Architects imagine Los Angeles in 2030

It's not exactly "Blade Runner," but a new online feature from Newsweek provides a peek into what Los Angeles could look like in the not-so-distant future.

Newsweek recently asked a group of prominent architects to create a vision of L.A. in 2030 -- which is only 20 years from now. The teams that contributed their visions were Michael Maltzan Architecture, cityLAB UCLA and Gensler.

Each addresses a range of issues that include transportation, the workplace, home and recreation. The recurring theme among the three teams is the city's need to rein in L.A.'s famous sprawl and embrace denser urban planning.

"A future Los Angeles ... will alter today's predominant subdivision, tract-home, and automobile monoculture into a more multicultural, multimodal, interconnected, and sustainable modern city," wrote the Maltzan team.

The cityLAB team embraces the big-box retail culture that is prevalent in Southern California and transforms it into something more complex that includes closer ties to local communities. The architects at Gensler are proposing a public transportation system that takes advantage of GPS and other wireless technologies.

Each tab in the interactive feature includes audio and video presentations of renderings and mock-ups of the teams' re-imagined L.A.

The interactive feature also has a section of New York re-envisioned by the firms Richard Meier & Partners; Cooper, Robertson & Partners; and HOK.

Photo: a rendering of an L.A. freeway in the year 2030. Credit: Micheal Maltzan Architects / Newsweek

Comments

[Trek]

that must the tower in shenzhen right? MMA moves it to LA only because Chinese hate it.

[BOXES ARE BORING]

NICE! BIGGER, BOLDER, BOXES. SO MUCH FOR THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. LETS THINK INSIDE THE BOX. EVEN WHEN YOU ADD A CURVE IT'S STILL A BOX. WHAT ARE BOX-BOTS ALL OF A SUDDEN. PROBABLY DESIGNED BY SOMEONE IN A CUBICLE OR BOX OFFICE. ARCHITECT BABBLE FOR NICER SHINIER BOX.

[db]

I imagine half of the buildings in Los Angeles to be empty in the year 2030.

[william Clem]

Pontifications on how arch is going change how people "Work" is such a stretch. ARch can design the work space, but the individual business work hours and work task dictate how we approach a balance with life and work, Not arch.

Who edited this dribble?

Bill

[Xtime]

Will I be invited to this city where the Angles are thriving?

It sounds like this design is for the newly expected paradigm.

[Kal]

Ur dreaming if you think the city of LA or any city for that matter is going to change in 20 years. People were thinking in 1980-90 that we would be flying around in cars which still hasn`t happen`d and even if it does it would cost over 200,000.00 from what i was told. Just because we hit a number in the year 2000 something dosn`t mean its going to change like StarTrek give me a break i think the cities will still remain to stay the same (NY) for example after 60 years and the famous Empire State Building the city still looks the same. Why? because it would take billions among billions of dollars to do so and this country is in enough trouble trying to pay debts off not to mention recession to fix. Dream is all it is ever going to be.

[ArtyCrapSure]

Soleri and others envisioned environmentally sustainable cities 40 years ago, but the Moss and Mayne and 'high art' crowd would have nothing to do with that stuff. Architecture is art and art is about promoting the artist. So we got a whole generation of egotistical, self-absorbed, self-promoters who think the sun is something that shines out their backsides. Fueled by a publishing industry and a professional organization that feeds off of selling the latest glossy picture to the next generation of wannabe superstars.

Richard Meier seems to have hitched his wagon to the super wealthy who have nothing better to spend their money on than monuments to their own wealth and excess. Granite doghouses. Private tennis courts by the ocean. Million dollar canvases.

How much did the Getty go over budget? Three billion? Seven years?

Why should anyone care what these super star architects 'envision' for the little people?

And why does anyone need a license to draw pictures of cities?

[Wolfy]

I thought we all gonna die in 2012???

[Donald Frazell]

Downtown is still a desert along Flower because of the last wannabe urban designers, who took the pedestrian and street life away, and so assured the sterility of LA. Not much soul life here for sure, but this made it permanent. And this above much of the same. Silly, one dimensional academic ideas that look cute and stroke the egos of those in power, nothing to do with life.

Architecture is not art, and buildings are not sculptures, see the stupid SFMoMA above. What a waste of space, and neither any plant life or color, just sterile "clever" ideas of wannabes. Save the money, and let the city grow organically, it will anyway, unless more deserts are created, havent we learned from Brasilia and Cabrini Greens? Enough "Purism" and le Cobusier wet dreams. Time to grow up. And live.

Save the Watts Towers, tear down these stupid, aburdist, ego driven Mausoleum Ivories.

[patroklos]

Where's the money supposed to come from?

[planetnymph]

Whoever drew this rendering is dreaming. L.A. will not have water running through the city, they will be lucky to have bath water soon. Don't drink the tap water!

[Peter]

Really? One picture? One obscure surrealist far away rendition of the 110? You people are clowns. Nothing to see here folks. Seriously....LA times journalist, no complaining about how your jobs are going in the sewer.

[Nischal]

I would agree with what Kal is saying. US is already in a deep S$#& in terms of deficit and has just started to pick up the pieces from the worst ever recession it saw. It would be good to think about regaining what it has lost rather than spending billions of $ for something that is not needed at all. Los Angeles, especially the Downtown is such a beautiful place and has a spectacular view that it really doesn't need any additional elaborate/fancy look.

[Stephen Cavaretta]

I laugh at future city projections. L.A. is already multicultural and I don't see devolpers building a lot of skyward buildings. I would work as a city planner and develop a city where people had great transit like San Francisco and employment to match. I would also make Los Angeles THE Place to live. I would do this with my BA degree and honorable military service for a quite a bit less than $100,000 a year. Maybe I should apply to run the city of Bell

[bpo project]

wow your imagine is too good and image also. i will want to come there in 2030.
Great thinking and imagine.

[Doug Drexler]

I found all of the concepts to be interesting. I'm impressed by their optimism. To make a brighter future, optimism is a prime ingredient. Reading the comment column is very revealing. It seems that the majority of folks who contribute to it are snippy, pessimistic naysayers. I'm embarrassed for them.

[BOXES ARE BORING]

Is that a digital clock on the freeway to let you know how late and how stuck in traffic you are?

[Query]

SO.... THIS is where all of the illegal aliens will be living? How will all of the poor people from Mexico be able to afford these rents? Or is that tower a taxpayer-subsidized Section 8 housing unit?

[David]

Cover it with ugly tags and gang graffiti and you'll hit something closer to the mark. Also throw a couple of tons of trash and shopping carts in the river. Add some passed out, meth'd up dudes sleeping on cardboard and peeing in the street.

[Barnacle Bob]

I think LA is pretty nice as is (not joking either).