for our final project of the fall, second year semester, we were told to design a lifestyle center for the car brand of our choice, in the heart of the up and coming la live area near the staples center and the nokia theater.
before choosing our brand, we took a trip down the street to investigate our site, currently, a vacant parking lot. the site is a corner lot which sits next to a hotel, and across the street from the grammy museum and a restaurant on one side, an apartment tower on the other, and the towering three-piece painted billboards that are the hotel figueroa. while the urban nature of this site provides a greatdeal of context, stylistically, i didn't find anything to inspire my design, but geometrically, the adjacent buildings create a very unique set of prominent adjacencies that began to "turn some gears." at this point, i thought of the story of ferdinand.
before choosing our brand, we took a trip down the street to investigate our site, currently, a vacant parking lot. the site is a corner lot which sits next to a hotel, and across the street from the grammy museum and a restaurant on one side, an apartment tower on the other, and the towering three-piece painted billboards that are the hotel figueroa. while the urban nature of this site provides a greatdeal of context, stylistically, i didn't find anything to inspire my design, but geometrically, the adjacent buildings create a very unique set of prominent adjacencies that began to "turn some gears." at this point, i thought of the story of ferdinand.
its said that mr. ferdinand porsche, when looking for a car to drive, found nothing that completely satisfied him, so he decided to build his own, thus creating the first porsche. while mr. porsche did build his own car, he utilized components from many other cars to fashion his own. in the same way, i began to look at the surrounding buildings as opportunities to create dynamic relationships to address the flow of cars, as well as peoplein this enlivened area. for this project, the diagrammatic process became key for developing a final building and showing the step by step process going from a stacked program filling the vacant lot, to a torqued, bent, and streamlined space which opens up to the vibrant la live district.
