The Powerpoints of 21st Century L.A.

In the last week, I explored five major sites around Los Angeles with a video camera, looking for commonalities and differences. The sites were defined by having the busiest intersections between 2001 & 2007, and being within ¼ mile of either a highly dense or highly walkable area. I’ve found some striking similarities and some striking differences at each of the sites, some of which incorporated large urban corridors with several of LA’s busiest intersections along their threads.

 

These are not necessarily the glamour shots of Los Angeles that one might find in all the travel magazines and on TV. Rather these are all lived-in places, completely artificial, and besides the Westwood Village area, largely unscripted by the hand of a single visionary developer or owner. These are authentic L.A., the backlots one might say, the places that cater to the scripted places, the places that the tourist will often pass “on the way there,” and the worker on the way to work.

The Bones of the City 

Their unexpected and universal proximity to major freeways reveals just how our transportation systems are like the bones of the city. These sites contain the busiest intersections in the city because major ramps draw from very close by.

 

Other major infrastructural elements touch down in all the sites; Glendale Boulevard hosts major cell and radio antennae. Victory Boulevard hosts the Orange Line and the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.

Traces of the Demographic 

They all have an incredible concentration of diverse populations. Near Victory and Blucher, I encountered the Vallarta supermarket, as big as any of the major chain markets, but here the loudspeakers blast Mariachi tunes and piñatas hang from the ceiling above the produce aisle. Driving from the market parking lot, I encountered women in headscarves. At the other sites, many of the signs were in Spanish, English, Arabic and Korean. Billboards trace the determination of marketing companies to cater to just the right demographic. It appeared that the Wilshire area reflected the most well-off demographic though with panhandlers working the 405 offramps. Perhaps Glendale Boulevard reflects the next most well-off, though there are bars in most of the windows and doors along the street, and the biggest houses climb up the hillsides. La Brea at 21st seems to go from urban to suburban within yards of walking off the main drag, and the Vallarta Market at Victory seems to draw a lot of guys who look like they’re coming home from construction sites. Santa Monica Blvd, being mostly commercial, draws the office worker crowd as well all the restauranteers, shopkeepers and workers that serve them. None of these characterizations are exclusive or catch-alls, and that’s what’s interesting. These sites seem to point to a city far more integrated than one might think from listening to the evening news.

Topography, Physical and Experiential 

There was also variability in the topography and the “directionality” of the places; Victory and Blucher is largely flat, Victory and the Orange Line passing through the plain like a thematic artery. Wilshire and Santa Monica seems to stretch their landscapes, pulling the land around them into a line. They’re meant to be seen from a moving car, and many long barriers divide the streets themselves, creating stretched, horizontally layered topographies. La Brea, by contrast, narrow, congested and gently hilly, seems to be about the point rather than the line. Victory around Blucher creates a world where blocks become islands; strip malls, parks, and neighborhoods occupy distinct worlds though they live next to one another. Walls and fences seem to divide not only one house from the next, but one development, and one neighborhood from the next. Most notable is the cozy one-story suburban neighborhood south of Victory, east of the 405, which becomes a containing wall. South of the neighborhood a great sewage digester looms behind a wall and a parking structure. North of the neighborhood, a literal wall and a wall of trees blocks out a row of car dealerships fronting on Sepulveda, and along Victory, small poles prevent cars from turning into the little streets. It appears you can enter the neighborhood by car from only one spot Victory Blvd. Once inside the neighborhood, you’re in a different world, where the webs of big shade tree branches hide the sky. I suppose its probably a very safe place for kids to play.

The Visual Sphere 

All the sites make particular use of two dimensional displays; signs, posters, and art…

 

At Glendale Blvd, it’s most apparent; billboards tell one about Toyota, a Gentleman’s Club, and Rio. Movie posters on plywood fences tell you to “Live Free or Die Hard.” And there’s also a muralist currently hard at work on a set of realistically painted faces under the 110 bridge.

At La Brea, the same Toyota billboard hangs over the trees, a painting tells of a wedding supply store and A-Frame signs stand on the sidewalks. The strip mall on the east side of La Brea is graced with lots of neon and fluorescent-backed colored signage, as is Victory and Blucher and the strips along Santa Monica. Wilshire by contrast has much larger signage and little in the way of stuff designed to pull you out of your car; there’s the 10-story Ratatouille mural on the side of the building just east of the 405  and a billboard at San Vicente telling you that your Prius is ready. There’s the Veterans mural along the bridge, invisible while you’re driving on Wilshire proper, and World Bank flouts its name proudly.

The Accessibility Element 

One of the goals of this thesis is to make the interactive, influential elements accessible to everyone people. Given the demographic diversity of the different sites, the variability on economic status, there’s not likely to be a complaint about “fairness.” In fact, from these site areas the design can be accomplished in such a way that everybody’s got equal influence and equal impact from what’s happening. The sites will be narrowed down  further, given the fact that the selected areas are urban, and not architectural in scale.

Exploring Tillman Water Reclamation Facility

I took a field trip today… to the John Tillman Water Reclamation Plant/Japanese Garden. I found the place surprisingly beautiful and inspiring; clearly the architects enjoyed the interplay of the five traditional elements of Japanese lore: Fire, Air, Earth, Water and Wind. All except fire were there in abundance and certainly weave together; the element I found most intriguing of all was not so much the garden itself (though that was delightful in its own right), but the administration building which sits on concrete cassions, with reclaimed water running underneath. You can look down from the lobby into open spaces where the water runs freely, and reflects the afternoon sun to cast rippling patterns on the glass windows and concrete sttructure. The myriad reflections and light ripples create an otherworldly tapestry. Mix in for good measure that the operators opened the door into the high tech control room today, probably just because they were hot, and I got quite a view of contrasting worlds; the garden outside with crows and herons, the slender concrete and glass walkway, and a plasma screened inner sanctum. 

These grounds, on 90 acres, treat a lot of the water from the San Fernando Valley, and provide a major source of non-potable water for irrigation and other needs. The facility also hosts an electrical sub-station. Were it not for this facility, most of that irrigation water would probably come from imported sources, which is always a bone of contention in Southern California, or from other potable supplies, which would mean less supply for everyone.  

This Water Treatment Facility is a seductive place and one of our model projects when I was on the consultant team for the Los Angeles Regional Water Management Plan, and I can also imagine that my instructors would ask me to read it critically… be suspicious if its too seductive and look for the “Disney” elements. There’s certainly value in bringing that approach as long as it’s not taken for the “right” or “true” approach. I might then look for ways that I can make it obvious that it is a reclamation plant, and for ways that I might insert a kind of “third” interactive space that is neither constructed nor what we’d call wild nature. I did take that internalized advice and did have some fun with it; at one point I noted that under a little bridge the water was calm on one side and agitated on the other; of course this created environment has its hidden elements. So maybe I was curious, not so much “suspicious” and took a peek underneath; the little grate down there certainly has a cleansing or flow management purpose, and there’s stuff like that everywhere, if you take the time, or maybe have the expertise to notice. That to me makes it more interesting and fun. It’s also interesting that theres enough of a smell about to remind you of what’s going on behind the scene, or rather under it. I actually enjoyed that element about it; the smell wasn’t overpowering, just there enough to notice in the background.

What I’ve taken from the exploration, and how it will impact my own thesis: In my own work, it brings me back to the very real elements of site and program that are paramount to architectural design at the end of the day. Without site or program, what’s there is speculation, and more speculation; the constraints offered by site and program make the job easier and give it clear direction. I am now turning to develop the situation in which my thesis project will reside. I’m also intrigued by “exploding” such a place, what if you turned it inside out somehow, let the seams show; doing that artfully could create even more ”aesthetic residuals,” moments of accidental beauty or inspiration. Finally I’m most compelled by the spaces of interface that happen; the water reflected in the glass and concrete, the bird in front of the hidden grate, the water running under the walkway Some are designed, others, not.

  

PLC’s – Existing Multiple Input/Output Systems

Early Explorations

Here’s my first test of an “interactive architecture” using Maya software. 

The concept here is that the person moves and sensors in the joints of the cage detect the motion and cause the structure to move alongside. This is ”one to one” interactivity, that is, you move, and the thing moves as well. Not so interesting by itself, but a simple breakout that may open the door to further and more interesting experiments down the road.

Here are some more concepts about how this might evolve into something a bit more interesting: 

    

Concept 1 (Above: The “Loom”)

In this concept, a person, or several people walk around inside the three dimensional “loom” or frame. Each node hosts an orthagonally directed motion detector. The sensors can then trigger, one, two or perhaps multiple reactions. One might be in the loom itself, one might be remotely in  infrastructure throughout the city, one might be in another loom elsewhere, and the reactions in the looms might themselves influence the people standing inside.

       

Concept 2 (Above: The Googlebomb)

This concept was first imagined in the context of an ordinary modern cubic office block. Motion sensors rigged to the lighting systems (or other systems) within the building begin to create opportunities for collective public expression. A pair of motion sensors set in doorways tell which way you are moving, and keep count of how many people are in each room. Move into the room, it counts as plus one, move out and it counts as minus one. When the number value of people in the room is plus one or more, the lights are on; when the number value of people is zero, the lights are off. The system takes a snapshot of the condition say every five minutes, and tabulates a five day average, which becomes the default condition that the system reverts to every five minutes. By moving about deliberately, a “flashmob” might begin to “play with the lights.” They might not have reason to do so if it’s just lights being manipulated, but another variation might be done with train arrival times; more people on one platform weights the likelihood of the train to come their way. Or a more far-fetched scenario might imagine rooms expanding or contracting depending on the presence or absence of people. Rooms in an art gallery might shift about based on the number of people looking at this exhibit or that; or the more wiley programmer might throw in the reverse algorithm, effectively pushing crowds about the rooms, while the crowds push the rooms about the building, while the rooms push the crowds about the building.

The Opening Salvo

Hello everyone,

I’ll start with my original thesis proposal and a few other interesting things I’ve come across in early research. The thesis proposal is a .pdf file about 5 mb; enjoy

mark-lavin-thesis-proposal-book.pdf>

Here’s a precedent that may begin to inform my concepts of interactive infrastructure, called the ReacTable. Some of my experiments will look at what happens when you add a “z-axis,” a third dimension. Then an entire room can become an interface.

Here’s the ReacTable featured in a Bjork performance:

Here’s another techonological paradigm presented at the TED Awards that might also prove useful: