FAKE NATURE STUDIO MANUAL

LA RIVER- FAKE NATURE University of Pennsylvania School of Design - Advanced Studio -Spring 2019 Florencia Pita with Caroline Morgan Isabel Lopez + Jinah Oh, Justine Huang + Anya Sinha, Katie Lanski + Daniel Silverman, Carla Bonilla + Joey Park, Wenlu Guo + Jintong Mao, Adriana Davis + Baru Abdurrahman

CONTENTS 1-10

I. Brief II. Studio Projects: 1. “Anomalous Terrains“ - Isabel Lopez + Jinah Oh

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2. “Residue” - Justine Huang + Anya Sinha

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3. ”Loomed Gardens” - Katie Lanski + Daniel Silverman

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4. “Fake Wild” - Carla Bonilla + Joey Park

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5. “Hybridized Habitats” - Adriana Davis + Baru Abdurrahman

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6. “Water Networks”- Wenlu Guo + Jintong Mao

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This studio will investigate the fabrication of artificial landscapes, within the context of industrial infrastructures and a river of concrete. The LA River is undergoing major transformations. What once was nature is now a hardscape of concrete that spans 51 miles. The potential of this river to shift from infrastructure to public spaces could transform the city of Los Angeles, and provide a new model of reuse where active (as opposed to obsolete) infrastructure can perform multiple urban capacities. The LA River is not only an urban connector with an un-interrupted linear path, but also it carries water which flows towards the ocean. This extravagant expenditure of water in a desert city seems paradoxical. This studio will take on the topic of FAKE NATURE. We will look at nature not for what it means but for what it exposes, a kind of semblance of nature.

The ‘Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan‘ is an extensive proposal that takes into consid-eration the 51 miles of the LA river. Our studio will focus on a particular area within the master plan which is located in the Taylor Yard G2 River Park Project. The site is situated in the center of the LA Basin and in the middle of the Los Angeles River (at Mile 25) as it winds through Los Angeles County. The neighborhoods in this area are: Cypress Park, Glassell Park, Elysian Valley, Lincoln Heights, and Atwater Village. This span of the river is a ‘soft-bottomed’ 11 mile stretch, therefore it houses a riparian ecosystem, in quite an opposing parallel to the rest of the river which is fully channelized with concrete.

The current proposal of the River Park Project at G2 presents a fully restored riparian landscape, a precious natural oasis in a context of concrete. This studio will look into novel ideas about nature. By challenging given conceptions on regard to what a park should be, we will research strategies to create FAKE NATURE. Roxy Paine's stainless steel tree is a reference on how a tree simulacrum (part tree, part plumbing, part machine) and is a clear parallel to how we can articulate a tectonic forest with an artificial interpretation of nature. This class will ‘adapt’ nature to architecture. We will look into ‘real’ nature with Photogrammetry, and will then convert the real to the artificial. The digital mesh will be scrutinized and represented into 3d printed models. This feedback process, from nature to artifice, will provide an array of geometries to design our parks and buildings.

STUDIO BRIEF

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ANOMALOUS TERRAINS Jinah Oh & Isabel Lopez-Font

Anomalous Terrains explores the intricate relationship between the real and the fake, while negotiating the ever-prominent challenge of improving water quality in the LA River.

Through the use of unexpected landforms and architectural elements across the site, we investigate the transformation of this mundane infrastructural system into a more dynamic and immersive experience.

The vast site of Taylor Yard is subdivided and organized into four different terrains: agriculture, infrastructure, oasis, and topiary. Each terrain possesses a unique relationship to the water and plays with the dichotomy or integration of real vs. fake. This project is classified into four territories: agriculture, infrastructure, natural, and manicured. The terraced landforms and underwater reliefs create varying degrees of engagement to the water.

Our form exploration began with the study of the diverse aviary population of the site.

We analyzed the plumage textures of a variety of species to provide a dynamic set of geometry that was then choreographed into a larger system of terrains. The agricultural terrain features a new perspective on terraced farming with highly articulated edges. Terraced agriculture and irrigation is already, at its roots, an extremely artificial practice. It is the shaping of land and redirection of water. We would like to push that further. The design intent is to create a dramatically artificial interpretation of the terraced rice paddies. Our design proposal features changing elevations where peaks function as look out points, and depressions function as reservoirs that capture and retain rainwater to then slowly release it back to the river. The infrastructural terrain features water purification systems that invite the passerby through elevated walkways and plazas. The manicured terrains feature a topiary-like wall system with passages that lead the user to alternate terrains. The oasis terrain while assembled with real and familiar materials and vegetation, show a formal quality that is indicative of clear human interventions. —sinuous hills contrast to re-articulated edges and embedded objects.

Throughout the site are architectural elements that serve as vehicles for human interaction. The forest of rods are designed to imitate the immersive experience of a forest. The rods in close proximity cause moments of isolation, where as loosely scattered rods offer a more expansive, open reaction. Anomalous Terrains forces the user to reconsider prescribed definitions of real and fake nature. Through the thoughtful choreography of programmed terrains, the system creates a series of distinct experiences for the user.

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Precedents

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Catalog of Frogtown

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Abstracted Patterns

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Abstracted Patterns

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Color Studies

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Abstracted Patterns

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Infrastructural Terrain

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Vignette of Southern Terrain

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Vignette

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Site Plan

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Vignette Series

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Elevation Studies

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Agriculture Terrain

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Agriculture Terrain + Forest

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Infrastructural Terrain

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Oasis Terrain

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Agriculture Terrain

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Agriculture Terrain

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Midreview Model

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RESIDUE Residue Anya Sinha & Justine Huang

Taylor Yard at LA river is a highly contaminated post-industrial site and former railway station. The portion of the river next to the site has a soil lined bottom due to the high water table and includes a sand bar and vegetation that is supported by year-round flows. When we visited the site we saw that it still had its remnants of native vegetation such as buckwheat, native birds, herons, and remnants of industrial structures that had taken on a new life with graffiti sprayed over it.

In considering the studio theme of fake nature� we were interested in how “fakeness� or artificiality of nature relates to the idea that it is a displacement of land, animals, and structures that was once there.

For our project, we studied these existing conditions and proposed new ways to use the structures to serve the community of LA, and the native plant and animal species there.

The patterns we found on the site inform the structures in our drawing. The loops are taken from steel rods we found in Taylor Yard, and were re-purposed into aviary structures for the native bird species.

The grain textures are an abstraction of the vegetation found in Taylor Yard, which grows linearly within the cracks of the concrete. We aggregated this texture to form dense regions of a re-imagined hanging forest which would act as an occupiable green canopy over the contaminated G2 site. Larger grain regions form rocks and vegetation on the ground. We imagine the occupiable canopy as a mesh platform that allow animals and people to walk across the site and increase connectivity between the two sides of the river- one of the goals the Friends of LA mentioned to us since Frogtown is currently disconnected from the rest of LA Finally, the cisterns and platforms are placed throughout the site as collection points for water decontamination. This was a priority for the Friends of LA River since none of the water that flows through the river is currently being captured or decontaminated for further use.

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Site

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Site

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Site History

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Local Habitats

Santa Susana Mountains San Gabriel Mountains

Verdugo Mountains Simi Hills

Tujanga Wash Sepulveda

Bell Creek

Arroyo Seco Los Angeles River Griffith Park Beverly Hills Significant Ecological Area

Rio Honda Elysian Park

Santa Monica Mountains

Habitat Patch or Fragment

1/ Coyote, Canis latrans, a KEYSTONE SPECIES, 2/ Shrike, Lanius ludovincianus, a GRASSLAND SPECIES 3/ Acorn Woodpecker, Melanerpes formicivorus, an OAK WOODLAND SPECIES 4/ California Quail, Callipepla californica, as SCRUB/CHAPARRAL SPECIES 5/ Lorquin’s Admiral, Limenitis lorquini, a WILLOW/RIPARIAN SPECIES

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Site History

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Contamination Along LA River

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Site Research

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Site Research

Western Fence Lizard California King Snake

Reptiles

Pondslider

Great Blue Heron Great Egret Black-Crowned Night Heron Animals

American Coot

Birds

Snowy Egret Osprey Canada Goose Great Egret

Coyote Oppossum

Mammals

Desert Cottontail Califronia Ground Squirrel

Califronia buckwheat Rough Cocklebur Plants

Giant Reed Fountain Grass Telegraphweed Toyon

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Program Diagram

Aviary Structure

Water holes

Recreational Structures

Vegetation and Boulders

Platform Levels

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Program Elements

Aviary Structure

Water holes

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Recreational Structures

Site Section

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Site Section

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Design Process

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Design Process

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Design Process

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Site Texture Study

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Grain Studies

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Grain Studies

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Aviary Studies

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Aviary Studies

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SIte Proposal

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Site Proposal

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Model

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Model

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Model

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Model

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Vignette Process

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Vignette Process

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Vignette Process

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Vignette Process

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Vignette

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Vignette

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LOOMED Loomed GARDENS Gardens Katie Lanski + Daniel Silverman

Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Neo-Sumeria once said “He who controls the rivers controls life.”

This statement was certainly true 2000 years ago in southern Mesopotamia and continues to hold true today for the Los Angeles River. Mayor Eric Garcetti has described the river’s current condition as being one that is confined by its “concrete straitjacket” and lack of civic vision. In order to remediate this, he is calling to install a string of public parks along its banks, declaring the G2 site the “crown jewel”.

Our proposal for a park on the G2 site materializes as a tapestry of loomed gardens.

The garden is inherently a space that negotiates the notion of the natural and the synthetic, the monumental and the domestic, the every day and the enchanted, and the permanent and the ephemeral; all attributes which are also descriptive of Los Angeles.

Jonathan Gold, LA’s legendary food critic, spoke of Los Angeles as a city that has multiple cultures existing in parallel, but has few multicultural spaces/regions. Our collection of gardens becomes the principal node of multicultural exchange, catering to a diversity of ages, cultures, and beliefs.

The tapestry of loomed gardens manifests itself through an interplay between distinct fields and figures. The dispersed figures are unified together through the substrate-like field. The figures become the destination, while the field becomes the journey. The figures concentrate the multitudes through unique programmatic elements, producing a collection of public venues.

Both destination and journey are of equal importance in the experience of the garden.

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park as collection of gardens

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garden as both natural and artificial

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a short history of gardens

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a short history of gardens

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a short history of the LA River

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a short history of the LA River

“The L.A. River is where L.A. was founded. In 1781, the settlers from Mexico founded El Pueblo de Los Angeles not by the emerald Pacific Ocean or in the cool mountain air, but by the basin’s most plentiful year-round freshwater supply, on the L.A. River at its confluence with the Arroyo Seco. In today’s preferred navigational lingo, that’s the 5/110 interchange. A lush forest of sycamores and cottonwoods lined the river’s banks, and willows choked the floodplain; big patches in the future Valley and South and West L.A. were wetlands. The city spread and leapt outward from its original spot: Now, on a map of the county, it’s that chaos downtown where all the freeways meet and tangle up. L.A. used the river as its major source of drinking and irrigation water (and its major sewage dump) for 120 years; it was only after 1900, when the city outgrew its river’s water supply, that it went pillaging for water in other watersheds. The river itself stayed put. It was polluted, and pumped almost dry.“

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a short history of the LA River

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a short history of the LA River

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water levels of the LA River

“The L.A. River is the most destructively flood-prone river in a major American city.

Mark Twain wrote that he fell into a Southern California river and “came out all dusty.”

True, the river is not startlingly wet most of the year, and can be seasonally dry in spots.

Yet it drops 795 feet from Canoga Park to Long Beach -- 190 feet more than the Mississippi drops in 2,350 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. The San Gabriel peaks rise over 7,000 feet, and during storms, all three mountain ranges send torrential rains cascading directly toward L.A. The crescent of land L.A. sits on can hold a megalopolis, but it’s small for a river drainage. If you want to build a city in this basin -- and pave over hundreds of square miles of it with impermeable surfaces -- you need a plan to control floods. But what sort of plan?”

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water levels of the LA River

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diversity in Los Angeles

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diversity in Los Angeles

“The City of Angels boasts the largest communities outside their home countries of many nations: Korea, Iran, Thailand, Mexico, El Salvador. You get the picture. There are signs everywhere for Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo and Little Armenia.

Nearly half of L.A.’s population is Latino, 11 percent is Asian, and 10 percent is African-American. WalletHub ranks L.A. first in terms of educational diversity, and it ranks high in racial and ethnic diversity.”

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necessity for open public space

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necessity for open public space

“The L.A. River is one of the worst in L.A.’s long line of missed opportunities. In 1930, the Chamber of Commerce buried a parks plan it had commissioned from a famed team of landscape architects, the Olmsted Brothers and Harlan Bartholomew & Associates, to respond to L.A.’s crisis of overdevelopment -- the erasure of all but 1 percent of open space, and of all but 0.59 percent outside the mountains. That beautifully ambitious plan prescribed a wide L.A. River greenway, to create parks, enhance recreation and scenery, and absorb floodwaters. Characteristically, civic leaders instead chose a plan that made the river safe for new suburbs, freeways and industry within an inch of its banks -- that defied ecological sense, and favored unbridled private development over public space. At a crossroads, the U.S. city with the worst shortage of park space per capita -- and perhaps the most beautiful natural setting -- turned one of its most obvious sites for green space into a parks-free zone. A city that constructed 250- to 350-mile aqueducts to import water turned its river into a chute that would rid the basin of its water as fast as possible.

And a city prone to carving up its neighborhoods turned its major connective artery into a no man’s land.”

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G-2 Site, the “Crown Jewel”

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G-2 Site, the “Crown Jewel”

“Sandwiched between Rio de Los Angeles State Park and an unusually verdant meander of the L.A. River in Glassell Park, you will find the crumbling remains of a railroad empire. Littered with rocks, rubble, and the occasional old rail tie, the 41-and-a-halfacre plot of land—known officially as the G2 parcel—is the last vestige of Taylor Yard, a freight-switching facility that was the core of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s L.A. operation for about 60 years.

More recently it’s become one of the most coveted pieces of riverfront property—at least along the 11-mile stretch that the city has committed to redeveloping. An ambitious restoration plan approved two years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aims to remove what Mayor Eric Garcetti has called the river’s “concrete straitjacket” and to install a string of public parks along its banks. He called the G2 the “crown jewel” of that string in January, when the city council voted to buy the parcel. But before the so-called crown jewel of the Los Angeles River Revitalization effort can shine, it’s going to require a whole lot of polishing over the next several years.”

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the tapestry

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the tapestry

“The tapestry is a mirror of heaven and a transportable ground plan – what better medium of artistic expression could have been created for the garden, as the essence of Iranian life has always been the move between summer and winter quarters. To be able simply to roll up and carry one’s personal garden must have had tremendous appeal to poor and rich alike.”

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mapestry

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mapestry

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diagramatic site sections

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diagramatic site sections

Subtractive Moment _ Large-Scale Cisterns.

Flat Moment _ Small-Scale Reflective Pools.

Additive Moment _ Mounds, Walkways, Elevated Garden Platforms, and Follies.

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formal strategies

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formal strategies

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edge articulation

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atmospheres

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characters

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real + fake natures

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napping + lounging

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strolling + trotting

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bathing + mazing

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ziplining + skateboarding

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model moments

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model moments

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FAKE WILD Carla Bonilla, Joey Park

Plans to return the LA river to its “original wild” state fails to bring upthe fact that the channel as it is now has its own kind of “wilderness”. Patches of grass are growing in the rubble, and new forms of life are growing and developing within the concrete. Having in mind this blurry existing relationship on the site between the synthetic and the natural, we explored how this ambiguous relationship could be further explored through drawing.

Fake Wild creates artificial wetlands and landscapes through their abstraction. Platforms of different levels and geometries are created through the distortion of images of what is considered “wilderness”. Actual wetlands are juxtaposed against synthetic distorted patterns of wetlands in an arbitrary and uncontrolled way, blurring their boundaries through their color and texture.

These platforms fill up according to water levels. Underneath the platform water filtration machinery is located. Water is transported to it through the use of small carvings and pipes.

These pipes run up and down throughout the platforms, allowing for themselves to be seen and unseen at times. These fill up artificial pools and lakes throughout the site.

The natural and synthetic are juxtaposed in such a way in which there are both directional (paths) and non-directional (large patches of trees) areas. Within this, the synthetic areas are essentially chunks of painted concrete, holding within themselves entertainment areas, such as concert venues, swimming pools and all kinds of recreation areas.

Within the most rigid part of the project, a grid holds viewing terraces. These allow people to view the massive piece of land-art they were just lost in, allowing a tall and wide view of the fake wild.

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Fake Wild

Delving into the history of Taylor Yards, we found out about the complex transformation under which the site went through for the past couple hundred years. Even though the site is planned to go under a transformation that will return it to its “natural” “wilderness wet land state”, this does not allign it self with the history or needs of the site.

What this narrative fails to bring up, is the fact that the channel as it is, it is now how to its own kind of “wilderness”.

Patches of grass are growing in the rubble, and new forms of life are growing and developing within the concrete.

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

Having in mind this blurry existing relationship on the site between the synthetic and the natural. we explored in drawing how this could be represented visually and in drawing. Concrete structures, architectural pieces and geometric patterns are generated through the use of the vector, and finding an odd middleground between “natural� textures such as dirt, grass and water, and the generative vector became our goal during our drawing studies.

This was done through the stretching and distorting of the pixel. A single line of pixels would be stretched to become a series of lines, which could then be shifted, twisted and distorted, to then be reinterpreted three-dimensionally in different ways.

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

This was iterated in planometric view and on the site. Images of wetlands, dirt paths, rubble, were are mixed in together,stretched and rearranged to generate “synthetic� patterns in between.

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

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For the purpose of the drawing, all this elements were transformed onto vector elements. These were then mixed with a series of graphically generated patterns, using circles and rectangles.

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Fake Wild

Existing geometries were also taken from the site, and then rearranged to generate new patterns. This included the existing railroad lines that were abandoned and left their mark on the site.

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

All of these were then added and subtracted to create geometrical hybrids. All of these took elements from the images, the stretched patterns, circular and rectangular geometries, as well as figures from the railroads on the site.

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Fake Wild

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Fake Wild

These were also briefly speculated in section.

Allowing for different sectional ways of programming the site. As water filtration facilities, wetlands, bridges, and decorative fountains.

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Fake Wild

The synthetic: The areas where patterns are stretches and distorted, generating linear geometries, become recreation areas and paths.

The natural: Non-directional places of wandering, containing all sorts of different ecosystems, including wetlands, sandy rocky areas, and forests.

Miscelaneous Elements : Grids and pipes are placed throughout the site. The pipes transport water through the purification process and the terraces allow for views of the entire site.

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Fake Wild

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HYRBIDIZED HABITATS Abdurrahman Baru, Adriana Davis

Park as a Habitat Research Center

Oscillating between fake and natural, the industrial nature of the site is a post-oasis landscape conceived as a research park for habitat connectivity, stitching together the site with overall ecological corridor. Hybridized Habitats is a new ecology of micro-habitats and novel species ideas, culminating in multilayered geometries and functions. In Hybridized Habitats, the intersection between nature, industry and culture is reconsidered.

The site is divided into programmatic elements dealing in turn with: water redirection; native riparian species; education and engagement. Each of these programs creates a robust functionalism that allows the various microcosms to thrive both autonomously and collectively.

These conditions create a spectrum of novel habitat ideas, engaging the park for both research and educational purposes.

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Research

Research

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Study of wastewater treatment plant parts

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Figural analysis of industrial parts

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Graphic research of habitat connectivity on site

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A study of extrusions on the site

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Graphic iterations of a diagonal grid

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Grid cropped into figures

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Studies of figural generation

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Aggregated figures

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Snapshots of vignette highlighting various site conditions

Snapshots of vignette highlighting habitat hybridization

Overall site plan

Site plan details

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Diagrammatic Section showing conditions of channel, figure and booleaned grid

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Model photos from midreview using laser cut and 3-D printing tecniques

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Detail model photos

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WATER NETWORKS Wenlu Guo, Jintong Mao

a new waterwork: mitigating past contamination and creating future water management solutions along the LA river

The project focuses on the study of water treatment in LA. The study is driven from the site condition changing through history. Based on the soil contamination study, we find that the potential of artificial islands could be an interesting approach to bring the energy back to the community. We emphasize the collaboration between real nature and fake nature by generating a series of water collection and purification process. The aim for this site is to guide the water in LA river into the waterwork system that helps to use water with multiple levels of attention.

Individual island has their own characters that target on various functions from primary water collection to water purification.

The first move is to push the waterfront toward to Frog town. The soft edge platforms on top of the channel are associated with the activities for human occupied spaces. Based on the research, the energanic sports such as biking, skating, horse riding and wall climbing are embedded in LA culture. The goal for the site is to welcome people to explore the water collection with experiencing a series of outdoor activities. Bridges contacting two sides of the river help to engage communication.

Our proposal is not only to bring the life back to the site by creating artificial islands on top of contaminated soil but also to recall the big role of water playing in LA urban context.

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Site Research

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History

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Soil Contamination

Soil Remidification

Soil Contamination

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Vegetation of Wetlands

Cord Grass

Common Reed

Cattail

Couch Grass

Perilla

Feathery Seeds

Morning Glory

Lotus

Goldenrod

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Island Pattern Study

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Pattern Study

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Island Distribution

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Program Connection

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Natural Channels

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Artificial Islands

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General Plan

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Islands

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Topography

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Topography Diagrams

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Infrastructure

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Infrastructure Diagrams

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Sections

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Model Images

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Model Images

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Vignette

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Vignette

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Programmatic Diagram

Water Purification/Collection

Water Exhibition

Water Irrigation

Water Pool

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Vignette - Waterworks

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Vignette - Plantation

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University of Pennsylvania School of Design Advanced Studio Spring 2019