los angeles CALIFORNIA

Sci-ARC
Critic: Tom WISCOMBE

…By forcing many contradictory origins together, we lose sense of a particular time and place, our mixed use development uses this as a way to play into the creation of a new world in the middle of downtown LA. LA here becomes the perfect backdrop for our development, where the familiar stretches out in all directions and heights the sense of otherness of our project. We amplify the familiar forms and typologies seen in typical downtown mixed-use development, abusing that sense of familiarity and turning it against itself.

Our development uses a series of residential towers above a plinth housing apartment amenities and retail space. A new ground rises to create a communal space for residents and non-residents hosting multiple bars, restaurants and cafes. As Sam mentioned we pulled from various cities from many different timelines and formal languages. By using a single material that unifies the massing, our project resist the urge to break the building into a collection of parts to be categorized. The garden stretches across the entire site, using bright and slightly strange colors with out of scale elements continuing to play up the idea of a new world in the middle downtown LA. The existing flower market remains close to its original location now situated underneath our landscape element. Through context, forms, typologies and arrangements we barrage users with the recognizable, slightly twisting each position until something unexpected remains.