As latest forecasts predict a “ Godzilla El Nino “ for southern California this winter, water, as always, is on the drought-stricken territory’s mind. The coming season is shaping up to be even wetter than the record-breaking winter of 1997, when rainfall was double the average. With such predictions come concerns that the Devil’s Gate Dam in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains might give way, causing flooding in communities along the Arroyo Seco, a tributary to the Los Angeles River, which was designed to carry storm runoff out to sea.
Yes, LA has a river. It’s not as romantic as the Seine, nor as historic as the Thames, but is instead a slab of concrete with a trickle of treated wastewater from factories further north. Instead of turning its back on the river, as it did when the US Army Corp of Engineers cemented it over in the 1930s, the city is embracing it. In 2013, the Corp guaranteed US$1 billion to revitalize an 11-mile stretch from downtown to the San Fernando Valley. Architect Frank Gehry recently revealed that he has been quietly working with the city on plans for a unified aesthetic along the river connecting parkland, bike paths and nature trails.
FUTURE VISION
Photo: AP
Two blocks from the river in downtown’s arts district, the A+D Museum is presenting a new exhibition, Shelter: Rethinking How We Live in Los Angeles, through Nov. 6. Their galleries offer six distinct architectural visions focusing on the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Boulevard (the path of a new subway line), as well as Elysian Valley, known also by its more folksy name Frogtown, a strip of land between the I-5 and the river.
Of the three artists who focused on Miracle Mile, PAR and MAD design firms offer glass towers that would hover over Peter Zumthor’s redesigned LACMA (estimated opening 2023), while wHY have come up with an ingenious infrastructure plan lining Wilshire with retail and affordable micro-living spaces. Of the three artists who focused on the river, Bureau Spectacular have presented Five Normal Houses, stylish high-end structures inspired by conventional architectural tropes, but only design firms LA-Mas and LOHA address the river and the changes already reverberating through its communities.
“There’s a desperate need for housing right now but there’s also large infrastructural issues that need to be addressed. The LA River — we’re saying let’s embrace it as an ecological resource,” says LOHA founder Lorcan O’Herlihy, whose residential design uses methods including a house coated in sponge to capture and store water. “It’s a system combining living and public space and water-based infrastructure into a hybrid patchwork that will capture and recycle in a purifying loop, and reconnect ground and storm water back to the water table and the river. So as opposed to losing water, we recapture it and then it can be redistributed.”
In the past year, speculators have driven real estate in Frogtown up an average of 25 percent, which leaves the predominantly working class Mexican-American community wondering whether such hi-tech homes are meant for them, or if they’ll be pushed out by the wave of gentrification sweeping neighboring communities like Echo Park, Silverlake and Highland Park.
BLANK SPACES
O’Herlihy’s plan, WATERshed, suggests filling in the neighborhood’s blank spaces. Contingent on changing zoning laws, it is a high-density plan for affordable one-bedroom and studio apartments that won’t dramatically change the skyline and will ensure existing residents don’t get pushed out by rising rents.
WATERshed shares some common ground with Gehry’s plan, which hasn’t been made public. But when approached by the LA River Revitalization Corp , a non-profit group setup by the city to co-ordinate river policy, the Pritzker-winning architect agreed to work pro bono under one condition: that they approach it as a water reclamation project. His partners include Richard Roark of landscape architecture firm Olin , water management specialist Henk Ovink, as well as Geosyntec, an eco-friendly engineering and consulting firm.
Though still shrouded in mystery, the Gehry plan has met with stiff opposition by community organizations and outreach programs that claim it doesn’t incorporate the needs of riverside residents. Lewis MacAdams of the non-profit group Friends of the Los Angeles River says, “It’s planning from the top down, to me the whole effort is towards creating a greater community, or set of communities; not just human communities but other creatures’ communities as well.”
“People are concerned about Frank Gehry talking about hydrology because there’s no basis for that in his practice,” says LA-Mas’s Elizabeth Timme, an architect and team member of re:code LA , the Office of City Planning’s effort to redraw outdated zoning laws. She added in an e-mail, “Hearing Gehry speak to reinventing hydrology practices while also mentioning a desire to maintain and preserve the concrete sides of the river is anything but progressive and, in and of itself, is a farcical statement.”
LA-Mas’ proposal takes a similar approach to O’Herlihy’s, though it doesn’t address water issues, but fits within newly tailored zoning restrictions. They tried to make their plan community-based, opening an office in the neighborhood and holding a series of workshops as part of an outreach program.
“We believe it should be a collective cross-disciplinary pursuit and community driven, inspired and based,” explains Timme, who is seconded by MacAdams. “The river’s 52 miles long and there’s a lot of possibilities and a lot of different directions, but creating communities is a big core of what we’ve always been about.”
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