Three finalist teams have released hotly-anticipated designs for a new tower complex at Angels Knoll, a former Los Angeles park now known as Angels Landing. The finalists were selected based on their submissions to a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued by the City of Los Angeles back in January to develop a parcel at 4th and Hill Streets, which was once home to Angels Knoll, a park that closed in 2013. The RFP asked architects to include affordable housing on the one-acre lot, which bridges the neighborhoods of the Historic Core, Civic Center, and Bunker Hill. Urbanize.LA reports that the development will also offer pedestrian access to California Plaza, the Pershing Square Metro Station, and Angels Flight, a historic railway. One design team, Angels Landing Development Partners (ALDP), is led by local developer Lowe Enterprises in collaboration with Cisneros Miramontes, Gensler, and Relm Studio. ALDP's tower design, pictured first in the gallery above, stretches to 883 feet (1.27 million square feet in all). Its building is proposed as a part of the UCLA campus. The tower would include 655 residences targeting university faculty, and it would host ample academic, office, and adaptable program space. The renderings depict an irregularly stepped tower of terra-cotta and glass with publicly-accessible terraced landscaping and green roofs on a few of the setbacks. Another team is comprised of Onni Group, a Vancouver-based developer, and Stanley Saitowitz of San Francisco–based Natoma Architects. In the renderings, two unevenly stacked steel-and-glass massings stand at respective heights of 840 and 410 feet tall. The shorter structure would include condos and a hotel, while the taller tower would include apartments, commercial space, and an elementary school. Two acres of open space are incorporated into the plan at ground level and at California Plaza. Angels Landings Partners (ALP), the final team, is a partnership between MacFarlane Partners, the Peebles Corporation, and Claridge Properties, as well as Handel Architects and Olin. ALP has also proposed two towers for the site, one at 24 stories and another at a lofty 88 stories. These structures would incorporate 400 rental units (20 of those affordable), 250 condos, and 500 hotel rooms. The buildings, with 57,000 square feet of open space, would also include extensive retail space and a charter school. If ALP's design were to move forward, the towers would become the largest minority-owned development in L.A. The city plans to select a developer for the project in November.

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission has approved the Lake on Wilshire project, a 41-story mixed-use housing tower complex proposed by Archeon Group and developer Walter Jayasinghe for L.A.’s Westlake neighborhood. The proposal currently plans to bring 478 market-rate apartments—including 39 affordable units—to the area. The project site at 1930 Wilshire is currently occupied by a surface parking lot and is being developed to include an 850-seat performing arts center dedicated to Sri Lankan culture. The 70,000-square-foot performing arts center will sit at the corner of the site and is depicted in renderings for the project as a five-story structure wrapped in angular, multi-colored mosaic panels. The cultural center is planned to include ground floor public open spaces and feature a large statue located at the corner as well. An existing and historic medical office building located next door to the proposed tower and cultural center will be converted into a 220-key hotel room as part of the project. The project is located around the corner from the Westlake/MacArthur Park Purple Line Station and represents one of the first major market-rate developments for the predominantly working class and immigrant neighborhood. Westlake is sandwiched between Koreatown—which has seen many proposals for new, dense housing towers in recent years—and Downtown Los Angeles, another growing area. There are many concerns about the project, especially with regard to its less-than-stellar community benefits package and the high potential for neighborhood displacement the project could bring. Plans to provide $20,000 for the installation of Los Angeles Police Department surveillance cameras within a two-block radius of the project have also raised concerns in the neighborhood. Recent development in the area includes a 52-unit supportive housing complex for formerly-homeless veterans by L.A.-based Brooks + Scarpa and the Skid Row Housing Trust as well as a proposal by KTGY Architecture + Planning for an 85-unit transitional housing project built using repurposed shipping containers. A timeline for the Lake on Wilshire project has not been released. The project next heads to the Los Angeles City Council for final approval. For more information, see the Lake on Wilshire project website.

KTGY Architecture + Planning has unveiled renderings for a new 85-unit transitional housing project built with repurposed shipping containers slated for Los Angeles’s Westlake neighborhood. The project, dubbed Hope on Alvarado, is being billed by developer Aedis Real Estate Group as the first shipping container–built transitional housing project in Los Angeles. According to a press release, the use of shipping containers will result in a truncated six-month construction timeline for the project. Plans call for craftspeople to assemble the shipping container components off-site while the building’s foundations are being laid. Off-site production will include the installation of final finishes and fixtures as well, so that once the foundations are prepared, the nearly-complete units can be crane-lifted into place. The project will represent a sort of test run for the building technique, as Aedis has announced it is pursuing a slate of shipping container–built projects across the Downtown Los Angeles-adjacent neighborhood. In the release, Keith Labus, principal of KTGY, said, “We’re not trying to hide the fact that these are shipping containers. There would be great costs associated with creating the level of character they already have.” Speaking in reference to the firm’s various projects planned for the area, Labus said, “Our approach is to work with what we have and develop something unique at each location.” The complex is wrapped in corrugated metal siding and is organized around a central courtyard surrounded by circulation corridors. Each unit will be made up of several containers that have been spliced together and punctured to allow for floor-to-ceiling window assemblies and doorways. Ground floor areas will be clad in storefront glass. Units in the complex will range from studios to one-bedroom configurations, averaging between 400- and 480 square feet in size. The complex will also contain ground floor supportive services. The project is among the first to be approved according to the Los Angeles Planning Department’s new Transit Oriented Community Guidelines. Hope on Alvarado comes as the population of Angelenos experiencing homelessness grew 23 percent last year, with the estimated number of unsheltered people rising to 57,794 individuals, according to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority report issued earlier this year.

The list of potential pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly bridges coming to a stretch of the Los Angeles River in northeast Los Angeles continues to grow with the recent announcement of a new $20 million span. The latest bridge would cross between the City of Glendale and L.A.’s Griffith Park, connecting over the L.A. River bed and Interstate-5. Designs for the proposed pedestrian link by T.Y. Lin International Group and the City of Glendale call for a winding, board-formed concrete span topped by distinctive white metal trellises. The trellises would be surrounded by integrated seating areas and planting beds. Plans for the exact location of the bridge are currently under discussion, and the city has released three potential sites. The bridge would only be built if a statewide voter referendum is approved for the ballot this year and is majority-supported in 2018. Laura Friedman, a local California Assemblyperson backing the project, said in a press release: “The bridge isn’t just a link between neighborhoods, it’s connecting people with open space, miles of bike paths, and economic opportunity, all while creating jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and congestion on our streets and freeways.” The bridge joins a pair of other proposals, including a $16.1-million scheme for  the North Atwater Multimodal Bridge roughly a mile south that is also being developed by the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering (BoE) on behalf of the City of Los Angeles. Funds for the bridge include a donation from developer Morton La Kretz, a grant from the Caltrans Active Transportation Program, and City of L.A. funding, among others. The bridge, designed by Buro Happold, is 325-foot-long and utilizes cable-stayed technology to span over the L.A. River. The bridge was initially donated by La Kretz, but project costs have spiraled out of control and now far exceed the initial donation amount. It is expected that the cost of the bridge will now be borne by taxpayers. The bridge is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in 2019. The Taylor Yard Bridge—designed by Studio Pali Fekete Architects— and is also planned for a nearby stretch of the river. The 400-foot-long $19 million bridge would span between the Elysian Valley neighborhood and Taylor Yard, which is currently being vetted for redevelopment. The bridge features a metal truss frame and contains an outlook at the center of the crossing. The bridge is expected to enter construction in 2018. Once these projects are completed, traveling between northeast Los Angeles and all points west of the L.A. River will be much easier than it is today.   This post has been updated.

How do two young designers get to participate in an invite-only robotics conference in Palm Springs, California, organized by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos? First, you have to be creative; second, you have to get your work online, and finally, you have to be lucky. Joseph Sarafian and Ron Culver, AIA were classmates at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design in Greg Lynn’s studio. They were exploring how to use digital design to create unique components that could be fabricated using state-of-the-art industrial robotics, the kind of robots that build cars. They developed a system that allowed the designers to go directly from a digital image to physical reality. Their prototype eventually found its way onto the internet. Then, according to Sarafian, “We got an email from Amazon’s team out of the blue, after seeing our robotic concrete research 'Fabric Forms’ on blogs and websites.” They were invited to attend what Amazon calls their MARS Conference (Machine learning, Automation, Robotics, Space exploration). Like a private TED Conference, the MARS Conference brings together business leaders, academics and others pushing the envelope of technology.  

The resulting MARS Pavilion prototype—including an exhibition and video of the design process—is currently on view at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in the Los Angeles Arts District.  The pavilion will be up through Saturday, October 7 and has been sponsored by CTS Cement and Helix Steel.

Besides acquiring The Washington Post and Whole Foods, Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin, a space exploration company that is intended to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The Blue Origin company motto is “Gradatim Ferociter,” Latin for “Step by Step, Ferociously.” This motto might also apply to the work of Sarafian and Culver. The MARS Pavilion by their firm Form Found Design (FFD) is the first robotically-cast concrete pavilion in the world. While it is intriguing to look at, what is more important than its image is its method of design and construction. The MARS Pavilion consists of 70 unique, robotically-cast “wishbone” shaped components that are all bolted together with an identical steel connection detail.  Using the robotic precision of large ABB industrial robots, they achieved a tolerance of 1/16 inch. This is extraordinary in concrete construction, where the usual level of tolerance is ¼ inch—It’s an improvement of 400%. All the MARS Pavilion forms are derived from concrete’s most inherent quality, compression. Walter P. Moore performed a structural engineering analysis and recommended one-inch "Helix Steel" twisted fibers for reinforcement rather than traditional re-bar. This provides greater flexibility. The goal is to allow for the precision fabrication of a wide range of design components at low cost. Ron Culver described their approach as “a true digital workflow where previously unbuildable complex geometry is now feasible.” In downtown Los Angeles, for example, Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the Broad Museum proposing many unique concrete forms. Due to cost constraints, the design had to be simplified so that only the oculus (a curved opening at the front of the building) survived the value engineering and cost-cutting process. FFD believe their approach will allow design variation in concrete with no additional cost. FFD envisions many future applications including creating economical housing solutions for developing nations. Sarafian explained, “We are interested in exploring this fabrication technique to create an easy-to-assemble housing prototype for developing countries.” The MARS Pavilion installation is on view through October 7th at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, 900 E 4th St, Los Angeles, CA 90013, tickets are available for the closing reception here. You can follow Follow their FFD's work on Instagram @formfound_design

The dilapidated and boarded-up Lincoln Heights Jail—a five-story, 229,000-square-foot art deco and modernist complex adjacent to the Los Angeles River—is on the verge of transformation as L.A. City Council officials prepare to implement redevelopment plans for the three-acre site. Sandwiched between Downtown Los Angeles and the city’s economically-stressed Eastside neighborhoods, the shuttered complex is one of the city’s most prominent historic landmarks. The triangular site sits in the city’s Cleantech Corridor and is written into the Cornfields Arroyo Seco specific plan as well. Those designations help poise the site for the type of high-end industrial redevelopment that is currently remaking the nearby Arts District while also threatening nearby communities with displacement. The jail was built in 1927 and was designed to hold 625 prisoners, though by the 1950s, it imprisoned more than 2,000 individuals, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy. Because of overcrowding, it was expanded in 1953 with a modernist wing. The jail has played an important role in the city’s history, holding individuals arrested during the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 and the Watts Riots of 1965, for example. Individuals who had been arrested over suspicions regarding their sexual orientation were also imprisoned at the Lincoln Heights jail, which even contained a separate wing dedicated to incarcerating gay prisoners. The jail was decommissioned in 1965 and became vacant in 2014. Currently, developers CIM Group, WORKS, and Lincoln Property Company are each vying for the opportunity to remake the site. Developer CIM Group has proposed redeveloping the site as a mixed-use district called “The Linc” containing offices, housing—including multifamily and low-income units—retail shops, restaurants, and a community garden. The proposal calls for converting the art deco portion of the structure into a hotel with a rooftop restaurant. The 1953 addition would be converted to residential use while a triangular structure on the far end of the site will contain a single story of retail programming. CIM has partnered with architects LOHA, LA Más, and landscape architects Superjacent for the proposal. Nonprofit housing developer WORKS—Women Organizing Resources Knowledge and Service—is looking to re-envision the site as a community-driven enterprise called “Las Alturas.” The complex would include 122 housing units, including 66 permanent supportive housing and 47 moderate-income homes. The proposed complex would also include a community center, child care facilities, theater, and generously-landscaped areas designed by Mia Lehrer + Associates (MLA). Mia Lehrer, principal at MLA explained to The Architect’s Newspaper that the WORKS-led proposal represented “the kind of community-focused investor you imagine exists but you don’t get meet very often,” adding that the design team included partnerships with Cal Poly Pomona’s agriculture program, and architects Omgivning and Killefer Flammang Architects. A third proposal by Lincoln Property Company, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, and Fifteen Group is also on the table. That scheme—called the Lincoln Heights Makers District—calls for a commercial- and manufacturing-focused district containing four acres of open space. The plan includes 268,250 square feet of residential space, including an affordable housing component; 220,000 square feet of commercial space; and 57,000 square feet of manufacturing and retail spaces. The designers envision repurposing the existing jail facility as a manufacturing center with associated housing and commercial spaces located alongside.  The project has been proposed by the developer as part of a larger scheme that includes an adjacent, privately-owned 3.2-acre site that will contain live/work spaces. The proposal would include connections to the L.A. River as well as outdoor community-oriented leisure and work spaces.  The schemes are currently being vetted by the City's economic development committee before heading to the full City Council for consideration. The City Council is expected to decide on the proposals as soon as this fall.  

An iconic postmodern Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet in Los Angeles has been severely damaged after a fire yesterday afternoon. Located on 340 North Western Avenue, in Koreatown, the restaurant suffered burns to its roof and walls. Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart told San Fernando Valley Media that 40 firefighters took to the scene, dealing with the fire in just over 30 minutes. No injuries have been reported; however, an investigation into the cause of the fire is still underway. The KFC was formerly run by Jack Wilkee, who took on the franchise to make changes to the restaurant, which he operated for 25 years. "I challenged the notion that all KFC franchises should have the same standard design of fake mansard roofs (and) outsize Colonel Sanders bucket," Wilke told the L.A. Times in 1990. "Why not do something radically different for a change?" To make such a change, Wilke, an art collector, sought the expertise of local architect Elyse Grinstein, who he knew from his art circles. Grinstein's influence, exhibited in her charred work, comes from Frank Gehry, her former boss, and Michael Graves, who was Grinstein's student when she was a teaching assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wilke enjoyed Gehry's overtones that carried through in Grinstein's architecture so much so that he let her have free reign with the KFC's design. "I turned the design over to her, and let her have her head," he said. As a result, Jeffrey Daniels, Grinstein's partner and colleague at the Culver City practice Grinstein/Daniels, produced the Koreatown icon that many know today. "Jack (Wilke) wanted to do an updated Googie KFC," Daniels said, "but we convinced him to take it one step further and reinterpret the 1950s diner style in a more sophisticated 1990s idiom," Daniels said, also speaking to the L.A. Times 27 years ago. The design may have been the first KFC to break the formal mold that had been a precedent for KFC's before, but it certainly was not the last.

A post shared by Jason Sayer (@jasonsayer) on Aug 25, 2017 at 4:38am PDT

Also in California, the Palm Springs KFC dons a Googie aesthetic. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Marietta "Big Chicken" (which became a KFC franchise in 1991) sports a 56-foot-tall steel chicken, complete with a moving beak. The much-loved roadside restaurant recently received $2 million makeover.

Large Architecture, Jamison Services, and Hankey Capital have revealed new renderings for 2900 Wilshire, a mixed-use high-rise development slated to bring a 23-story tower with 644 apartments and 13,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space the  Koreatown neighborhood in Los Angeles. Renderings for the project depict a curvaceous tower clad in floor-to-ceiling curtain walls studded with narrow vertical metal panels. The tower’s facades feature alternating and deep-set balconies along the rounded corners of the tower’s V-shaped mass. The complex is topped by a grassy rooftop amenity level and its parking podium also boasts amenities, including a swimming pool. The new renderings are an update over previously-released views that accompanied an earlier planning submittal. The updated images portray a slightly more streamlined structure with more pronounced balconies and highly-polished cladding materials. The development is slated for a site located opposite the neighborhood’s Lafayette Park and comes amid increased high-rise development in a predominantly working-class area fed by a growing public transit network. A timeline for the project has not been released.

Architects Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) and owner National Construction have released renderings for a new 30-unit condominium complex in West Hollywood that features cantilevered corners, faceted facades, and perforated metal panel and wood cladding. The four-story complex at 1030 N. Kings Road is located in the same neighborhood as the firm’s much-heralded Habitat 825 complex. 1030 N. Kings Road is designed to break down in scale as it rises and features a series of geometric cut-outs along its facades. The cut-outs establish viewsheds for individual units while also allowing for natural daylight to flood into the building’s common areas, which include a shared gym and communal seating spaces. The cut-outs also contain screened outdoor balconies and terraces accessible to building units. The development’s two large amenity spaces are located along the building’s most prominent facades, which are wrapped in the various cladding types. Renderings for the project depict a faceted housing block with large windows, a double-height entry lobby, and well-lit corridors. The 41,500-square-foot project comes as LOHA expands its footprint in the L.A’s bustling multifamily housing sector. The firm recently completed work on a starburst-shaped apartment complex in Los Angeles. In addition to moving forward on the 1030 N. Kings Road project, Lorcan O'Herlihy will also be presenting at AN's Facades+ conference in Los Angeles this October. See the Facades+ website for more information. The project is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in mid- to late-2018.

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company—a tunnel-focused start-up aimed at reducing the overall cost of building underground tunnels in urban areas—has received approval from the Hawthorne City Council in Los Angeles County to build an initial two-mile-long test tunnel under the city’s streets. The approval was made this week and would allow Musk’s Boring Company to extend an ongoing pilot tunnel being dug on the site of the company’s headquarters in Hawthrone, near Los Angeles International Airport. The company is building the tunnel using a second-hand boring machine that was originally used to dig a sewer tunnel in San Francisco, Daily Breeze reports. The souped-up boring machine is named “Godot” and is designed to dig tunnels that measure 14 feet in diameter, 50 percent narrower than traditional subway tunnels. The smaller diameter is expected to bring costs down considerably, reducing costs three to four times compared to traditional methods, according to The Boring Company website. In recent weeks, the company took to building a shaft and a 160-foot-long tunnel on the property, a passage that will be extended underneath local city streets as soon as is feasible. With the approval comes a series of new details surrounding Musk’s plan, including a proposal for a new type of autonomous vehicle system that would allow the entire system to function seamlessly. The 14-foot wide vehicle would consist of an automated platform that can hold pedestrian passengers and bicyclists. These so-called “Skates” would travel in the tunnels and be capable of carrying people, vehicles, as well as other types of freight. The tunnels are also being planned to reuse excavated dirt from the construction process into site-cast building blocks that can be used to line the tunnel interiors in lieu of conventional concrete coatings. Musk also expects that the tunnels will be a useful way of extending a proposed Hyperloop network into dense urban areas.  Brett Horton, SpaceX's head of construction, said in a statement, "We won't have construction crews walking down the street, we won’t have any trucks or excavators working in those areas." Instead of performing labor-intensive and traffic-snarling decking procedures like those involved with traditional subway construction, "Everything that we’re doing is underground," Horton explained. For now, construction on the tunnels continues.

Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has revealed renderings for a new 447-acre mountaintop campus for the Berggruen Institute, a policy-focused consortium of think tanks funded by billionaire Nicolas Berggruen. The complex—made up of a collection of subdued structures that occupy only roughly 10% of the overall site—is being planned to include a private residence for Berggruen’s family, 15 scholars’ residences, and a series of gardens strung along a publically-accessible linear park. The campus is anchored on its southern end by a low-slung research center with views towards Downtown Los Angeles. The campus will be located on a mountaintop that was formerly used as a landfill; the project site consists of a portion of the mountainside that was scraped and flattened in the 1980s in order to cap the landfill. That previously-disturbed 32-acre section of land will contain the development in its entirety, with the remaining 415-acres of the property persisting in a more-or-less natural state. The linear site is organized with the private residence at its north end, the scholars’ residences at the center, and the linear park and research center at its southern tip. The research center—dubbed “the Institute Frame” by the architects—consists of a rectangular structure containing a large courtyard at its center. The building is lifted 12 feet off the ground and contains a variety of indoor-outdoor connections along the elevated sections. The Frame’s courtyard will contain natural landscaping, a spherical 250-seat lecture hall, and a large reflecting pool, among other components. The frame structure will also house visiting scholars in a collection of apartments, with plans calling for 26 scholars-in-residence units and 14 visiting scholar units. The Frame Institute will also contain meeting rooms, study spaces, offices, artists’ studios, media spaces and dining and reception areas, according to the release. Regarding the pared-down architectural approach, Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron told the Los Angeles Times, “We want to use the spheres in the purest possible way, to make them almost immaterial. Not an expression of new technologies or a heroic engineering solution. They shouldn’t show any sign of effort or structural expression. We were just interested in this idea of the purity of the form—in its innocence, so to speak.” In a press release announcing the project, Nicolas Berggruen stated, “By building our campus here on the Pacific coast, we hope to advance the position of Los Angeles as a world center for ideas, linking the East to the West. By commissioning this visionary design from Herzog & de Meuron, we demonstrate our intention to make an important contribution to the architecture of Los Angeles and the world.” Gensler will work as the executive architect on the project, with landscape design to be performed by Michel Desvigne Paysagiste and Inessa Hansch Architecte. Although the project has already begun initial planning review, a timeline for the project has not been released.