Los Angeles: The Latest Architecture and News

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After starting and stopping for nearly 20 years, a 17-story Deconstructivist tower by Eric Owen Moss Architects seems to finally be underway in Los Angeles’ Culver City neighborhood after construction permits were approved earlier this year. Originally known as the Glass Tower, the project has been revived as (W)rapper, a nod to the structure’s enveloping steel exoskeleton.

A new flythrough video of the project shows the inside and out of the 230-foot tower, including its double-height and mezzanine office levels, as well as a spacious rooftop terrace. In total, the building will offer 160,000 square feet of office space and two levels of underground parking. Located adjacent to the Expo Line’s LA Cienega/Jefferson station, the project was originally envisioned as a multi-tower development in the late 90s, before being reduced to its current form.

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Aggravated by limited upward mobility and a dire housing crisis, LA County’s homeless population has shot up 23 percent to nearly 58,000 in the past year alone, according The Los Angeles Times. Their increased visibility recently guilted voters into passing (by a two-thirds majority) a sales tax increase (Measure H) and a $1.2 billion bond initiative (Measure HHH) to provide housing and amenities. With the city now better financially equipped to tackle the problem, a new issue arises: what to build?

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Los Angeles' Department of City Planning has released an initial study for a potential future skyscraper that could break ground in 2020. The 66-story Figueroa Centre is proposed for construction on a current parking lot adjacent to the Hotel Figueroa in South Park. Designed by CallisonRTKL, upon completion, the building would become Downtown LA’s third tallest building, surpassed only by Wilshire Grand and the US Bank Tower, both at 73 stories.

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Major changes are on the way for Los Angeles’ Union Station that will improve connectivity between the stations various train, metro and bus lines. In a new video released by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, one possible future – a ring-shaped passenger concourse floating over the train platforms below – is visualized for the first time.

Renderings for a new office building in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles designed by Gehry Partners have been revealed in documents released by the LA Department of City Planning. Called New Beatrice West, the eight-story development consists of a series of terraced glass boxes, capped with abundant vegetation aimed at contributing passive energy-efficiency to the complex. The new building will integrate an existing adjacent office building that currently houses the offices of Gehry Partners.

Paris and Los Angeles will become the next Olympic host cities, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted unanimously to approve a plan simultaneously awarding the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to the competing cities.

Which city will host each year, however, is still on the table – the two bid cities and the IOC will have until a September 13 conference in Lima to reach an agreement. If they cannot agree, solely the 2024 Olympics will be awarded, though this outcome seems unlikely after recent collaborations by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

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The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously voted to approve the construction of the long-awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in LA’s Exposition Park, all but ensuring that the museum has finally found its permanent home after three years of searching.

Los Angeles’ newest skyscraper, the Wilshire Grand Center, opened to the public this weekend, earning the crown of the United States’ tallest building west of the Mississippi River. Topping out at 1,100 feet, the building eclipses the nearby U.S. Bank Tower by about 82 feet, thanks to its glass crown and decorative spire that rise from above the 73rd floor.

Designed by AC Martin Partners, the structure also represents a major change in Los Angeles tall building design as the first skyscraper completed since the city’s 2014 decision to remove the stipulation that all buildings over 75 feet must feature a flat roof to serve as a helipad.

The City of Los Angeles has revealed preliminary designs for seven different downtown segments of the Los Angeles River revitalization master plan, envisioned by Gruen Associates, WSP, CH2M, Chee Salette, Mia Lehrer + Associates, AECOM, and Tetra Tech. The project, known as the LA River Downtown Design Dialogue, asked designers to create potential schemes for development of the Downtown Corridor that “focus on interventions to improve connectivity and access to the river” and “imagine how to achieve function while embracing bold, world-class design,” while integrating in river adjacent projects currently in development, such as BIG’s 670 Mesquite.

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There are so many moves that the architect makes that you don’t understand the moment you see the house… and as those things reveal themselves, it’s always these really beautiful moments because it’s sort of like a poem or a song coming together in a way where it makes sense – you’ve heard it before but you didn’t understand it

In the latest video from their In Residence series, NOWNESS takes a look inside the recently restored Lautner Harpel House, built in 1956 by Los Angeles architect and Frank Lloyd Wright protege John Lautner. After purchasing the house in 2006, design restorer and Resurrection Vintage co-founder Mark Haddawy sought to restore the house to its original conception – a process that required the removal of several ill-conceived additions, including a second story.

Check out the video to see inside the house, and how its individual moments come together to create a signature example of California Modernism.

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The design of OMA and Mia Lehrer+Associates’ park at First and Broadway (FAB) in Los Angeles has received a green update, reports LA Downtown News, following a community feedback session in which residents voiced their desire to add additional plantings to the scheme.