MAKING METROPOLIS 6

INTRODUCTIONMaking Metropolis 6

The overarching goal of the studio will be to make a great building on a great street.

To achieve this goal the studio will employ three key strategies:

Make Good SpaceThink With the LandThink With Your Body

These three strategies will be applied to the site and the street.

The site is Parcel Q on Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles. Parcel Q is on Grand Avenue, the primary thoroughfare in Bunker Hill. Several iconic buildings have been built along Grand Avenue over the past few decades: the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Broad Museum, Disney Hall, Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral and the new Los Angeles Central High School.

Parcel Q has been master-planned by the city of Los Angeles to be another iconic structure comprising about 1,750,000 SF of space with an accompanying 1,000 parking spaces.

Unfortunately, as with many Los Angeles streets, Grand Avenue is dominated by vehicular traffic. Consequently, it does not create a coherent sense of place among the buldings.

In teams of three students each the studio will develop five distinct design strategies for both the building on Parcel Q and for Grand Avenue itself from the Museum of Contemporary Art to the Central L.A. High School.

A Great Building on a Great StreetCarson, Pirie, Scott Department Store Louis Sullivan Chicago 1899

Bunker HillLos Angeles

SITE Making Metropolis 6

Olive

First

The Broad Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Disney Hall Frank Gehry

MOCA Arata Isozaki

Grand Park Rios Clemente Hale

Our Lady of the Angels Rafael Moneo

Central L.A. High School Coop Himmelb(l)au

Chandler Pavilion Welton Becket

Ahmanson Theater & Taper Forum

L.A.City Hall

L.A. Law Courts

L.A. Hall of Records

SITE Making Metropolis 6

Parcel Q

Hope

Grand

Hill

Broa

dway

Second

Temple

101

SITE Making Metropolis 6

Grand Avenue in Los Angeles is now a linear strip of isolated exceptional “autopoetic archipelagos” - one spectacular project after another, each designed by a “starchitect.”

Although immediately adjacent to each other and easily walkable from one end to the other, the buildings are linked exclusively by vehicles. Each project is a cultural destination in itself. Patrons often drive to one venue and then return home - only to return to a different venue on a different day. There is no street life. This is a remarkably new and curious form of urbanism.

The future of Grand Avenue - and downtown LA’s cultural sense of self - is dependent on the development of Parcel Q being more than just another isolated star-studded destination. A successful new LA street model must emerge with any Parcel Q development. It must make the street itself comes alive as a distinct and marvelous “place” in its own right, integrating all the neighboring archipelagoes.

The studio will conduct a Field Trip to Los Angeles to research the site, investigate neighboring individual buildings, tour surrounding areas in Downtown LA, visit an architectural office with active projects in the area and tour greater metropolitan Los Angeles surrounding communities and landscape.

The Broad Diller Scofidio + Renfro 2016

Disney Hall Frank Gehry 2003

Grand Avenue Bunker Hill Los Angeles

The Broad Diller Scoficio + Renfro 2016

STUDIO BRIEFMaking Metropolis 6

GOOD SPACEArchitects must make good space. Space is “good” if it can adapt to a wide variety of functions which satisfy basic human needs of shelter, habitation, work, learning, changing, enjoyment, beauty and spirituality. Mies van der Rohe called this Universal Space. Some now call this Hybrid Space.

Good Space is Mixed-Use Space. It has become customary to realize that manufacturing spaces can become living spaces, that department stores can become offices, that offices can become schools, that schools can become clinics, that a space calibrated for one use can become appropriate for another use, that form can be inflexible if over-prescribed by function.

Good Space is space that doesn’t know what its functions might be over time. It must be prepared to adapt readily. This includes both interior and exterior space.

Good Space is not neutral. It creates unique character and poetry that derives from its place, its making, its materials and its unique motivating forces. One place of Good Space is different from another place of Good Space as each adapts to location, sociability, ambition, technology, financing, politics, culture and all the ever-varying rhythms of life.

Warehouse now Home

Department Store now Retail, Office and School

STUDIO BRIEFMaking Metropolis 6

THINK WITH THE LANDGreater Los Angeles is a paradise. It boasts of a Mediterranean climate situated within an unusually diverse landscape: oceans, mountains and desert. There are more species of wildlife and plant life in greater Los Angeles than in any American National Park.

However, Los Angeles - along with all of California - is now experiencing serious drought conditions. Water is at a premium.Future development must seek environmentally aware solutions that are inherent in the area’s geology, ecology and hydrology.

After LA’s initial growth within the basin towards the Pacific Ocean and its beach communities, West LA needed to connect to the San Fernando Valley through the Santa Monica Mountains.

The mountain canyons became the routes of passage. Cahuenga Canyon, Laurel Canyon, Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Glen and Sepulveda Pass.

These canyons always collected the water run-off, engendering the diversity of plant and wildlife growth and creating transportation arteries along the stream beds. Now they were to become the seats of culture.

The opportunity to consider Grand Avenue as a Canyon Garden immediately presents itself.

Greater Los Angeles

Santa Monica Mountains

West LA

SanFernando

Valley

Downtown LA

Pacific Ocean

Mojave Desert

San Gabriel Mountains

LA Basin

West LADowntown LA

San Fernando Valley

Beverly Glen Boulevard

Coldwater Canyon Drive

Laurel Canyon Boulevard

Cahuenga Canyon BoulevardHollywood Freeway (101)

Sepulveda BoulevardSan Diego Freeway (405)

Canyon Passes in the Santa Monica Mountains

STUDIO BRIEFMaking Metropolis 6

THINK WITH YOUR BODYArchitects, like dancers who are choreographers, both inhabit and conceive their work. We compose naturally through our bodies, using all our senses. We apprehend ourselves and our surroundings physically well before we do intellectually. Thus, it is of fundamental interest that Embodiment and the Senses have emerged as the focus of recent, dramatic breakthroughs in the human sciences. They concern the way we perceive, respond to and understand the world through primal biological operations. This studio explores the meaning and implications of these sensibilities to make a distinct Metropolitan Place: an active, evolving Place of diversity and freedom within a distinct framework - bodies within a grid - integrating practice with a coherent theoretical strategy.

CHILDREN THINK WITH THEIR BODIESThere is considerable discussion today about environment and climate that focuses on buildings and automobiles. It is a tangled discussion. It needs a key of commonality to unlock it. That key could be a focus on making places for children in the city.

Children automatically humanize.

As the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck has observed, “If we create a playground well, we create a world in which man rediscovers what is essential, in which the city rediscovers the child.”

With so many of the buildings along Grand Avenue being devoted to the Arts, the opportunity to bring art onto the street as a form of adult play emerges.

Antonio Gades Spanish 1936 - 2004 Pina Bausch German 1940 - 2009

Aldo Van Eyck Amsterdam Playgrounds 1947 - 1978

STUDIO BRIEF Making Metropolis 6

As an investigation into the particular and peculiar “spirit of place” that Los Angeles offers, four movies set in and about Los Angeles will be viewed and discussed.

Sunset Boulevard directed by Billy Wilder, 1950

Chinatown directed by Roman Polanski, 1974

Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino, 1994

Mulholland Drive directed by David Lynch, 2001

STUDIO BRIEFMaking Metropolis 6

DELIVERABLESRequirements include: research and analysis of key programs and concerns; @ 1/32”=1’: base site model, final urban model, urban plan, urban merchandising plan, urban materials plan, urban streetscape and garden plan, urban infrastructure plan and @1/16”=1’: urban sections, final building model, building floor plans, building sections, building elevations, study models, sketches, material callouts, descriptive text, and 6 color illustrations.

PROGRAMMaking Metropolis 6

Parcel Q will be built out at 1,750,000 SF with Street Retail, 1,000 Parking Spaces community gathering spaces with gardens throughout site and building. All uses, whether housing, office, retail, institutional, industrial, academic, entertainment, cultural, transportation or unknown future uses, need to be understood, appreciated and planned into space that can accomodate any use, integrating deftly with streets, sidewalks, open spaces and gardens.

Making Metropolis 5

EXPERTISE / KNOWLEDGE GAINEDMaking Metropolis 6

Students will work in teams of three under the direction of the professor. Each team will develop a distinct and separate strategy for both the building and the street. Simulating an actual office situation in competition for a commission, the students will become prepared for future professional conditions.

Students will investigate the issues intrinsic to streetscapes, infrastructures, vehicular movements, water transportation, construction logistics, financial procurement, air rights, retail merchandising and the public realm.

To provide Good Space, student teams will research bay sizes, layouts, floor-to-floor heights, daylight depths, glazing exposures, glazing protections, systems arrangements and core locations for a variety of programmed uses to determine a singular solution flexible for as wide a variety of uses as possible.

By choreographing and designing the experiences embodied within these issues, students will develop a sense of the tough-mindedness, flexibility and sensitivity required to organize a 24/7 Mixed-Use City amidst the politics, power plays, surprises, misinformation and propaganda that operate behind the stories and glories of Making Metropolis.

EXPERTISE / KNOWLEDGE GAINEDMaking Metropolis 5/6

The following Bibliography will form the philosophical basis of research, critique and commentary throughout the year.

Banham, Reyner, 1972. Banham Loves Los Angeles. https:// vimeo.com/22488225 -----------------------, 2009. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. University of California Press. Basso, Keith H., 1996. Wisdom Sits In Places. University of New Mexico Press Bloomer, Kent C. and Moore, Charles W., 1977. Body, Memory, and Architecture. Yale University Press Brothers, Cammy, 2008. Michelangelo, Drawing, and the Invention of Architecture. Yale University Press. Calvino, Italo, 1972. Invisible Cities. Harcourt Daalsgard, Andreas, 2012. The Human Scale. DVD Kimstim Damasio, Antonio, 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. Harcourt ------------------------, 2003. Looking For Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. Harcourt Dimendberg, Edward, 2015. Facing The Music: Documenting Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Redevelopment of Downtown Los Angeles. East of Borneo/Getty Foundation ----------------------------, 2015. Bright Lights, Big City. Artforum Frampton, Peter, 1995. Studies in Tectonic Culture. MIT Press ----------------------, 2002. Labour, Work and Architecture. Phaidon Huizinga, Johan, 1950. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element In Culture. Roy Publishers. Jacobs, Allan B., 1993. Great Streets. The MIT Press Jacobs, Jane, 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House Jencks, Charles, 1993. Heteropolis: Los Angeles: The Riots and the Strange Beauty of Hetero-Architecture. Academy Editions/Ernst & Sohn

EXPERTISE / KNOWLEDGE GAINEDMaking Metropolis 5/6

Lynch, Kevin, 1960. The Image of the City. The MIT Press & Harvard University Press Mallgrave, Harry, 2010. The Architect’s Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity and Architecture. Wiley-Blackwell ----------------------, 2013. Architecture and Embodiment: The Implications of the New Sciences and Humanities for Design. Routledge Maltzan, Michael, 2011. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond. Hatje Cantz McCarter, Robert, 2015. Aldo van Eyck. Yale University Press ----------------------- and Pallasmaa, Juhani, 2012. Understanding Architecture. Phaidon Moore, Charles W., Mitchell, William J. and Turnbull, William Jr., 1988. The Poetics of Gardens. The MIT Press Neutra, Richard, 1954. Survival Through Design. Oxford University Press Pallasmaa, Juhani, 2005. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley & Sons ---------------------, 2010. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. John Wiley & Sons ---------------------, 2011. The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture. John Wiley & Sons Rasmussen, Steen Eiler, 1959. Experiencing Architecture. MIT Press Rowe, Colin and Koetter, Fred, 1978. Collage City. MIT Press Scully, Vincent, 1991. Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade. St. Martin’s Press Speck, Jeff, 2012. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. Farrar Strauss & Giroux Winston, Mark L., 2014. Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive. Harvard University Press. Zumthor, Peter, 1998. Thinking Architecture. Birkhauser --------------------, 2003. Atmospheres. Birkhauser

TIMELINEMaking Metropolis 6

The studio will be organized in two phases. Initially the students will build a context site model of the site area, make a field trip to the site and research site context. Then project design will commence. Each week each team will receive regular desk critiques. There will be a Mid-Term Review and a Final Review. Reviews will be with IIT faculty and practicing professionals from outside the school. Schedule: Week 1 Introduction: Team formation; Begin base site model Week 2 Context studies; continue base site model Week 3 Complete base site model; Begin Project Design Week 4 Continue Project Design; Field Trip Week 5 Field Trip; Continue Project Design Week 6 Continue Project Design Week 7 Prepare for Mid-Term Review Week 8 Mid-Term Review Week 9 Assess Mid-Term Review Week 10 Spring Break Week 11 Adjust Project Design Week 12 Adjust Project Design Week 13 Prepare for Final Review Week 14 Prepare for Final Review Week 15 Prepare for Final Review Week 16 Final Review

William Mulholland

Eli Broad

REQUIREMENTSMaking Metropolis 6

The studio will meet three times a week (M/W/F) from 2 PM to6 PM in Crown Hall. In addition to these 12 hours per week, an additional 24 hours per week (minimum) will be required to perform work in an adequate manner. Teamwork will be essential to success in the studio.

Attendance in all classes is mandatory. Two unexcused absences will result in a drop of a letter grade. Three unexcused absences will result of two letter grades. Four unexcused absences will result in failure of the course.

Completion of all deliverables at both Mid-Term Review and Final Review is mandatory to receive a passing grade. Final grades will, however, ultimately be based on performance at Final Review. Please refer to the graduate bulletin for official IIT university grading policies.

These studios require continuous, concerted and intense efforts. The projects are ambitious and complex in their comprehensive nature, their urban issues and their place-based path of embodied discovery.

AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT (ADA): Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with documented disabilities. In order to receive accommodations, students must go through the Center for Disability Resources office. The CENTER for DISABILITY RESOURCES (CDR) is located in Life Sciences Room 218, telephone 312 567.5744 or @iit.edu.

Louis Sullivan

CURRICULUM VITAEMaking Metropolis 6

Steven Brubaker

An Arthur Lehmann Scholar while at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Mr.Brubaker has received over a dozen AIA Design Honor Awards. Well published, for many years he was a Design Principal with Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum where he designed and had built over 10,000,000 SF in dense urban sites across the world. His work includes several landmark buildings: the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the Anaheim Convention Center across from Disneyland, the Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse in St. Louis, Tuntex Tower in Kaioshung, Taiwan and the Phoenix Convention Center. In 2003 he was the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor of Design at Washington University in St. Louis and in 2005 the Van Sante Visting Professor of Design at South Dakota State University. Now with his own practice in Chicago Mr. Brubaker continues to participate in conceiving large urban developments as well as designing several higher education facilities and specialty projects.

Instructor: Steven Brubaker (shbrubaker@sbcglobal.net)

MAKING METROPOLIS 6