HOW TO GET TO PEOPLE STREET

HOW TO GET TO PEOPLE STREET
New initiative will allow locals to alter the streetscape in Los Angeles.

RIOS CLEMENTI HALE'S SUNSET TRIANGLE PLAZA.

JIM SIMMONS / COURTESY LADOT

There is a lot happening—or about to happen—on the streets of LA these days. From parklets to Mayor Garcetti’s new “Great Streets” initiative, things are looking up for the city’s pedestrians and cyclists. Starting in early 2014, community members will have the opportunity to take the lead on small-scale street projects through a City of Los Angeles-LADOT (LA Department of Transportation) program known as People St. Once the People St program is underway, interested community members will be able to apply online for city permission to install a parklet, plaza, or bike corral on an underused stretch of roadway. Though the process will vary depending on the type of intervention, in general the person or group initiating the petition will cover the cost of materials, installation, and upkeep. The city or LADOT, in turn, will provide the site’s operators with the architectural elements needed to transform a patch of pavement into community space.

JIM SIMMONS / COURTESY LADOT

 

This kit of parts concept is part of what makes People St so unique. The program will draw on pilot projects throughout the city, including the York Boulevard Bike Corral in Highland Park, Sunset Triangle Plaza in Silver Lake, and the Spring Street Parklets downtown. The goal, according to architect Daveed Kapoor, who helped design the Spring Street Parklets, is to take the best design elements from the pilot projects and manufacture them as economically as possible. “It’s expensive to build these things. It’s kind of like building a car,” said Kapoor. “You want to do it for less, but it adds up.”

People St also stands out as a bottom-up alternative to traditional city planning.  “LA has a hunger for transforming public space,” said People St project manager Valerie Watson. “To meet that hunger we need a much more consistent, quickly-implemented multi-phase process—not a New York–style, top-down approach, but more of a grassroots process where communities identify sites for the reallocation of the public right of way.” The projects begun through People St will supplement and help build support for larger and slower efforts being supervised by the city.

People St projects will undergo regular evaluation to insure that they do what they’re meant to—create community space and enhance pedestrian safety—without becoming nuisances. Kapoor already thinks that the program is a step in the right direction toward better planning for LA. “In America we have a real civil rights problem of unequal access. In general, city planning principles discriminate against people who don’t have access to a car,” he said. “Hopefully we’re moving toward a new space for people on the right of way.”

Anna Bergren Miller

Revisioning the Los Angeles Aqueduct Infrastructure

"In short, the "Aqueduct Futures" exhibit provides a cogent and highly educational opportunity to learn about this important topic and history -- one that this author believes would positively serve anyone and everyone partaking of its waters to peruse and study" - Kim Stringfellow

As part of of KCET's celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Kim Stringfellow highlighted 'Aqueduct Futures' a public exhibit that was on display from November 5th to December 5th, 2013 at Los Angeles City Hall. Showcasing the results of two years of investigation led by Barry Lehrman's  Assistant Professor in Cal Poly Pomona's Landscape Architecture program, the work included studios, fieldwork, community workshops, and the development of a land-use planning tool.

A Tale of Two Cities: America's Bipolar Climate Future

A computer simulation of flooded zones in New York in 2050, based on calculations by the New York Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. According to calculations, the sea level in the city could rise by more than three-quarters of a meter (2.5 feet) by 2050, and by one-and-a-half meters 30 years later. (Caption & Image: Der Spiegel)

New York City and New Bern, North Carolina both face the same projected rise in sea levels, but while one is preparing for the worst, the other is doing nothing on principle. A glimpse into America's contradictory climate change planning

HUDSON SPONGE

Streetscape remake in West Side Manhattan neighborhood includes stormwater-retention measures.

COURTESY MATHEWS NIELSEN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS

Chances are most New Yorkers don’t know where Hudson Square is located. But the launch of the first phase of a $27 million streetscaping initiative may turn relatively obscure neighborhood, bounded by the West Village, SoHo, and Tribeca, into one of the most attractive places in the city.

Plans call for the formerly industrial neighborhood to be completely redesigned with gantries festooned with public art, deployable dumpsters planted with trees, yellow gridded crosswalks, and special light fixtures designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Along with custom designed street furniture and new plantings, the neighborhood’s streets are slated to become some of the most sustainable in the city through the use of features such as permeable pavement and structural soil.

The plan to revamp the area is the brainchild of the Hudson Square Connection Business Improvement District (BID). The vast majority of BIDs throughout the city focus on sanitation and safety, but this one is unusual in that it is almost wholly oriented toward urban design and landscape.

“When we were formed the primary purpose was urban beautification because this area was already pretty clean and pretty safe,” said Ellen Bair, president of the Hudson Square Connection BID. “What it wasn’t was a neighborhood.”

Bair said that the plan’s adventuresome aesthetic and sustainability features reflect the sensibilities and the concerns of the young professionals who work in the creative industries—such as media, graphic design, and architecture—that form the majority of the more than 1,000 businesses located in Hudson Square. “This is a neighborhood where sustainability is in the DNA of the people who work here,” said Bair.

Phase one of the plan involves a $3.2 million contribution from the city and a $4.4 million contribution from the Hudson Square Connection BID. It will result in the planting of 360 trees throughout the neighborhood in specially designed tree trenches, larger than typical street tree pits, which will improve the neighborhood’s ability to retain stormwater. “Every year, we will soak up a minimum of eight swimming pools in terms of rainwater, and we will have healthier trees,” said Bair.

The next big move is the redesign of the gateway to the neighborhood, a large underutilized traffic island called Soho Square, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Spring Street, with kidney shaped islands of green to increase permeable surfaces, custom seating, and lighter paving surfaces.

One big spur to the plan’s implementation was a residential rezoning that went through last March, which Bair hopes will increase the number of neighborhood residents. Dotted with parking lots and underutilized industrial buildings, the neighborhood is ripe for redevelopment. Some of the choicest real estate will be along Hudson Square’s western boundary, where the recently approved transferal of air rights from Hudson River Park may result in a wall of towers.

The Hudson Square Connection plan includes the largest district-wide use of state-of-the-art sustainable street features in the city. Nonetheless, it took four years to get approval from city officials. According to Signe Nielsen, principal at the landscape architecture firm Mathews Nielsen, who is leading a design team that includes Rogers Partners and ARUP, what really made the plan a slam-dunk was the flooding from Hurricane Sandy. “It became an easier sell after people saw the map of the extensive flooding,” she said.

Alex Ulam

For its urban problems, Annapolis weighs independent planning

Annapolis still has the feel of a small town, with its historic

buildings and narrow streets. But the city is increasingly facing some of the same urban problems as its metropolitan neighbors.

Like Baltimore and Washington, Annapolis is struggling with aging roads and utilities, crime and suburban sprawl. Its business district has been hurt by the sour economy, development has shifted from the downtown, and its work force is shrinking as companies move outside the city limits.

To combat these troubles and better compete with the rest of the county, city officials are thinking of establishing an independent planning agency.

Annapolis used to be a member of the Baltimore Regional Council of Governments, but the city was excluded when the state agency was disbanded at the end of June and turned into a private, non-profit planning corporation.

The city is a voting member of a newly formed transportation committee that is planning highway projects for the Baltimore metropolitan region. But, miffed by its exclusion from the new Baltimore Metropolitan Council, and convinced the city has its own problems, Annapolis officials are looking to set out on their own.

Federal highway legislation passed last year requires that all urban areas with populations of more than 200,000 develop regional transportation plans. In the Baltimore area, a transportation committee was set up that includes the city, the five surrounding counties, the state Department of Transportation and Annapolis.

Annapolis, which was designated as an urban area in 1980, may withdraw from that group and create its own committee, said City Administrator Michael Mallinoff.

"Maybe we are a separate region, with our own identity, from either Baltimore or Washington," he said.

Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins is setting up a task force to study creating an independent agency. But the city would need the approval of County Executive Robert R. Neall and Gov. William Donald Schaefer to do it.

John Arason, deputy director of the city's Office of Planning and Zoning, said he fears Annapolis often is overlooked because of its size in the disbursement of millions in federal highway grants. "I don't think in any big group we would be considered a real player," he said.

He also believes the city needs to improve cooperation with the county. Annapolis is often outbid by the county in attracting new businesses. Competition from a growing number of shopping centers and discount stores at the city's edge have hurt Annapolis. "This would give us a little more of an ability to control our own destiny," Mr. Arason said.

Charles Krautler, executive director of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, questioned the benefits of leaving the regional organization.

"It would seem to me that would dramatically increase their costs, because they would not have access to our planning capabilities," he said.

Anne Arundel County Executive Robert R. Neall, who chairs the council, also may oppose the establishment of an independent planning agency. Mr. Arason said the current proposal would make Anne Arundel County a member of two organizations -- the state committee and the Annapolis group.

CIVIC STUDIES

CIVIC STUDIES

West Hollywood reveals finalists' proposals for major new park.

PROPOSAL BY LPA WITH RIOS CLEMENTI HALE.

COURTESY LPA

The City of West Hollywood is preparing to get a lot greener. While still mired in lengthy delays related to its Plummer Park, further east, on Monday city officials unveiled the finalist schemes for the second phase of its new West Hollywood Park, located next to Johnson Favaro’s new public library and public spaces, just west of San Vicente Boulevard.

Three shortlisted teams — Frederick Fisher and Partners with CMG, LPA with Rios Clementi Hale, and Langdon Wilson —unveiled conceptual master plan renderings. The ideas are still considered “conceptual,” because they could be scaled down due to practical concerns, explained city officials.

“These are just ideas. When the project begins all this stuff goes away and we start with a blank piece of paper,” reiterated Frederick Fisher during his presentation. But Jeffrey Huffer, the city’s Strategic Initiatives Manager, noted, “In all I would expect to see the style and type of buildings would remain very similar to what they’ve presented.”

PROPOSAL BY LPA WITH RIOS CLEMENTI HALE. COURTESY LPA

The $80 million project will remove several existing buildings from the site—including the Edward Fickett–designed Library, and the current auditorium, swimming pool, park office, and support buildings, to make room for an expanded core of grass and trees. The park will now contain over five acres of uninterrupted open space. New buildings will be highlighted by a new 70,000 square foot recreation and community center with a rooftop pool, park support facilities, and children’s playground areas.

All of the proposals focused on the new recreation center and rooftop pool, and tried to encourage interaction between the new building and its adjacent park. The finalists were culled from an original field of 24 design teams, which was later narrowed down to nine.

PROPOSAL BY LANGDON WILSON. COURTESY LANGDON WILSON

The Fisher team’s proposal includes a large grass-topped podium, and a stair, connecting the park to the rec center. “The building itself is an extension of the park,” said Fisher. Its fractured landscape, set with meandering pathways, would be divided into varied zones, including a reading garden, a sloped garden walk, garden “rooms,” and the “great lawn,” a large open grassy space.

LPA’s proposal also fused the recreation center with landscape, with vertical green screens, a park-like podium, and a larger grand stair leading down from the pool to the park. Its rooftop pool would be “resort style,” with cabanas and a view terrace, and inside a two-story volume would contain a large rock-climbing wall. Its “public park,” programmed for larger events and athletics, would be set along much harder angles, overlaid with a sinuous “neighborhood park,” set for passive activities.

“We feel the two parks in one gives West Hollywood the best of both worlds,” explained Rios Clementi Hale senior associate Samantha Harris.

Langdon Wilson presented a slightly more traditional proposal, dividing architecture and landscape, with a layered building clad with a glass curtain wall. “The facility needs to reflect the park, but it’s about the park at the end of the day,” explained Langdon Wilson project architect Rick Sholl. The team’s garden would create an “outdoor living room,” made up of greensward, recreation, and an “outdoor living room,” combining structured with open areas. A “Rainbow Garden Walk” and amphitheater would link the upper level of the park with San Vicente.

West Hollywood’s Huffer said that the winning scheme will be revealed at the city’s next council meeting, on January 21. Construction would likely be completed sometime in 2017, he noted. He added that he didn’t expect this problem to be beset with public outcry the way Plummer Park had.

“I think people seem very pleased with the first phase of improvements that were done,” he said,” referring to the new library, promenade, and basketball courts. “I think it’s only excited people more about what the project could look like.”

Olin’s plan for Plummer Park had come under fire from residents for, among other things, plans for new buildings, plans to demolish existing buildings and plans to remove mature trees. That project had been put in further jeopardy because of the dissolution of the state’s Redevelopment Agencies. The city has confirmed that Olin is no longer associated with that project. Unofficially the city is now having discussions with Brooks + Scarpa about the upcoming direction, said one city official.

Sam Lubell

UNVEILED> 1401 LAWRENCE

Back in 2006, Toronto-based developer Great Gulf purchased the lot at the corner of 14th and Lawrence streets in downtown Denver for $12.5 million with plans of constructing the city’s tallest residential building. Two years later, as real-estate prices plummeted, the company pulled the plug on the 51-story tower. Now, with Great Gulf’s office development partner First Gulf Corporation at the helm, the project has been reborn as a downsized 21-story, 290,000-square-foot office tower. With Dallas-based design-build firm Beck Group on board, First Gulf hopes to break ground in early 2014.

As the reopening of the highly anticipated Denver Union Station nears and young professionals flock to downtown, the demand for office space has skyrocketed, creating one of the hottest office markets the West. First Gulf plans to break into this market with a LEED Gold package containing 7,500 square feet of ground floor retail, six levels of indoor parking, and 13 floors of premium office space. Additionally, 1401 Lawrence is set to include a fitness center, outdoor terrace, bike storage, and other tenant amenities.

Nick Miller

COURTESY BECK GROUP