Comuna Para Las Artes Wesley Mason Sarah Lorenzen ARC 4611 - Spring 2020
Contents:
Communal Work Space Plan Vignette: Communal Work Space
Statement of Intent
Vignette: Artist Display Space
Site Information Site Design References Context Map Site Plan Site Model Aerial View Conceptual Basis of Project Conceptual Diagrams Program Description Structural Systems Sustainability Formal Design Strategy Axon Physical Model View from Street Serial Section Elevations Partial Elevation Wall Section Sections Ground Floor Plan Vignette: Entry Vignette: Artist Display Space Third Floor Plan Vignette: Communal Work Space Fourth Floor Plan Vignette: Communal Work Space Unit Plan Vignette: Bedroom Index
The Downtown Los Angeles Arts District was traditionally home to many of L.A.’s artists, but today it has become too expensive for artist’s to live within. As galleries have become more popular and are popping up all over the city, they have also become less accessible to everyone as they become more niche and exclusive. A different art audience has come out of this exclusivity and limited access, those who are spectators. Art critic David Hickey describes these audiences as, “Spectators were nonparticipants, people who did not live the life— people with no real passion for what was going on. They were just looking. They paid their dollar at the door, but contributed nothing to the occasion.” Spectators are different from participants, “While spectators must be lured. Participants just appear, looking for that new thing—the thing they always wanted to see—or the old thing that must be seen anew—and having seen it, they seek to invest that thing with new value. They do this by simply showing up; they do it with their body language and casual conversation, with their written commentary, if they are so inclined, and their disposable income, if it falls to hand.”1 This is a conversation of underground versus the mainstream, a problem common in the Los Angeles Arts District, where those who come looking for the underground eventually push it out and it becomes the mainstream. This pushes out the artists that made these spaces unique and their audiences as the “participant” becomes the “spectator”. Part of this problem stems from low wages of the working populations of the city who work increasing hours to afford their modest homes and have less time for leisure. They can no longer afford to participate in the Arts District. The Arts District has become more for the affluent where less of these people have access to the arts. This has pushed out artists and the working class from the inner city as market rate apartments and luxury retail shops replace working class housing.
society which has become further divided as we find ourselves in the new gilded age.3 Within these spaces forms of radical art will be produced in which “total participation would have to take the place of the old spectacle, the directly experienced would replace conserved art, an all-encompassing art would take the place of art categorized in boxes, and a collective, anonymous production would replace the artists as a solitary genius.”4 These revolutionary forms of art will serve to further strengthen the collective community within the project, and that of disadvantaged peoples as a whole. Hickey, Dave. “Romancing The Looky-Loos.” Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy, by Dave Hickey, Art Issues Press, 2012, pp. 146–154. 1
2
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Black and Red , 2018, pp 16.
Artemel, AJ. “Retrospective: Archizoom And No-Stop City.” Architizer Journal, 7 Nov. 2017, architizer.com/blog/practice/details/archizoom-retrospective/. 3
Stamps, Laura. “Constant’s New Babylon-Pushing the Zeitgeist to Its Limits.” Constant: New Babylon, by Mercedes Pineda and Pedro G. Romero, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofía, 2015, pp. 12–31. 4
In a society where space has become a luxury and we are measured by what we own, theorist and philosopher Guy Debord offers this insight, “The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him.”2 Concerned with self-image we are owned by our possessions in order to maintain our social status. We need to reclaim the arts district for artists. We all need to enjoy and experience art and make it less exclusive. There should be less focus on private ownership in a society that becomes more fixated with privatization over public ownership. Communal living should be popularized in which residents of the community collectively own parts of the project, and in which there is no hierarchy and all are represented equally, where residents provide resources for all to enjoy, and each contributes their individual skills to benefit the community. The project will establish a commune as the artists work together and share possessions and responsibilities within the site. This will create a resistance within the Arts District against the corporate development model that builds luxury apartments pushing out residents who are forced to move their creative spaces elsewhere. The project will foster nonhierarchical spaces that create, “an architecture which took a fearless look at the logic of grey, atheistic and de-dramatized industrialism, where mass production produced infinite urban decors.” The city frees us with its blankness, its featurelessness, allowing us to be anyone anywhere will represent an equality which is not available in a
Statement of Intent
1
3
2
1 Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy by David Hickey 2 Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord 3 Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces edited by Alan Moore and Alan Smart
References
1 Site Info Address: 595 S. Mateo St. APNs: 5164008014 Acreage: 0.520 acre Parcel: 126A217 123 Zoning: M3-1-RIO 2 Development Standards Permitted Uses: Mixed, Live/ Work Lot Area: 22, 868.2 SF Front setback: None Side setbacks: None Rear setback: None Maximum Lot Coverage: No limit Minimum Open Space: 100 sq ft per Live/ Work Unit Minimum Landscape Coverage: No limit Building Height / Number of Stories: 110’ Height limit, 16’ minimum ground level floor to ceiling, 10’ minimum upper floors Parking: New Live/ Work (min): 1 Space per unit New Non-Live/Work Use(min): 2 Spaces per 1000 SF Car Share Reduction: 5 Regular Required Spaces per space reserved for car share Look under Density Bonus Incentives for reduced parking restrictions Minimum Building Separation: Per building construction type and occupancy (determined by use), Buffer from heavy industry (any live/work unit on a site abutting a lot containing a heavy industrial use). Those first permitted in the M3 Zone with valid certificate of occupancy as of January 1, 2014 shall be set back a minimum of 15 feet from the lot line shared by the live/ work use and the heavy industrial use. Standard FAR: 1.5 FAR by right, 3.0 (most common), 4.5 community benefits program, or 6.0 FAR surrounding sites
Zoning
Context 1” = 200’
The project is located at the intersection of E 6th Street and Mateo Street, right where the 6th Street viaduct connects to the Arts District. The Viaduct is currently undergoing construction and replacement as a part of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan that looks to bring new life to the downtown area its surroundings. The site serves as a major focal point as the viaduct connects to Boyle Heights on the opposite end, which has served as a home to many of the working class residents of the city and a bastion against gentrification. The interaction between Boyle Heights’ residents and the Arts District has often been a contentious one over the issue of gentrification. The Arts District has also been in a constant flux as there has been in increase in development over the years adding more luxury housing and amenities to serve these residents. With the increased development of these luxury projects there is less of a presence of working artists in the area as they can no longer afford to live within the Arts District. This trend is likely to continue as Herzog & de Meuron are set to complete a $2 billion development on E. 6th Street consisting of over 2 million square feet of program, many of which are set to be luxury apartments and retail. As the site sits FAR is 1.5, but considering the changing environment of the surrounding context and its redevelopment new FAR sits at 3.0. Any of the light industrial buildings in the area with low FAR are most likely to be redeveloped in the future. The site design of the project is planned so that the project takes up only half of the site, and the other half is given back to the public space. This public space blends with the artist’s display space on the ground floor of the commune.This allows for an interaction between the public and the artists and the opportunity for the public and art audience to be “participants” in the artists creative process as there is a communication and transparency across all levels. This interaction allows the project to function, “Instead of a house just for living, the building may be transformed into a public venue open to any kind of activities. For instance, it may serve as a meeting place for different political groups, and campaigns who cannot enjoy other convenient or non censored spaces for their activities. It may host workshops, or collectives or solidarity kitchens.” Other activities may include, “Free or clandestine radio stations and do-it-yourself publications, zines or newspapers, may find adequate shelter”.1 Martinez Lopez, Miguel Angel. “Preface.” Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces, by Alan W. Moore and Alan Smart, Other Forms, 2015, pp. 8–11. 1
Site Design
Mateo St
y
Pl
E 6th St
Mateo St
Mateo St
Factory Pl E 6th St
6th St Viaduct
Site Plan Scale: 1/32” = 1’
Site Model
Aerial View
Grândola Meeting Center – Aires Mateus – This project displays the possibilities of a space that is experienced differently from the outside than it is from the inside
Vault House – Johnston Marklee – This project displays the possibilities of sculpting space through the act of carving, and how a space may be experienced different sequentially as the project transforms across the section. The project also displays the possibilities of transforming the pure geometry of the arch.
Simmons Hall – Steven Holl – This project demonstrates the possibilities of vertical communication across a section with conventional floorplates as a space for social interaction and communication
Conceptual Basis
King’s Road House:
Kibbutz:
Shared Residence with individual studio space and communal living spaces
Collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture
Soviet Social Housing:
Commune:
Social housing plans enacted by the USSR to solve housing shortage. Each family had its own room, which served as a living room, dining room, and bedroom for the entire family. All the residents shared use of hallways, communal kitchen, bathroom and telephone.
Intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, often having common values, beliefs, as well as shared property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work, income or assets
The project consists of 55 units of housing for low income artists with a focus on communal living with shared living, dining, and bathroom areas. Stitching together these living areas is a communal work space that flows between each set of living units connecting each. This free flowing work space is where artists may create their works in an uninterrupted space where they may work collaboratively or independently and may also interact outside of their shared living spaces, further forming a sense of a community within the project. On the ground floor is where the artists may display their works to the community and have an interaction with potential buyers of their works. This ground floor and adjacent outdoor space may also be used as a public venue for a number of democratic activities including hosting workshops, community bookstore, performance space, and a gathering space for free expression of political thoughts and ideas. Program Communal Housing (55 Units): 42, 930 Gross SF Artist Work Space: 16, 905 Gross SF Art Gallery / Display Space: 14, 610 Gross SF Total Gross SF: 74, 178 Density Units/ Acre: 1/0.52 Acre = 1.92 1.92 x 55 Units = 105.77 Units/ Acre: 105 Parking Communal Housing - 0.5 space / Unit: 55 x 0.5 = 28 Spaces Art Gallery / Display Space – 1 space / 500 Sf: 14, 610 á 500 = 28 Spaces Total Parking Required: 56 Spaces
Communal Housing Artist Workspace Art Gallery / Display Space Circulation
Program
Concrete Core Girders Beams Columns Wood Diaphragm Wood Framing
Structural System Scale, if applicable
Project employs daylighting strategies to bring in natural light to working and living areas to minimize need for electricity Project minimizes footprint on site to give back to public space allowing for more green space within the city Project emphasizes communal living and communal ownership and ecourages occupants to use less and be more eco friendly
Sustainability Scale, if applicable
The project is an inward looking design that does not have a concern with the spectacle of form or material. The focus is the interior relationships among the residents and how they coalesce to create a nonhierarchical community. The project seeks to foster the creativity of the commune and create an emphasis on shared living and working spaces. The interior organization of spaces is that of a free flowing space within a solid. Each living space is attached to the exterior wall with an outdoor space attached to each unit. These living spaces then carve and shape the free flowing working space that weaves between each living space. In plan and in section the geometry takes the form of the arch. This is taken from the context of Mateo Street and is then perverted and reimagined to carve space that foster creativity and imagination. The section has a break in it that allows the floorplates to shift to where space becomes continuous from ground to roof and allows a communication amongst occupants of each floor. The double height work spaces create an overlap within this break that makes the continually flowing spaces possible. This break is apparent all the way down to the ground floor where the art display space exists. This allows for the public to have a glimpse into the working spaces of the artists and how working collaboratively may produce significant pieces of art. This is the essence of the nonhierarchical space to where there is a communication between residents of all spaces, and all spaces are shared equally among residents, with the exception of the bedrooms.
Formal Design Strategy
Axon
Physical Model
Physical Model
Physical Model
Physical Model
From Street
Serial Secion
Section A-A 0 5 10
20
40’
3 /
Section B-B 0 5 10
20
40’
South Elevation 0 5 10
20
40’
East Elevation 0 5 10
20
40’
1
8
3
9
4
10 1 Corten Steel Panel 2 Perforated Corten Steel Panel 3 Adjustable Substructure 4 Panel Hanger 5 Waterproofing Membrane 6 Sheathing 7 Glazing 8 Suspended Ceiling System 9 Batt Insulation 10 Rigid Insulation
1 7
2 5 6
Partial Elevation 0
1
2
4’
Wall Section 0
1
2
4’
Ground Floor Plan 0 5 10
20
40’
DN UP
UP DN
UP DN
OPEN TO BELOW
UP DN
UP DN
Third Floor Plan +37’ 0 5 10
20
40’
Scale, if applicable
DN UP
UP DN
UP DN
OPEN TO BELOW
OPEN TO BELOW
UP DN
UP DN
Fourth Floor Plan +48’ 0 5 10
20
40’
Scale, if applicable
Unit Plan Scale: 3/16” = 1’
Communal Work Space Plan Scale: 3/16” = 1’