Objective Design Standards Done Right
“When they are done well, objective design standards are a win-win solution for developers and community members.” Published as PlaceViews, October 2022
Category Archives: Writings
A Tale of Two Cities
In late 2020, Kelsi Maree Borland talked with me about planning and development in Glendale and Santa Monica, the two cities where I worked between 2005 and 2020. My perspective from inside City Hall resulted in four short articles published with Globe St.
2020 Hindsight
A decade of urban design in Los Angeles: my take on the most influential city-making projects of the past decade, including this most recent and consequential year.
Clos Pegase Winery
Simultaneously silly and seriously somber, Michael Graves’ Clos Pegase Winery is one of the few self-conscious works of architecture in Napa Valley. Designed in Graves’ mature postmodern style, the winery freely mixes neo-Palladian, Roman and Tuscan architectural motifs, with a hint of rural barn vernacular forms and resides comfortably within Calistoga’s Mediterranean agricultural landscape of vineyards and oak scrub.
Solana Beach Station
Designed in the early 90s, when transit-oriented development was nascent in California, Rob Wellington Quigley’s Solana Beach Rail Station packs a significant civic punch.
The Americana at Brand
“In Glendale, The Americana pioneered the concept of mixed-use urban residential in a downtown and inspired a 10-year building boom that added over 3,000 new residential units across 20-plus projects to the immediate area.” My essay about The Americana at Brand is one of the many entries in the online SAH Archipedia.
Church of the Nativity
There are three obvious and immediate precedents to Moore Ruble Yudell’s Church of the Nativity in Rancho Santa Fe: the monastery, the California Mission, and the rancho hacienda. Like its antecedents, the public life at the Church of the Nativity is open only to initiates who make the architectural journey into its protective cloister.
Beverly Hills Civic Center
The Beverly Hills Civic Center is a wildly ambitious, yet flawed, project that one imagines would never be built in today’s environment of hard-nosed spreadsheets. Betraying Charles Moore’s signature theatricality, it is packed with idiosyncratic and mannerist architectural expressions, and draws more inspiration from Rome’s Baroque period than the more obvious local traditions of Spanish Revival or City Beautiful movements.
On SB827
State Senate Bill (SB) 827 would densify housing along transit; Alan Loomis explains the debate for the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.
Hassan Haghani
In memory of Hassan Haghani
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
St Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Pacific Palisades is one of the more prominent projects in Charles Moore’s oeuvre, perhaps more as an illustration of his inclusive and interactive community-based design process than for its architectural form. However, St Matthew’s confidently expresses more architectural ideas and a larger urban presence than its suburban location would suggest.
Glendale Plan Framework
We have attempted in our work in Glendale, to quote the legendary planner Edmund Bacon, “to develop design principles capable of influencing future action. We have endeavored to establish a design idea of such potency that it welds the work of individual architects designing in fragmented areas into a cohesive whole.”
Plaza Las Fuentes, Pasadena
Plaza Las Fuentes, located just east of City Hall, is one of the more under-appreciated works of architecture in Pasadena. Its 360-room hotel and adjacent office tower slip into the Civic Center quietly with a comfortable grace. Much of this comfort – which is architectural but also tactile – is derived from a masterful site plan, organized around public courtyards, gardens, fountains, terraces, arcades, and lobbies.
Never Built Glendale
In the spirit of the recent “Never Built” or “UnBuilt” exhibits and publications, a look back at some the more interesting projects that didn’t happen during my eleven year tenure as Glendale’s chief urban designer.
Oceanside Civic Center
Charles Moore’s 1990 Civic Center is a delightful discovery in sleepy Oceanside California. Located at the center of town, Moore’s Irving Gill-inspired buildings surround a great plaza and fountain.
On Measure S
On Tuesday, March 7, Los Angeles residents will vote on Measure S: a controversial proposal aimed at reforming the planning system by ceasing certain developments until particular changes to the code are made. In the interest of conveying the complexity of Measure S, and exploring its potential implications for a future Los Angeles urbanism, The LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design interviewed two planning professionals: Alan Loomis, Deputy Director for Urban Design & Mobility at City of Glendale, and Richard Platkin, a former LA City Planner now teaching at USC.
Dingbat 2.0
Commentary on the LA Forum’s Dingbat 2.0 competition, written for the publication: Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis
Streetscapes
Reflections on the Southern California Edison photography archive, published in “Form and Landscape,” The Huntington’s contribution to Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA.
Triangle and Brand+Wilson
Last week the Glendale City Council approved two mixed-use projects, each located at significant infill sites within the city’s urban centers. The Triangle will anchor the Tropico Station district surrounding the Glendale Metrolink/Amtrak stop. The second will fill a vacant lot and chronic hole in the middle of the Brand Boulevard downtown retail district.
On the Glendale Downtown Plan
A review of Glendale’s Downtown Specific Plan, featured in “Planning Los Angeles,” published for the 2012 American Planning Association conference in Los Angeles.
The Dilemma of Density
Housing and Community in Southern California as seen from Pasadena | Presented at “Surfacing Urbanisms,” the 2006 ACSA West Conference, hosted by Woodbury University
CalTrans Building
The CalTrans building is a work-a-day office for the regional bureaucratic functions of the state’s transportation department. As such, it is most appropriately viewed against the offices of other large regional agencies, like the Department of Water and Power. In this context, Morphosis has created the most stunning architectural expression of bureaucratic power Los Angeles has seen in decades.
Metro Rapid Bus
Commentary published in “Los Angeles: Building the Polycentric City” for the 13th Congress of New Urbanism, June 2005
Town Centers
Commentary published in “Los Angeles: Building the Polycentric City” for the 13th Congress of New Urbanism, June 2005
Neighborhoods of Los Angeles
Commentary published in “Los Angeles: Building the Polycentric City” for the 13th Congress of New Urbanism, June 2005
Delirious LA 