, slowlyreplacing the car-based monotony witha pedestrian-based diversity that as-sures a more sustainable use of thecity’s grid as a public domain.

1 Radial

The new plaza generates public activ-ity, providing both the market andthe amenities for new businesses tobloom within a certain radius fromthe public plaza.

>

Object

The solar evaporator combines a sub-surface clarifier with an above-groundevaporation basin. Black water sewage is collected from the main city sewersand is passed through a grit chamber to remove indigestible solids before itflows into the sedimentation tank. The sludge with a higher density thanwater sinks into a sludge bed. A surface skimmer removes floating solidslighter then water while clear water flows over a weir into a separate basinunderneath the clarifier. The anaerobic digestion of the sludge bed will createmethane gas that is collected and stored in the top of the tank. It powers apump that displaces the clear water up through a vertical pipe into the evapo-ration basin. The basin is covered with a transparent skin that induces a

greenhouse effect in the evaporation dome as a result of the captured solarradiation. Under these conditions the water in the basin will evaporate con-tinuously, a process enhanced by a low speed surface fan that continuouslyexposes the water surface to flows of less saturated air. As the water evapo-rates, the pressure inside the dome increases forcing the vapor into the irriga-tion arms. Traveling through the arms, the purified water will graduallycondensate and is released through irrigation holes in the bottom of the irri-gation arms.

2 Linear

The irrigation arms transformsurrounding streets into lush greenlandscapes, making them attractiveto live in or to establish pedestri-an-based small scale creative indus-tries, galleries, etc.

4 Total Patchwork


79/167

79 Professional Winners

Typology

To be implemented as an intervention within the grid, each evaporator andits set irrigators needs to be thought of as an adaptable system that can be tai-lored to suit both existing and desired conditions. Depending on the desiredradius of effect, the evaporator can assume different sizes and position with-in the grid. Larger evaporators produce more water, support larger greenareas, and thus increase their radius of effect. They affect more people andaccommodate more activities and are able to connect to multiple modes oftransport. Smaller evaporators will, on the other hand, have a smaller radius,but can also supply a different, more intimate public space.

The position in relation to the street will further determine the typeof public space generated around and underneath the evaporator. Shownin incremental size and in different positions, three typological plansillustrate the variety of public spaces tha

Competition CleantechCorridor CompetitionPublication 2011

Documents

Transcript of Competition CleantechCorridor CompetitionPublication 2011