Tag: Class of 2020

The current Los Angeles River appears to be immutable, however, there is differentiation in existing channel that is hidden to most people. Along the river, there are locations under various conditions that can be added with a series of pocket habitats to meet the needs for ecological restoration. By using gabion technology, the flexibility of the structure and filled material can be utilized to establish different typical habitats for bird, fish, insect and riparian plants. These easily-built concentrated moments are able to adapt to different river conditions, rather than modifying the existing concrete channel, these gabion structures can be easily installed on the concrete surface which is flexible and cost-saving. Not only align with U.S. Army Corps’s goals: flood prevention and ecological restoration, these pocket spaces can also be used as educational facilities for urban river ecology and habitats.

Presenting an alternative to the terracing proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers, this project instead proposes to use a pattern approach to organize a channel ecological revitalization. Patterns, as compared to terraces, also provide good habitat, as well as improved flood performance, a more natural aesthetic, one more authentic to the historic conditions. According to Karen M’Closkey, an expert on patterns in landscape architecture “Patterns can be used as bridging mechanisms between a landscape’s utilitarian and aesthetic functions” (2013)., within the LA River’s compromised situation, ecological patterns can bridge between often competing mandates for maintaining the existing hydrology and adding restoration-features. In this project, two patterns are tested, one for vegetation and another for a water feature.

For my ADR project, I am going to act as a curator. I will choose the artworks and interpret them along the river to create the form that can make a great river ecology and open space. This “physical poetry” will make the LA River more vibrant, attract more people come here, care about the river, understand the culture and spirit of the river.

The various sports of LA River’s restorative experiments in recent years have brought it a new kind of experience and attention. Based on these conditions and the responsiveness to the multi-scale landscape, the new improved technology based on the concept of “Hypernature” will bring regeneration to the downtown-port of the LA River and a paradigm of urban river-way elastic landscape. Research on new technologies will produce a new assemblage, HyperBoulder, which are full of potential and flexibility. Variations resulting from the adaptation of new assemblies to different sites and species will also be of great help in improving the downtown portion of the LA River landscape in the future.

There is flowing water, but it is confined to a small low flow channel in the center of the concrete expanse. Given the Metro’s master plan for bike path and other plans to bring people into the channel, there is a real need to improve the river’s microclimate. While adding shade via trees or structures may seem it is an obvious solution, the extreme stormwater flows make these typical approached impractical. My proposal is to cool the channel’s intermittent microclimate without adding trees of structure shade and create a cooling station for travelers on the proposed paths.

The real challenge for the Los Angeles River is the ecological compromise for the existing riparian habitat. It’s a huge challenge to reproduce the historical elements with limited vegetation since normal terraces couldn’t occupy in LA river condition in the way of providing a flexible and temporary structure for flood control. In this case, the pilot project is proposing a series of modified grid ridge structures (geo-blocks) on the concrete riverbank to help restore the natural habitat of Los Angeles River. The goal of this pilot project is to experiment with an intermediate form between the concrete and soft bottom to achieve the ecological and aesthetic revitalization of the Los Angeles River.

The Los Angeles River is an extreme scenario of landscape altered by anthropogenic forces. Presently, polluted water spills oozing out of the conveyance drainage have degraded the channel surface, which declares the force of nature against Anthropocene. This observation reveals the River’s self-regulating process and creates an interlacing narrative between the concrete and the water. This project celebrates the River’s process by proposing a retrofit recipe that can enhance ecological values in an impermeable concrete environment. This project not only encapsulates the materiality of the River’s concrete and water narratives, but also utilizes the existing channel conditions to establish a connection between aesthetics, ecology, programs, and water.

By restoring the function of the Los Angeles River as a seasonal fish migration corridor, my project aims to awaken and recover the important value of the ecological environment and biodiversity of the LA River. By using more environmentally friendly and recyclable concrete materials to create habitats for plants and fish, the design restore the site’s natural and ecological processes while preserving the geometric concrete features of the LA River and its original flood control function. The fractal pattern with infinite growth characteristics is used to arrange the site and connect the inanimate static concrete habitat structures with the dynamic living natural elements, blurring the boundary between each other.