Arc 403 Garla s15

HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING HYPER-DIVERSE CONSUMING OF CULTURE IN AN OBSOLETE MODEL FOR URBAN FORM MAKING

Andrew James Garl ARC 403 Professor Luis Hoyos Studio Instructor Sarah Lorenzen Spring 2015

Table Contents Reading Responses

1 The Theater of Architecture

2 Queer Space

3 Describing the New Transfer

4 Branded Environments Theory and Project Connections

1 Describe West Hollywood Urban From and Social Make Up .

2 Future of Urban Environments.

3 The “Urban Design Project”

4 Identity of of the City Urban Position

1 Retail Plan

2 Retail Diagram

3 Rendering

4 Site/Floor Plan

Photo Essay

1 The Theater of Architecture

Beatriz Colomina prefers to criticize the architecture of Adolf Loos and his architecture’s contradictory nature.

Media driven society brings on a desire for spectacle. Now more than in Loos’s time architecture must give a show. The architecture must provide for the characters a place to be displayed. I argue for the spectacle of architecture and for the theatrics which take place within it. Bringing to full capacity the lively actions of the human animations, the architecture will be a stage, quite literally for the display of these participants.

The notion shown in Loos’s residence of the theater, the “theater box” as Colomina calls it, is meant to create a sequence of theatrics for each user to be simultaneously put on display and become the viewer. While all this acting is said to take place within the home. The community and public space can take on the sequence as well. The project proposed for West Hollywood’s Robertson lane will layer its open space to be viewable from the street and the park, and from the other parts of the project so as to create space where subjects will be able to view and be viewed by each other. A two way panopticism will emerge.

These two types of spaces, of bivueyerism and queer space will combine in the form of public space on a community scale to focus the attention of users and views to a mixing zone intensely populated and diversely programmed.

Source: The Split Wall : Domestic Voyeurism, Beatriz Colomina

2 Queer Space Queer Adjective, Strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different;singular: A queer notion of justice.

Aaron Betsky writes on queer space. His ultimate definition of queer space is that which precludes actions of abnormality, or normality that is accepted but specifically absent other public activities.

Expeditions into the normality of modern society illuminates a reality of many actions and lifestyles which occupy necessary queer space.

Under this adjective of space I argue that the most abnormal space is our most beloved sanctuary. The home, wherever it may be connotes the special place where we hide our activities. Sex, arguments, private conversations, odd routines, normal routines all take place in our private locals. Since we make so many place our home Betsky’s definition of queer space now fits most places. Queer space in our open society, especially that of West Hollywood is not separate from ordinary space. A place where activities are allowed to happen, that may or may not be abnormal, so there for any space, can be labeled as queer. So in an open society negative connotations of taboo or abnormal are accepted, so we can freely program these spaces with our architecture. The Roman bath and the villa, were places that secluded activities, but were public in the sense that such activities, sexual or not, were accepted. So in a sense an atmosphere of acceptance for historically taboo relationships and activities happened in ancient societies. In an attempt to capture the open atmosphere, demonstrated first in Roman baths, and also in the whole of the city of West Hollywood.

A large open plaza must be a programmatic element in a proposed design for the Robertson Lane site, with spaces and programming to effect a meaningful queer space that is front and center, open to the street and allows activities in public, once having a taboo label.

Source: Queer Space, Arron Betsky

3 Describing the New Transfer

The elusiveness of creating entertainment in architecture only easy in one place. The shopping mall, a devil that the modern man has created sits at the center of money making machines we call cities. Consumerism runs rampant and is all but necessary in our society. So hard is it to function without buying into all of the sales and spectacle displayed in these centers. Jon Jerde among others bought into the payout that is the shopping and entertainment venue. Creating the special environment dedicated to sales is about an unending display designed to entice and excite. I argue the fallacy that these environments portray are doomed to fail with new generations demands for service and desire for social engagement.

Writing on the Jerde Transfer, Daniel Herman explains the fantastic distraction that Jerde Malls exhibit. Each iteration of these malls creates a spectator of the patron, but these spectators are of a generation before the Internet existed, the predominant market before five years ago. Now a new generation who has grown up with internet shopping and a barrage of content available for purchase without moving more than a finger. My generation. We have started to demand, as the role of consumption is diminished, to desire an experience of social interaction and services, if we are to partake in the shopping experience. Each store must be oriented to providing an additional service that cannot be completed in the digital world. Not only is this sentiment grounded in the ability to complete a task of purchasing on line, but in our generations desire to expend energy in making sure we get the best product, and make the effort most worth wile. Such as the personal shopper competes to produce the best recommendation to their client, the new generation of retail will need to provide custom services to the shopper, and instruct them in product selection , comparison and testing all of which create a new experience of shopping.

One relevant requirement of the new retailer will be similar to that which the Jerde Partnership was successful in. The programming of complex interactions between patron, entertainer and services which mimics the urban complexities of cities, which gives illusion the urban environment, socially , even when the place exists within one.

The success of shopping centers and combined entertainment and retail districts within cities must be reinterpreted evolving to meet the desires of new, demanding demographics of a new generation, creating services that will augment the spectacle, and the spectacle will focus on a social experience programmed to make the user feel entertained.

Source: The Jerde Transfer

4 Branded Environments

The branded environment is designed to market the resources and amenities of a given place to a certain demographic. Much like the world of marketing, the branded environment must know its audience. The successful branded environment has an excellent location, a series of planned relevant events and is accessible to the intended patron.

Location. Location. Location.

The most important aspect of any real estate endeavor is location. Enticing visitors to the location is one goal of a branded environment. Capturing a prime location entails close proximity to many people willing to engage in the environment. The location must have enough amenities’ to make it a destination. The environments location may be as small as a cult burger joint or as large as city district, or larger. Locations with a highly branded nature may be able to increase their market value based on the reputation of the place, as real estate becomes more desirable the price could be driven up. Branded environments may also influence the intrinsic value of a location establishing the reputation, or the widely understood idea of the place, to create widespread public interest. Any place seeking to attract an audience may be a branded environment, certainly a cyclical nature evolves when a place has established it brand and has become relevant.

Events in a space make the place.

Relevant events must take place in a location seeking a branded identity. Culturally successful branded environments have events which add to the desire to go somewhere Events may be the intended draw of the place, or they may be happening because the place is a popular location and the players seek an audience fitting with the demographic, or they may be programmed to entertain visitors already in the location . Branded environments such as stores and even places of work , such as google, might have large scale brand image connections, so the vents that take place within the environment will be designed to entertain educate or purvey people or products that enhance profit.

Culturally branded environments may be profitable if the community seeks to perpetuate the space as in important part of its character.

Cultural Relevance.

Cultural relevance, and prime location are only some aspects that make a branded environment successful, an enhanced accessibility to a desirable location is crucial as well. Without a large enough audience, an otherwise lively place may have trouble staying relevant.

Accessibility may mean a local population large enough to support the use of a place by many people. Accessibility may entail available parking, such is the case in Santa Monica, along 3rd Street with many parking structures. Accessibility may also mean affordability, the intended demographic must be able to think that they can afford to eat, shop , visit or stay in the place , if price excludes a demographic, such as in Rodeo drive, the branded image would targeting a more affluent audience,

Environmental factors such cleanliness, level of activity, safety, climate, noise pollution, lighting, landscaping, having defensible space are mutual factors each branded environment may want to have. Having a population the user would like to interact with and be seen by is also important. Location culture and atmosphere, as well as large enough audience make branded environment create desirable places.

Source: Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping

1 Describe West Hollywood Urban From and Social Make Up .

The City of West Hollywood is one a city landlocked between Santa Monica, The City of Los Angeles , and Beverly Hills as well as Hollywood. There are finger like projections in all directions shaping the cities boarders. As a city severed from the City of Los Angeles, and Hollywood, West Holly wood developed as an outliers, a perfect place to breed a diverse culture, and cultivate a community of underrepresented minorities to live in the open. We all know a significant population lives in the city that associate with Lesbian Gay Bisexual or Trans-gender, LGBT, groups. This is a defining characteristic of the city, as a an early heaven against discrimination and ridicule. Social activities and cultural identity evolved within the urban fabric to host night clubs businesses and residential areas that embrace LGBT lifestyle. There is a significant increase in the male population over other cities, 56% of the population is male where as the similar city of Silver lake has 51% as is the national average. 49% female population and a large elderly population add to the diversity and give clues about the historical residence population within the city.

Social make up of the city is defined by a catering to LGBT community through businesses and support mechanisms from public funds. But there are also support for families with a few parks and pools, a new public library and schools. The primary focus of our project is a study of the retail environment. As new design district has emerged in the commercial segments of the city. Here designers from fashion to architecture have made claim to real estate in a market of migrating affluence. Here people from Beverly Hills have attributed to such affluence, as well as high minded shoppers and designers looking to a client of means and taste. In addition to typical grocers convenience stores and shops, Boys town has emerged with a large population of LGBT friendly bars , nightclubs and restaurants. An important aspect to the social and economic make up of the city the district along Santa Monica Blvd. Attracts people from many cities in the area and tourists from other parts of the world, who might be looking for acceptance and a place to let their guard down. While in the past few years much of the country and the world have become much more open to LGBT associates, West Hollywood has remained a bastion for acceptance and embrace and lively freedom expressed by its visitors and residence.

Two characteristics of critique in the city of West Hollywood , aside from the pacific design center and Santa Monica Blvd, the city is very much bland in traditional post war architecture slowly renovated and styled cheaply in residential areas, as well as somewhat typical buildings in the commercial districts as well as converted homes in the design quadrant. The retail environments and shopping places are typical. And most importantly the city has no center, no city hall, meeting space or iconic landmark to define the urban form.

The project we seek will strive to invert the relationship of retail environments to one that succeeds not because of brand image or quality of built space, but because the draw of a culturally mixed space, with a dynamic program in a large open spaces. An adaptable service oriented retail cluster providing creative, customizable , bespoke, and culturally rich experiences to demo products, make unique items, experience Los Angeles and West Hollywood culture will be designed to a demographic of which can shop for everything on line, have people run errands and seek an experience to participate in not just a shop to pick items out of.

Our project will also take the same outdoor open space used for the revenue generating diversity of retail kiosks and vendors and adaptable retailer programmed takeovers and create an iconic open pavilion for meeting and demonstration and event, much like the Spanish Steps in the City of Rome provide, the landmark will add to the prideful cultures ability to identify with it’s city.

Source: ARC 403 Studio Discussion , City of West Hollywood Master Plan, Santa Monica Boulevard Specific Plan 1999.

2 Future of Urban Environments.

For the past fed decades new urbanists have been presenting cases for a reversal of suburbanization. They are wrong to think that the success of the public realm is contingent on a forceful motion of urban design to make the whole more important that the individual. A selfish society we live in of people who enjoy privacy, space and seclusion. If new urbanism is not successful, as Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides would hope, then a contingency for how to design and operate must be formed if the urban designer and the architect are to capture millennials as a demographic.

To capitalize on potential work from the new generation we have to understand that a balance is in order. Todd Bressi would argue for the common house, the public good in front of all else. But the good stems from satisfied individuals.

Without the ability to fulfill one’s own goals there are limited capacities to place others first .

The effect of this selfishness will claim the new urbanist agenda for good public space. Good space, must be concentrated so the individual space can develop. Individual space must be great enough to support good space. So, economic centers, entertainment districts and service entities must inhabit this good space, along with open , outdoor programs to support a density of people at times, and be close enough to individual space to allow people the freedom of movement and the choice between private and public, when they choose.

Urbanness, will be then on be defined by hyper diversity. Such immense activity will be the driver for surrounding developments. Unlike the blanket which new urbanism proposed to rectify existing, poorly designed habitat we call semi urban and suburban development, hyper diversity calls for the complete and obliteration of existing urban fabric. Super centers will be surrounded by communities tied by the lure of amenity, culture, activity, diversity, and possibly by historic identity to the hub where public and private are two different worlds but are so close.

Urban density will be required on a huge scale. All of our current devices striving to make good architecture and urban form must be employed in this new form . While social media, transportation, infrastructure and access to other hubs will be subconscious, which means so easy and so efficient no one will need to think about them . a Hyper urbanism, plays a key role in the thinking behind our Robertson lane project. Here all roads, “social roads, economic roads, entertainment roads, and business roads” lead to the projects major open space where all public activity occurs.

This space is closely linked to private hotel rooms and offices which are necessary for the individual to affect his or her or the other’s own meaning.

Such grand scale thinking is not far off. Places for hyper diversity are emerging and have been built. The explosion of downtown Los Angeles is prime example. LA Live can be considered a prototype hub. Now that the train has started rolling, as in the huge development along with the staples center is a success, all of the surrounding residential area is densifying from an already dense state. Many more people now reside in the radius around the project, and the projection is for an increase in this trend.

Yet hyper diversity will define a generation who craves real social and cultural interaction due to an absence of interaction as a result of digital communication. Additionally, due to the speed at which media, services and interaction may happen people will pay to simply interact with people. The result of social media, on line commerce and , new trend companies such as Uber, food delivery services, and personal concierge, consumers will turn to a primal desire for interpersonal interaction, and begin to pay more for intangible goods, they will want more services because the tangible is already so easy.

It is not good enough to make the existing urban fabric more palatable. It is not enough to re-imagine what we would have redone 50 to 100 years ago, we have to look at the future population and this demographic demands a new make up, and a new way of operating with the entities that are the city. The new is where importance is placed at the hub of activity and the allowance for personal worth is made with private space in whatever from it may take.

Sources: Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides Todd W. Bressi. In The New Urbanism

3 The Urban Design Project

Referencing the above writings many of the goals for the project become clear. Taking a critical point of view of the current and planned context of the project allows a diverse application of routine devices to create the stage for new events to happen.

There are several goals to accomplish in the design of the Robertson lane hotel. First is an inversion of what we know as a retail environment. Our project provides zero area for enclosed retail outlets. The space is dedicated to outdoor space, open to the air, much like a plaza where any number of activities can occur. Providing for the key revenue generation of the project, the retail spaces will be adaptable, temporary and ever changing to accommodate the most diverse set of purveyors possible. Programmed retail events may take place at any given time, and my be mixed.

The programmed retail events include: Farmers market style sales in booth form, a large brand takes over the entire park space. Small community producers come to sell their goods or even trade. Weekend yard sale. Trade or craft fair, boardwalk style small retailers set up shop for a few days. The retail component refers to predicitons by the Harvard School of Design’s predictions for the future of retail and the desire for would be shoppers to focus on having meaningful social and cultural experience as opposed the ability to find an purchase any particular require item.

Other events occur in the open space while sales are happening. Dance club. Cafe. Swimming pool. Boccie Ball. Art show. Pride festival takes over. People set up for a concert in which the stage is in the street. Sun tanning.

Circus or street performers. Costume contest. These activities occur on a ramp, which slopes to the street and is open public space. A stage to view humans being humans, voyeurism. And for strange and atypical activities to occur and become the norm. The social and cultural agenda is absolutely the driver of the program, allowing ideas for future large scale projects to forget the ancient urban form already in existence and embrace form from experience. From follows experience. In order to provide such an open space many security issues arrive, but as a project of and for the programmed acitivities and amenities within it is safe to rely on the programming to apply its own buffers for safety and security. Since, we as the creators of the space for the experience cannot actually control all the events but provide the space for simultaneity required for the intended diversity.

The diversity is achieved and supported through the multitude of programming, and the combination of open space, creative office, and a way of organization of program which enhances mixing of the various programs. Hotel and office share spaces on the upper floor. These open spaces are like large interior streets, they include all the amenities of a hotel, even a small resort and an office building geared toward rentable spaces and temporary or start up companies.

The space between office rooms and hotel rooms has bars, copiers, spas, workout equipment. Receptionists, conference rooms and tables, lounges, restrooms, balconies, a wedding chapel, a pool, outdoor deck, ballroom space and any other infinite combination of resources for the two programs to share.

The elevated and open form of this project is acclimatized to Southern California, it is destination along the street parade root and nightlife corridor of Santa Monica Boulevard, completely open and accessible for all activities at all times of the day and night. Much like a park, plaza or the Spanish Steps of Rome, we aim to create a landmark, central space for the city, and a wild, hyper-diverse experience for all who might activate the project.

4 Provide a Critique of the Current Master Plan . Analyze and describe the city’s vision for the future of West Hollywood.

What is valuable about this vision? Where might there be changes ? For this section reference at minimum one of the readings in order to compare the city’s proposal with that of an urbanist’s ideals from the course readings.

An Identity for the City

Determination of what a city is and what is should be is a determination made by the people who inhabit it. The long term planning documnent serves as a politic to attest that the self realizing future of the city will happen. The West Hollywood master plan rises to enforce a community of openness. As a bastion for acceptance and pride, the city of west hollywood in the 1990’s and 2000’s provided a role model for society everywhere in embracing new worlds of culture.

Creating goals for a more prosperous city, the West Hollwood general plan makes general, even generic claims for gowth or improved environments. Increased quality of life, greater diversity, improved economy, environment and traffic. These are typical statements of city plans. The West Hollywood Santa Monica Boulevard Specific plan enables the reailization of some of these goals. The real purpose of these peieces to enhance the city it provide a more enjoyable netowrk for Culture, Safety, diversity and the chartacter of openess to occur. When the diversity is allowed to shine, all other community benefits manifest.

Other important elements of the plan I agree with , “Seek new areas to increase park space and landscape areas in ourstreets, sidewalks, and open areas to create space for social interaction and public life”. Enhancing a commounity with such a rich culture and diversity grows the bond that holds its identity. The community identy might eventually create the drive for new urban hub and hyper diversity .

Source: City of West Hollywoood General Plan, Santa Monica Boulevard Specific Plan

REJECTION OF THE BUILT , AND THE CREATION OF THE EXPERIENCE A FORM TO REJECT CURRENT URBAN FORM, EMBRACE THE SPECTACLE OF TABOO ACTIVITIES, EMBRACE THE EVOLUTION OF RETAIL MODELS, HARBOR CREATIVENESS AND TOURISTS FOR AN ECLECTIC MIX FOR PEOPLE TO CONSUME THEIR CULTURE. A LARGE OPEN SPACE CREATES A PARK AND A MALL IN ONE. CUSTOMIZABLE RETAIL SPACE IN THE OPEN AIR PROVIDES A TEMPORALITY OFFERS ADAPTABILITY FOR EVENTS SUCH AS PRIDE. IT ALSO ALLOWS FOR MANY RETAILERS TO INHABIT AT ONCE, OR ONE OVER THE WHOLE SPACE. COMMUNITIES CAN SELL THEIR CULTURE HERE, PEOPLE CAN GET MARRIED, THEY CAN SWIM. MUSIC FESTIVALS MAY OCCUR. CAFES AND EATERIES MY TAKE HOLD. LANDSCAPE MEANDERS AROUND THE CIRCULATION RAMPS . HOTEL AND OFFICE SPACES IN THE ELEVATED MASS FIND THE SAME LIGHT THROUGH AN INTERIOR STREET WHERE ALL AMENITIES AND SERVICES NEEDED FOR BOTH COALESCE AND FORCE A MIXING OF RESIDENCE TOURISTS WORKERS AND DAILY PATRONS INTO THE COMMUNITY AND ABSOLVE, FOR ALL TO PARTAKE IN THE CULTURE OF WEST HOLLYWOOD

library

tower of office

workshop area staircase

whiskey bar

tower of office tower of hotel foyer information

staircase staircase breakfast bar

tower of hotel staircase winetasting

lounge

URBAN DESIGN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS ACTUALLY ALREADY BUILT ON THE SITE

HYPER DENSITY HUB

“ANCIENT” HISTORY

PROVIDE FOR THE COMMUNITY A DESIRABLE LANDMARK WHILE ACCUMULATING ALL POSSIBLE CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

HIGHLY PROGRAMED ENTERTAINMENT

1898 LEEDS, YORKSHIRE FRANK MATCHAM

1950 USA VICTOR GRUEN

CHECK TRENDS IN RETAIL HOTEL AND OFFICE AND PROJECT THEIR TRAJECTORIES, PLAN FOR THE MILLENARIAN, WHEN THEY ARE 3O OR 40 AND FOR THEIR YOUNGER BROTHERS AND SISTERS, IN A HYPER CONNECTED WORLD WHAT IS THE DESIRE FOR PEOPLE TO GO OUT TO SPEND THEIR MONEY?

PARIS

GRUEN

1999 DOT COM BECAUSE THE INTERET

ONLINE

2018 CONSUMPTION EXPERIENCE

1980 GLOBAL JERDE PARTNERSHIP

JERDE

OMNICHANNEL

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW THE FUTURE OF SHOPPING - “ RETAILERS MUST TURN SHOPPING INTO AN ENTERTAINMENT, EXCITING , EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE”