Practicing Time: The Architecture of the LA 2028 Olympics

From Mumford to Gideon, Moneo to Rossi, Tschumi to Virilio, scholars of architecture have long associated the evolution of cities with our evolving understanding of time. This thesis section will explore architecture as a practice rooted in and deeply informed by philosophies of time – historical time, technological time, ecological time, and human time. Through the design of temporary structures for the 2028 Olympics, students will be asked to take a stand on the structure’s more permanent impact on the Los Angeles community of the future.

The historical impact of the Olympics on the host cities is wide-ranging, from positive to negative. Thus, projects in this section may critique as much as they celebrate – suggesting, if designed correctly, the long-term impact of the 2028 Olympics in LA could be largely positive, creating catalytic development for the greater good of a particular community or they may suggest the impact to be catastrophic, producing a dystopian ruin, memorializing squandered opportunities which never came to full fruition.

Using a subset of typical programs associated with the Olympics – from sports facilities to housing to public bathrooms to bridges to pedestrian and bicycle pathways to entertainment zones to media centers to security apparatus – as their program, students are to arrive at a thesis concerning the future city. Students can decide to work at a large urban scale or a small human scale based on their interests.