WS21: Entwerfen 1 2021 Winter Semester: Design Studio Institute of Urban Design, Univ.- Prof. DI Peter Trummer, M.Sc

Superfluous Studio: Front-Yard Urbanism: Los angeLes PLaza 2.0

Instructors: Simeon Brugger & Zeynep Çınar contact@formerlynotknown.com

Class Meetings: Wednesdays @ 9:00-17:00

1: STUDIO DESCRIPTION

This semester Superfluous Studio: Front-Yard Urbanism investigates the lost pedestrian potential of the historic district of El Pueblo de Los Angeles, which houses the Union Station as well as the original Los Angeles Plaza (seen above). Focusing on the non functioning public plazas that currently interlock, the students will be asked to design a new proposal for a mixed use public civic center to the district through the extension of the Union Station front-yard, the oldest standing main train station of the city of Los Angeles.

The infrastructural focus of the design process will be to produce multilevel access tunnels that allow the highway entrances and subterrain highways to function as they previously did with the integration of new interwoven public spaces, public and semi private architectural programs within the historical district of El Pueblo. The main aim of the design project is revitalizing the pedestrian access from the Union Station to the rest of the historic district through a plaza.

Los Angeles Plaza, 1869

3: SITE

The design process will consist of several tasks explained generally here:

2: DESIGN PROCESS

TASK 01: Learning the urban history of the El Pueblo district of Los Angeles. Watching documentaries, researching the city’s design history and going on Google Maps trips within L.A. to get accustomed to its urban fabric.

TASK 02: Building an extensive data set of Los Angeles: Collection of photos, drawings and architectural antiheroes from the city of Los Angeles in 2D and 3D. Extracting information from these collected parts and organizing them in a large library.

TASK 03: Abstraction of existing buildings into specific architectural design elements and its attributes.Creating samples from existing library objects.

TASK 04: Expanding the virtual collection. Experimenting on new compositions and assemblages from the elements driven from the library. Employing methods of combining objects and forms together with the site.

TASK 05: Configuration on Site: Field studies of the relation of one architectural element to its figurative field. (Figure - Ground operations) Continuing composition studies as well as starting to produce architectural program divisions.

TASK 06: Production of representation elements such as drawings & renders. Developping the final design in 2D & 3D and finalization of the design process.

Located in the historic district of El Pueblo de Los Angeles the site chosen for this semester’s studio is a pedestrian focused open-air plaza that is currently unusable. The current design is not able to fulfill its potential as it is separated by many arterial roads and highways making the spaces left inbetween harder to access and not areas to dwell-in but rather to walk-through. The site chosen is a culturally significant area as it is one of the few original historic settlements of Los Angeles. Therefore to revitalize it the access of pedestrians from all around the plaza needs to be reconfigured. The Union Station front-yard that is mainly parking lots today acts as an essential buffer zone in blocking the ease of access towards the old Mexican epicenter of the city and must be improved for the design proposal.In order to understand these complex relationships within the district the students will analyze the existing program divisions in line with the previously mentioned matters and examine how the urban design is modified throughout the city of Los Angeles as well as in the micro scale of our site. And they will also develop through their design proposals how to change this sharp urban contrast into an opportunity for the city and the inhabitants.

The students will be working in teams of 2 or 3. Said teams will observe, analyze and configure buildings and trope objects from the general Los Angeles area and get familiar with the method of collecting architectural information digitally. Through various tasks the students will be asked to construct and imagine formerly not explored forms and urban applications while emphasizing on the architectural production of collections that each team will be asked to develop. This exercise of collecting is asked in order to bring forth discussions on form and shape as well as landscape and the built environment in order to understand complex urban relationships within the existing contexts.