Los Angeles: The Latest Architecture and News

We are thrilled to announce that Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) will be receiving the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles Chapter’s (AIA|LA), Firm of the Year Award for 2010. The formal announcement is expected to be released in July. The AIA|LA Firm of the Year Award is given annually and recognizes a practice that consistently has produced distinguished architecture.

de LaB is proud to announce their first-ever fundraiser, City Listening II! On Saturday, June 26, de LaB and a fantastic roster of collaborators and sponsors will present an evening of stories about Los Angeles read by your favorite design, architecture and art writers from both sides of La Brea!

Eli Broad, an American philanthropist, is getting ready to design the newest home for his extensive art collection. For his latest museum project, on the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street in Los Angeles, Broad invited six of the professions’ leading minds to compete. Resting across the street from Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and Arata Isozaki’s 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art, Broad’s museum with include approximately 40,000 square feet of top-floor exhibition space, along with offices for the Broad Art Foundation.

INABA, with Darien Williams, has developed a hypothetical proposal for the migratory distribution of the Hollywood sign across Los Angeles, titled “HLYWD”. The project will be on display as part of SUPERFRONT LA‘s upcoming show, UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale.

The proposal will be on display until July 2. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Designed by Aedas Sport, the innovative 75,000-seat stadium will be the first LEED-certified building in the NFL and will capture the luxury and drama of the world’s entertainment capital. The project anticipates completion for the 2013 season. Both the NFL and the client, Majestic Realty, are committed to making a progressive statement with this building and are exploring a number of initiatives that will make this the most environmentally progressive stadium in the U.S. Aedas Sport has employed the unique topography of the site to build the stadium into a hillside, reducing the steel structure by 40% and allowing at least two-thirds of the seating bowl to be built on grade.

More images and full architect’s description after the break.

wHY Architecture has shown us their expertise on cultural projects at different scales: the Grand Rapids Art Museum (the first LEED Gold certified museum) on the large scale in one side and the Royal/T Gallery on a smaller scale, among other cultural projects shown on their website.

And now they share with us a cultural project on the infrastructure scale that I had the chance to see when I visited their office early this year, which got green light and enters construction phase in 2010: the Art Bridge.

The project is located over the Los Angeles river and it’s very related to it, as most of its structure will be built from trash salvaged from the river itself. This project will achieve what many have been looking for, and that is to reconnect with the river that crosses LA. And I think that it will make it.

You can also watch our interview with Yo-ichiro Hakomori from whY Architecture, filmed at Postopolis! LA earlier this year.

Project description and more images after the break:

At the beginning of the summer we visited SYNTHe, a urban rooftop garden designed and built by professor Alexis Rocha (I/O Platform founder) with SCI-Arc students.

The SYNTHe project is a 3,000sqf structure located on the top of The Flat, a mid rise residential building in downtown Los Angeles, and its the first green garden approved by city official. The idea of this “green blanket” over at the top of the building is to reduce the building heat gain, reduce storm water waste (80% is captured and used for irrigation) and to establish a sustainable plant ecosystem that collaborated with air pollutants filtering. It also reclaims the rooftop area from HVAC, ventilation and fire control systems, giving a new terrace for the users of the building.

Inside this blanket, 1,500sqf are dedicated to the production of edible plant species, and we had the chance to taste them at the restaurant during lunch, very good. The species planted include:

Architecture/Landscape/Interiors presents the 2009 Donghia Designer-in-Residence Lecture by David J. Lewis and Marc Tsurumaki, Principals of Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis (LTL). LTL is an innovative, award-winning architecture partnership founded in 1997 by Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki and David J. Lewis, located in New York City.