The 2028 Summer Olympics (L.A. 2028), officially known as the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad, are coming to the Los Angeles region in just nine years. The event will make Los Angeles only the third city in the world, behind Paris and London, to ever host the games three times, and could potentially cement the city’s status as a 21st-century global economic, entertainment, and cultural powerhouse. But what will it take to get there? Though L.A. 2028 has been billed by organizers and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as a no-frills affair that will make use of existing or already planned facilities—“we could do the Olympics probably two months from now,” Garcetti quipped in a recent interview—the effort has become a symbolic capstone for a variety of ongoing urban and regional metamorphoses across Southern California. This symbolic quality has transformed the Olympics from a novel pipe dream into a rallying cry for what could be the most transformative urban vision the city and region have seen in over a generation. When L.A. last held the games in 1984, city officials made history by holding the first and only Olympic games that turned a profit. The effort’s success resulted from a distributed event model that used existing university student housing and training facilities to create a networked arrangement of mini–Olympic Villages across a region spanning from Santa Barbara to Long Beach. Organizers also presented a novel media strategy for the games by fusing spectacular and telegenic installations by Jon Jerde and colorful magenta, aqua, and vermilion graphics by environmental designers Deborah Sussman and Paul Prejza with the marvel of television broadcasting, giving the impression of a cohesive urban vision for the games despite the fact that some locales were more than 100 miles apart from each other. For 2028, local officials are hoping to repeat and surpass these successes. Garcetti, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the private L.A. 2028 committee tasked with bringing the games to life have stated that unlike many recent Olympic games around the world, L.A. 2028 is designed on paper to break even, financially speaking—once again, mainly due to the lack of new purpose-built structures or venues that would be created for the event. But these verbal and rhetorical gymnastics mask the full extent of the coming transformations and underplay both the scale of the games and the effects of what L.A. will have to accomplish to make them happen. In reality, L.A. 2028 will not be possible without the completion of several key initiatives, namely, the ongoing expansion of Los Angeles County’s mass transportation network and the planned expansion and renovation of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). As part of a 50-year vision to double the size of the region’s mass transit network, Mayor Garcetti helped pass a sweeping ballot initiative in 2016 that will transform L.A.’s transportation system. Afterward, as Garcetti worked to secure the Olympic bid, he unveiled the Twenty-eight by ’28 initiative to speed up and prioritize certain transit improvements outlined in the 2016 plan so they can be completed in time for the games. In total, the plan aims to complete 28 infrastructure projects by the time the games begin. One of the new transit lines due to be completed by 2028 will connect the southern end of the San Fernando Valley, where track and field and other events are to be held at the Valley Sports Park in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where the Olympic Village is to be located. There, the university is busy preparing to add 5,400 new student housing units. Up to 6,900 new student beds are envisioned by UCLA's latest Student Housing Plan, while up to 1,400 additional student beds could be brought online at several other UCLA-adjacent sites, as well. Though these projects are being built to help address a severe shortage of student housing, they will also ensure that when Olympians arrive to compete in 2028, their accommodations will be in tip-top shape. The southern end of the UCLA campus will connect to the forthcoming Purple Line subway extension, another project that is being sped up in preparation for the games. The line will link UCLA to Downtown Los Angeles, where many of the transit network’s lines converge. The 9-mile extension to the line was originally planned in the 1980s, but was held up by decades of political gridlock. Between UCLA and downtown, areas like West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood are adding thousands of new hotel rooms in advance of 2028. Though the region is carved up into competing municipalities that have a history of working at cross purposes, it is clear that local decision makers are readying these districts to absorb a substantial portion of the incoming flood of international tourists. For example, a current bid to extend the forthcoming north-south Crenshaw Line— which will connect LAX with the Purple Line north through West Hollywood—has picked up steam in recent months in an effort to provide a direct ride from the airport to this burgeoning hotel and nightlife quarter. L.A. 2028’s major sports park will be located at the L.A. Live complex in Downtown Los Angeles, near the eastern terminus of the Purple Line, where city officials have also been pushing for an expansion of hotel accommodations. Here, as many as 20 new high-rise complexes are on their way as the city works to add 8,000 new hotel rooms to the areas immediately surrounding the Los Angeles Convention Center, where basketball, boxing, fencing, taekwondo, and other sporting events will take place. This new district will be tied together by a nearly continuous podium-height band of LED display screens that could produce a modern-day equivalent of Jerde’s, and Sussman/Prejza’s visualizations. Just southeast of Downtown Los Angeles, the Expo Line–connected University of Southern California campus will host the Olympic media village, which will also make use of existing dormitory accommodations, including a recently completed campus expansion by HED (Harley Ellis Devereaux). Gensler’s Banc of California stadium, also a recent addition, is located nearby in Exposition Park, the home of the 1932 and 1984 games, and will host soccer and other athletic events in 2028. In the park, a newly renovated Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be retrofit with an elevated base to allow Olympic medalists to rise up out of the ground to receive their honorifics. A trip south on the Crenshaw Line will bring visitors to the Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park, a new state-of-the-art stadium being built for the Los Angeles Rams National Football League team by Turner and AECOM Hunt that is set to open in 2020 and will host the L.A. 2028 opening ceremonies. The stadium will be much more than a sports venue, bringing together a 70,240-seat stadium and a 6,000-seat concert hall under one roof. Its total capacity for mega-events can be stretched to 100,000 people. The stadium will also serve as an anchor to a much larger, 300-acre district that includes commercial, retail, and office buildings along with residential units. This development, formally called the L.A. Stadium and Entertainment District at Hollywood Park, is expected to be twice as big as Vatican City. Its staggering expense of more than $5 billion is tempered by the fact that it relies more on private financing than many other NFL stadiums built in the last three decades, which have traditionally leaned heavily on taxpayer funds and the pocketbooks of football fans. Besides the L.A. 2028 games, the stadium is also expected to host the 2022 Super Bowl and the 2023 College Football Playoff Championships. Not far away, Los Angeles World Airports is working on a multiphase effort to bring two new terminals and dozens of new flight gates to the airport, including a $1.6 billion Gensler and Corgan–designed terminal capable of handling “super-jumbo” airplanes for long-haul international flights. The facilities are set to open by 2028 and will join new consolidated transportation hubs that will streamline private automobile, mass transit, and pedestrian traffic for the busy airport. At the end of April, the L.A. 2028 organizing committee updated the estimated cost to be about $6.9 billion, up from the $5.3 billion figure submitted in the city's bid. This still hasn't changed the expectation that L.A. will at least break even on hosting the games. These projects show that while the L.A. 2028 Olympics are being somewhat undersold by their boosters, the investments necessary to bring the games to L.A. are, in fact, quite vast. Ultimately, future Angelenos might look back quizzically at the muted rhetoric surrounding the games and the once-in-a-generation effect they will have on the region.

The City of Inglewood in Southern California has announced a plan to add a 1.8-mile automated people mover (APM) connecting the forthcoming Los Angeles Rams stadium and the region’s growing transit network in the near future. A recently-unveiled scoping study called Envision Inglewood calls for establishing a “direct connection to rail” between downtown Inglewood and the city’s impressive slate of professional sports and performance venues.  Facilities that could be connected by the new transit route include: The Forum, the forthcoming Los Angeles Stadium and Entertainment District at Hollywood Park, and the recently-unveiled Inglewood Basketball and Entertainment Center, a potential new basketball stadium for the Los Angeles Clippers NBA team. The new $2.66 billion Rams stadium is designed by HKS Architects and will be joined by a 3,000-unit mixed-use residential development next door known as “City of Champions.” The Forum was designed by Charles Luckman Associates in 1966 in the late modern style; The complex is slated to host the gymnastic events for the 2028 Olympic Games. The Envision Inglewood plan was crafted in conjunction with a series of other transportation and pedestrian fixes. The plan considers four different alignments and a handful of transport modes in its aim to provide a “world-class transit connection to-and-from the Metro Crenshaw/LAX Line” transit route, an 8.5 mile light rail line connecting the cities of Los Angeles, Inglewood, and El Segundo through southern Los Angeles County slated to open in 2019. According to a presentation made at the Inglewood City Council, the report’s chosen route—dubbed the “Market-Manchester” alignment—would add the APM link starting from the forthcoming Downtown Inglewood stop on the Crenshaw Line. The elevated train would snake down Market Street and Manchester Boulevard, ultimately ending up on South Prairie street where it can conveniently stop at the three stadium and performance venue locations.  Renderings for the proposed plan depict lively street scenes overlooked by elevated train tracks on concrete piers. Projections for the line envision up to 2,578,120 potential boardings across the APM route per year, with slightly less than 40% of all boardings related to “event ridership.” According to the report, the link could cost $614.4 million to build and between $18.2 million and $19.5 million to operate each year.  A timeline for the project’s completion has not been announced. The new football stadium is scheduled to open for the 2019-2020 NFL season. 

The Texas Rangers will move to an HKS-designed new stadium in Arlington by 2020. The new venue, Globe Life Field, will hold 41,000 seats and a 1.7 million-square-feet ballpark. It will be home to games ranging from high school and college sporting events to professional, international games. The $1.1-billion baseball park broke ground in September 2017 and is now under construction. When completed, Globe Life Field will join the Texas Live! entertainment district as a new destination for entertainment tours. Taking into consideration the hot climate of the state, HKS introduced climate-controlling infrastructure, including the massive retractable roof that would open and close depending on the weather. The design aims to improve the comfort of watching games, with wider seats and varied front-row seating design. Two concourse rings allow for easy circulation. Restrooms and concessions are receded from the seating bowl to avoid the obstruction of views. HKS designed the plaza-facing north wall with a mixture of 18 brick, Texas limestone, granite arches filled with curtain walls in between. People will be able to walk on the corridor underneath the arches, which is the main concourse, and look down onto the plaza on one side and the game on the other. The design of a large plaza and multi-level landscape outside the stadium was inspired by Texas farmhouse porches. The project also borrowed elements from other ballparks, paying tribute to the neighboring, old Globe Life Park by using arches. It also referenced other local arch-sporting landmarks, such as the historic Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo in San Antonio and the Kahn-designed Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Go Rangers, go! HKS has released renderings for its new Texas Rangers stadium as well as a design update for the new complex, dubbed the Globe Life Field. The seats at the 1.7-million-square-foot baseball stadium are closer to the field and lower than traditional stadium seating to bring a capacity crowd of 41,000 fans as close as possible to the action. A retractable, transparent roof can flood the field with sunlight or close up for inclement weather, but even when open, the roof's baffles and shields block players from direct sunlight. Arches along the upper concourse are turned 90 degrees to increase transparency along the thoroughfare, while the stadium entry is set off with an overhang – a nod to the traditional Texas front porch. Total cost? A cool $1.1 billion. Dallas-based HKS also designed the L.A. Rams stadium, which at $2.66 billion has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the world's most expensive stadium to date. Technicians punched 20 million holes in the facade's 36,000 perforated aluminum panels, eliminating the need for an HVAC system (and driving project costs sky-high). The complex is expected to be finished by 2019. Back in Texas, the groundbreaking for the 13-acre Rangers site is scheduled for this Thursday, September 28. Games at the Dallas–Fort Worth-area Globe Life Field will begin in the 2020 baseball season.

 

The second phase of the Pro Football Hall of Fame project—namely, Tom Benson Stadium—is now complete. New renderings have also been released for the rest of the HKS Architects–designed venue, revealing what it could look like to be in this football-centric, “live-work-play” scheme.

The 23,000-seat Tom Benson Stadium, part of the $700 million Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio, opened to the public this month. The football stadium features a stage that's permanently embedded within the seating bowl as well as event terraces and luxury suites. In accordance to the “live-work-play” theme, the stadium will be not just be confined to sports events; it will host entertainment events and regional universities and high schools will also be able to use the venue.

The village is being heralded as the first-ever sports and entertainment “smart city,” according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s website. The “smart city” element will come from building systems being managed through advanced data analytics and from having infrastructure integration for maximum efficiency. A quarter of the project's budget will be spent on developing technology, according to Forbes. This includes the ability to geotag family members so visitors can find each other and wearable technology that tells you when to queue for a specific experience.

Other components for the 300-acre site include a National Football and Youth Sports Complex that has eight multi-purpose turf fields, a 345,400-square-foot hotel, a senior center for retired members of the NFL community, and an education-based "Center for EXCELLENCE." The existing Hall of Fame Museum will undergo improvements as part of the project. A main corridor with retail, restaurants, and office space will bring the village together.

"Our goal is to create the most intimate, immersive and connected fan experience in all of sports. We are extending the Pro Football Hall of Fame into a true live-work-play destination," Mark Williams, HKS principal, said to Forbes.

The rest of construction will be carried out in phases. The final phase of the venue will coincide with the NFL’s 100th season and subsequent Centennial celebration in 2019.

A team consisting of HKS Architects, Safdie Rabines Architects, and landscape architects OJB was recently selected by the University of California, San Diego to design the university’s new Living and Learning Neighborhood at North Torrey Pines, a forthcoming campus expansion modeled after traditional mixed-use urban forms. The project will provide housing for 2,000 undergraduate students as well as new educational spaces and administrative offices, among other uses. The campus extension will consist of seven new structures ranging between two and ten stories in height. Those new buildings, according to renderings released for the project, will feature blocky, articulated massing with various building geometries clad in traditional materials, including brick and wood panels. A pair of the structures will be 10-stories tall and joined at the midsection by a series of multi-level skybridges. Other structures will be composed of similarly hybridized masses, with traditional housing blocks stacked above office and educational podium structures. The buildings feature a relatively high ratio of exterior glazing, with large swaths of glass curtain walls and punched openings populating each expanse. The buildings will also feature multi-story cutouts and loggia spaces along their facades. Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, SOM, Kevin Daly Architects, and Kieran Timberlake are currently at work on a multi-phase housing expansion at California State University, Santa Barbara while Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects are working to overhaul and expand the Moore Turnbull Page-designed Kresge College housing complex at University of California, Santa Cruz. University of California, Davis is also planning a large-scale campus expansion. The project at UC San Diego is currently preparing to enter construction this summer and is expected to be completed sometime in 2020.

There are a few holes in HKS's stadium design for the Los Angeles Rams. In fact, there are 20 million. By numbers HKS has gone big: The $2.66 billion, 70,000-seater-stadium will use more than 36,000 panels of which will have 20 million perforations punched into them.

Dallas-based HKS prescribed an aluminum and ETFE skin to create a triangular facade-cum-canopy over and around the playing field where the Los Angeles Rams are set to play. Triangular panels form the structure too. Made from aluminum, the metal portion of the skin responds to the variable SoCal climate without the need for a HVAC system. Additionally, an ETFE ellipse, located in the center of the roof bathes the playing field in diffuse daylight. The desired effect, HKS said, is to create the impression of being outside.

A Design Assist project with facade fabricator Zahner Metals, HKS used their research and development arm, HKS LINE (the latter acronym stands for "Laboratory for INtensive Exploration") to aid the development of the stadium's skin. James Warton, a computational designer at HKS, spoke to The Architect's Newspaper, about the process used to conceive the facade.

Warton explained that the holes inside the in the triangular panels form an image on the facade, which can be seen properly when approaching the stadium from afar. Due to fabrication logistics and schedule, "only" 20 million perforations could be made with a required minimum distance of half-an-inch between each one. To get around this, though, eight different hole sizes were used to allow perforations to fall neatly in line with the panel's edge as well as enhance the facade's pattern.

To do this, a strategy using, Grasshopper, Rhino, C++ and Visual Studio was conceived which let HKS LINE determine perforation density and mapping. "Perforation sizes corresponding to grayscale values within the source image are also mapped onto the panel," said Warton. "We had to think of a system that would enable us to see every bit of information about every tile. This information is translated into text that can be used to make the panel."

The stadium, when completed in 2019, will be the world’s most expensive. James Warton will be speaking at the next Facades+ conference in New York April 6+7. There he and other members of HKS will discuss the Los Angeles Rams stadium and its facade in further detail. Seating is limited. To register, go to facadesplus.com

Los Angeles will soon be home to the first American outpost of the London-based Hospital Club, a private social club aimed at arts-focused creative professionals. The new venture, designed by HKS architects, would establish a hotspot for artists and creative entrepreneurs in Los Angeles’s Hollywood neighborhood by taking over the existing Redbury Hotel at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. That building, located across from the historic Capitol Records building, will be renovated to contain a slew of performance and shared office and studio spaces, as well as hotel rooms. The new complex, dubbed h. Club LA, will house facilities for film screenings, musical performances, exhibitions, among other types of cultural programs. It will also provide up to 36 bedrooms for use by the public. Hotel guests will become temporary members during their stay and will have access to the member facilities. The club will also offer a slate of member-accessible amenities, like a rooftop patio and restaurant, co-working spaces, gym, and music studio. In recent years, Hollywood has exploded with a large crop of housing, office, and mixed-use developments, including an office tower currently under construction by Gensler called the Icon. Los Angeles-based LARGE Architecture is also working on a midcentury modern style-inspired mixed-use residential tower in the neighborhood. The area also hosts a growing contingent of technology-related companies including headquarters facilities for Netflix, CNN, and Live Nation. With its Hollywood outpost, Hospital Club owners are betting the growing creative industries in the area will be a boon to business. Sue Walter, chief executive of Hospital Club told the Los Angeles Times, “Big names are moving into the area. I have been astonished by the level of development. It’s like it’s on the cusp of something exciting that is about to explode and we want to be part of that.” The club, which offers half-price memberships to individuals who are under the age of 30, is scheduled to open in 2018.

Dallas-based architecture firm HKS has been chosen to design a new ballpark for the Texas Rangers baseball team in Arlington, Texas. The stadium will be constructed as a public-private partnership between the team and the City of Arlington: It will serve as the Rangers' home field and as a multipurpose arena for high school, college, and international sports. As the design phase wraps up, images and information from a press release reveal that the field will offer a retractable roof for shading and climate control purposes and will be interwoven with the adjacent Texas Live! entertainment district that is currently in development. Costs so far are estimated at $1 billion with the City of Arlington's contribution limited to $500 million. The Rangers' current home, Globe Life Park, which is also in Arlington, is owned by the team on a 30-year lease from the city. This is due to end in 2024, but as per a new agreement between the Rangers and Arlington, their partnership for the new arena will continue until 2054. 22 years ago, HKS was the architect of record when the Rangers first moved into Globe Park in 1994. “For us, the new Texas Rangers Ballpark development is very special. It carries its own rich identity based on a combination of tradition, heritage, character and ambition that will ultimately represent itself as the premier destination in North Texas,” said Bryan Trubey, HKS executive vice president and principal designer on the project, in a press release. “We are delighted to be part of this exciting new development that will impact not only the Texas Rangers and their fans, but the city of Arlington and the entire region for many years to come.” Meanwhile, Rangers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Rob Matwick added: “HKS’ vision for this new facility will incorporate all of the features that will make this venue the best in Major League Baseball. We look forward to working with them to achieve that result.”

The new $2.66 billion HKS-designed football stadium for the Los Angeles Rams broke ground in Inglewood, California late last week, bringing the newly-relocated National Football League (NFL) team one step closer toward completing the team’s transition from Saint Louis to Los Angeles. The stadium, designed by New York–based HKS, features a giant triangular roof supported by thick columns and made of ETFE. This super-roof also spans across an adjacent outdoor lobby called “champions plaza” to be used as a communal gathering spot for game day spectators. Los Angeles–based Mia Lehrer + Associates is acting as landscape architect for the project. The stadium has been designed to accommodate two professional teams and to seat 80,000 spectators for these types of sporting events, with the San Diego Chargers potentially lining up to use the stadium as their new home. The recent election dashed that team’s bid to fund a new stadium in San Diego proper, opening up the potential for the Inglewood stadium to host that team as well as the Rams. HKS has designed to the multi-use stadium to accommodate up to 100,000 spectators for concerts that utilize the playing field for floor seating and the stadium is also being considered as part of the city’s 2024 Olympic bid. The stadium will be located at the heart of the new City of Champions district, a purpose-built mixed-use, entertainment, and leisure neighborhood being constructed on the site of the recently-demolished Hollywood Park fairgrounds. The City of Champions development has been under construction for several months and with construction of the stadium component of the development (a late-in-the-game addition to the neighborhood) now underway, plans are quickly coalescing around making the new neighborhood a focal point for the region. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has publicly endorsed the idea of extending existing light rail system to the stadium and plans are currently being developed to provide such access. The stadium is due to be completed in time for the 2019-2020 NFL season.  

The Westfield Corporation has filed plans to demolish its 43-year old Promenade mall in the far-western San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, aiming to replace the aging complex with a $1.5-billion mixed-use development containing 1,400 residences. The project, with design by Westfield's in-house design and architecture as well as HKS, Johnson Fain, and Togawa Smith Martin Architects, is inspired by the Warner Center 2035 master plan for the surrounding area, which calls for converting the Warner Center purpose-built business district into a functionally-diverse urban neighborhood. Among other things, the plan calls for “a mix of uses that are within walking distance of one another so people can easily walk rather than drive.” The area’s plan, to be implemented in 2035, would also aim to create "complete streets" that “accommodate alternatives to the car, in particular, an internal circulator in the form of a modern streetcar and ‘small slow vehicle’ lanes for bicycles, Segway-like vehicles, electric bicycles, other small electric vehicles, and any other vehicle that does not move faster than a bicycle.” Plans for the Westfield site would incorporate these principles through the addition of new internal, pedestrianized streets that connect to major thoroughfares as well as the use of the site as for “open streets” events that are closed to automobile traffic. Westfield Corporation’s plan for the Promenade mall, sitting just across the street from the area’s namesake Warner Center towers, calls for the addition of 1,400 residential units, 150,000 square feet creative office, 470,000 square feet Class-A office space, and 244,000 square feet of commercial retail space. The project will also contain a 272-room hotel adjacent to the creative offices and a second, 300-room hotel that will be physically connected to the Class-A office component. The housing components of the project will be arranged in low-rise courtyard complexes while the office and hotel components will hug the western and southern edges of the site. Another central component of the project involves a so-called “Entertainment and Sports Center” that will accommodate flexible seating for up to 15,000 spectators. The sports center will aim to boost the community-minded aspects of the new complex, with also include a one-acre central park and upwards of five-acres of rooftop gardens and patio spaces. Construction on the complex is due to begin in 2020 or 2021 and will continue in phases until 2035.

Are you ready for some football? The Pro Football Hall of Fame will soon be big enough that you can live in it 24/7. The Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio will expand to include a 300-acre lifestyle center that will include everything from a stadium to assisted living housing for senior football Hall of Famers. The $500 million project is being carried out under the guidance of Dallas-based HKS Architects. Construction started in September 2015 and is scheduled to continue in phases through 2019. The first major addition is the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. With construction well under way, the small stadium will provide an intimate experience for fans more akin to classic stadiums. “Although the scale... of this venue is not as large as some of our more recent football stadiums, the quality of fan experience and overall intimacy within the venue will be unmatched in sports,” remarked Mark Williams, principal and director of business development for HKS. A National Football and Youth Sports Complex will provide eight multi-purpose turf fields. Outfitted with the latest in lighting and video technology, the complex will seat 3,000. A new hotel and conference center is also set to begin construction in September 2016. The football-themed hotel will include 25,000 square feet of conference space. A “Main Street” of retail, restaurants, and office space will run through the village. The project also has an education component in the form of the Center for EXCELLENCE. Focused on athletic performance and safety, the center will be home to a Coaches University, the Institute for the Integrity of Officiating, and the Academy of Corporate Excellence. The center will also include a 9,000 seat indoor football and basketball arena, along with 80,000 square feet of convention space. The Legend Landing will be an independent and assisted living senior care center for retired Hall of Famers and other members of the NFL community. For younger visitors, the Hall of Fame itself will incorporate an immersive virtual reality experience, putting fans as close to the game as possible. The Hall of Fame village is expected to be completed by 2019, to coincide with the National Football League’s centennial season.