Gehl Architects in Los Angeles
Illustration: Gehl Architects
What would you do if you had $20 million dollars and were tasked with turning three and a half miles of one of Los Angeles’ most iconic streets into the kind of street that encourages people to be outside? That’s the question the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) raised in 2010.
Follow the discussion on LA.Streetsblog.org.
Gehl Architects have been developing ideas for this iconic streetscape of Los Angeles and for those of you in the neighborhood, Gehl Architects director Oliver Schulze is giving a talk at the UCLA February 11 on the issue of Public Space and Public Life.
Figueroa as it appears today - space enough for cars, but is it good for people?
Making the best of what is there - but is it worthy of a great city to treat its people like this?
Gehl Architects illustration of some possible improvements to Figueroa, Los Angeles
A possible future for Figueroa? Illustration by Gehl Architects.
I am a fan of conceptuals, as a planner it is important to close the gap between what is just an idea in your head and how it may actually look. That map is rad also, but let’s be honest… do we really need a map to know there is too much damn parking? You could make that map for anywhere in the region and it would look almost exactly the same. Those are pretty pictures and maps… planners see these same images over and over again. What I want to know is who’s going to pay for it? There are a lot of great studies out there that are holding down the book shelves. I want to know how we get from pretty pictures to yellow umbrellas. Without an implementation strategy that is more than “the CRA is going to pay for it
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It would be awesome if the Danish Consulate in Los Angeles would weigh in on this matter with a public demonstration of Danish bicycle planning and bicycle types – two products their country can use to open up larger channels of trade.
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I really hope this comes to fruition. Amazing.
That parking land use map is also really scary. I made a similar one for Downtown Santa Monica and was alarmed by the amount of red, but even that paled in comparison to the Fig corridor.
I’m very pleased to finally see this kind of thinking in Los Angeles. About 10 years later than most other American cities, but better late then never, right? Even the most automobile-centric Angeleno is a pedestrian some of the time. It’s high time we started building our streets so that they are actually enjoyable to walk along, rather than treating them as automobile sewers where pedestrians are marginalized.
Interesting project! What concerns me (and I’ve read comments expressing similar opinions in Streetsblog LA post) is how to transform those people-repealing facades which seem to be in abundance on this street? It isn’t only interesting regarding this particular corridor, but in general – what can be done when a lot of bad buildings are already in place?