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.
“‘The erosion of Exposition Park’s public open space continues.’ So wrote urban planner Alan Loomis nearly 15 years ago, in an essay published by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.” LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne leads off with this quote in his evaluation of the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Reading Hawthorne’s essay is a case of deja vu all over again.
Space 134 has been trending in the local media since we presented the latest vision plan to City Council on March 1, 2016.
Space 134 is a concept study for a 25-acre “freeway cap park” over and adjacent to the 134 Freeway between Central Avenue and Glendale Avenue. Space 134 will connect the community to the City’s civic, cultural, and business core through public open space and pedestrian and bike friendly trails.
Glendale’s local TV channel, GTV6, asked me to talk about Space 134, our plan to cover the 134 Freeway with a series of parks. This is the result.
This week Hal Eisner interviewed me about “Space 134,” a concept to build a series of parks over the 134 Freeway as it cuts across the middle of Glendale.
This Strategic Master Plan guides the phased reconstruction of Glendale’s Downtown Central Park, including built work by Shimoda Design Group, AECOM, and Gruen Associates.
Commentary published in “Los Angeles: Building the Polycentric City” for the 13th Congress of New Urbanism, June 2005
The Los Angeles River and the Renewal of the City | Published in the Winter 2003 issue of ArcCA
In so far as Exposition Park has been and continues to be encroached upon by development (and simultaneously subject to abandonment), it is an allegory for Los Angeles in general. Just as LA’s natural and agricultural landscapes have been systematically developed without consistent open space protection, Exposition Park has been treated as vacant land waiting for buildings.
A review of “Eden by Design: The 1930s Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region” and the 2000 LA Mayoral Debate at Occidential College
Delirious LA 