Two of our residential projects have received recognition within the last two days. The Nowita Residence is currently featured on Dwell.com along with an owner interview and slide show, and the Beit Ha-Ahava “House of Love” Residence received a charming write-up on Los Angeles I’m Yours. Take a look!
Rios Clementi Hale Studios is working with House & Robertson Architects on the Columbia Square project in Hollywood. Kilroy Reality Corporation, the property’s owner, will build a mixed-use project that will eventually include 200 luxury rental apartments, 30,000 square feet of retail and about 330,000 square feet of new office space. The full story can be found on the Wall Street Journal.
From the Los Angeles Times, Curbed LA, and BusinessWire.com….
“The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel will be extensively renovated as part of a $2-billion project the Los Angeles City Council approved unanimously Tuesday. Next Century Associates, owner of the curved hotel on Avenue of the Stars in Century City, will also erect two 46-story residential towers behind the hotel, and a 100,000-square-foot retail plaza and more than 2 acres of public open space with fountains and courtyards. The hotel’s front will be reconfigured to make it easier for pedestrians to navigate. The plan includes a proposed Metro station for an eventual Westside subway.”
RCHS is pleased to join Gensler (Executive Architect) and Marmol Radziner (preservation architect) as the project landscape architect.
Related California broke ground on January 10, 2013 on the first residential building of its Grand Avenue Project in downtown Los Angeles. The 19-story apartment tower is the first high rise building in Los Angeles designed by architects Arquitectonica. We are proud to join the team as the project’s Landscape Architect. The building is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. Read the whole story at GlobeSt.com.
Charles Birnbaum, President of the The Cultural Landscape Foundation wrote an article for The Huffington Post outlining 2012′s Notable Developments in Landscape Architecture. RCHS’ design for Grand Park is included along with some truly amazing projects.
Grand Park and S4P: Sunset Triangle Plaza are both finalists in Interior Design Magazine’s Best of Year Awards program. Grand Park is a finalist in the public space category, and Sunset Triangle Plaza is a finalist in the budget category. Interior Design will be hosting the awards ceremony in New York City the evening of November 29th where the winner for each category will be announced. RCHS was an honoree in the BOY 2011 Awards for the Act 4 Entertainment project.
If you want to have an impact on a city, bringing some of the most inventive and accomplished designers working in America to the local art school is a good place to start.
That’s the idea behind the new Creativity Series at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, a program recently founded by Madeleine Kelly Lubar, chair of the board of trustees at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and her husband, David Lubar.
Mark Rios, the founding principal of Rios Clementi Hale Studios in Los Angeles, will be the first visiting designer in the series. His firm is known for the integration of architecture with other creative disciplines, from furniture design to interior design, from urban planning to graphics. He has made headlines for his work as the architect of Grand Park, a comfortable, flexible, outdoor social space and tourist magnet in downtown L.A.
Rios will spend several days in Milwaukee this week, particularly with students and faculty at MIAD. He’ll participate in a public conversation from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at MIAD, 273 E. Erie St. Admission is free.
Rios Clementi Hale Studios recently received four awards for three park-related projects from the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles (AIA/LA), and the Southern California Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA/SCC).
The award-winning projects include Grand Park, a new 12–acre civic space located in downtown Los Angeles; Sunset Triangle Plaza, the 11,000-square foot, public plaza prototype for Streets for People; and Pop Zoo, a 20-acre network of educational playgrounds and parks to be built in Chengdu, China.
Rios Clementi Hale Studios received the 2012 AIA/LA Building Team of the Year Award for the design of Grand Park. This annual award is one of the Presidential Honors that are given at the discretion of the current AIA/LA President and Executive Board. “Truly a Board decision and in recognition of the project’s transformative effect on the life of downtown Los Angeles, Grand Park is this year’s AIA/LA Building Team of the Year,” said Stuart Magruder, AIA, LEED, AIA/LA President. “Over the past decade, downtown has changed considerably as residential living has returned. Missing was a commons, a place for the public to gather. Grand Park will be that place, a space for civic discourse.”
ASLA/SCC also recognized Grand Park with an award in the category of Parks and Recreation. The jury responded to design elements such as broad promenades, shared grounds for performances and public events, and lush, globally inspired landscaping, including 24 gardens.
We received a Planning and Analysis award for our work on POP Zoo in China’s Luxe Lake District in Sichuan Provence near Chengdu, China, which is the natural home of the world-famous Giant Panda. Pop Zoo is an innovative network of 19 locally themed playgrounds and parks encompassing 20 acres. We created a master plan for the project, which is designed to raise awareness about the region’s endangered animals and habitats.
We earned our third ASLA/SCC award, this time in the Parks and Recreation category, for Sunset Triangle Plaza. Opened in March 2012, the prototype project for Streets for People (S4P) efficiently and inexpensively transformed a nondescript traffic island on Sunset Boulevard into a neighborhood-oriented space for farmer’s markets, pedestrian traffic, and gatherings at café tables. S4P is an initiative of the City of Los Angeles Planning Commission and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The County of Los Angeles and The Music Center today announced a series of special events that will officially open the first two blocks of Los Angeles County’s Grand Park, located in downtown Los Angeles, later in July. Festivities will begin with a civic dedication on Thursday, July 26, 2012, followed by a public inaugural event on Saturday, July 28, 2012, in conjunction with National Dance Day. The dedication of the first two blocks of Grand Park will include music and dance artists along with a procession of young people representing the cultural quilt of Los Angeles. The event will culminate with a distinctive ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring key dignitaries at the restored Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain.
“After many years of hard work, collaboration and perseverance, I am excited to introduce Grand Park to my fellow Angelenos,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina. “This festive series of events marks the beginning of a new chapter for downtown, which now has a wonderful place where all in the County can gather, celebrate, share experiences with each other and enjoy entertainment in a beautiful setting.”
“I am thrilled that, under the leadership of Supervisor Gloria Molina, the Grand Avenue Authority was able to ensure that this beautiful new civic park was funded and built for the public,” said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who served as vice chair of the Joint Powers Authority. “Watching the park grow from an idea into the expansive green space that it is today has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey, and I look forward to looking out from the steps of City Hall and watching downtown residents, visitors and workers enjoy what will be downtown’s largest open space to date.”
Blocks one and two (from Grand Avenue to Hill Street) of Grand Park will open to the public on July 28, 2012 with the West coast’s flagship National Dance Day Celebration presented by The Music Center and The Dizzy Feet Foundation. The event invites all park visitors, young and old, to participate in the arts with a free, interactive dance experience. Conceived originally by executive producer and co-creator of “So You Think You Can Dance” (SYTYCD), Nigel Lythgoe, and acknowledged by Congress in 2010, National Dance Day is a nationwide grassroots initiative that promotes the joy and benefits of dance for everyone.
Each year, in honor of National Dance Day, The Dizzy Feet Foundation, of which Lythgoe is a founder and co-president, produces one or more official dance routines and makes them available for everyone to learn in preparation for National Dance Day. This year’s videos can be found at www.dizzyfeetfoundation.org. On July 28, Lauren Gottlieb, SYTYCD Season 3 finalist and Season 7 All-Star, and Gina Grant from Zumba will lead the public at Grand Park in the two dance routines in celebration of National Dance Day. Park visitors will also enjoy free community dance classes and performances, a special performance by IRIS from Cirque du Soleil, other family-friendly activities and a number of food trucks on-site. The weekend’s public celebration will continue on Sunday, July 29, 2012, with inaugural musical events, featuring regional musical performers presented by Grand Performances in partnership with The Music Center.
“We look forward with great anticipation to a number of activities that will officially welcome Grand Park into the community and introduce the public to the County’s newest downtown jewel,” said Thor Steingraber, vice president of programming at The Music Center. “What better way to launch this ‘park for everyone’ than with a National Dance Day celebration, which is not only one of the biggest dance events of the year, but one in which everyone can participate, with no previous dance experience necessary. This event will be a great example of the type of fun, interactive and entertaining activities Grand Park will host for years to come.”
“We cannot imagine a better place to hold the West coast’s largest and most exciting National Dance Day celebration than at Grand Park,” said Lythgoe. “The park gives us a lovely setting to encourage all members of the community to get up, move and get healthy at the same time,” he added.
For more information, visit grandparkla.org.
About Grand Park
A vibrant outdoor community gathering place for all Angelenos, Grand Park adds a new spirit and vitality to downtown and is a beautiful public park for the entire community in Los Angeles County. With expansive green space for gatherings large and small, Grand Park celebrates the cultural vitality of Los Angeles County and is host to community events, cultural experiences, holiday celebrations and many other activities that engage and attract visitors from all communities throughout the County. One of the biggest parks in all of Los Angeles, the 12-acre Grand Park stretches from The Music Center on the west to City Hall on the east. Under the direction of the County, Grand Park was developed through Grand Avenue Park Development, LLC (The Related Companies, L.P.) with an award-winning creative team, including landscape architect, Rios Clementi Hale Studios; general contractor, Charles Pankow Builders; environmental graphic design firm, Sussman/Prejza; and fountain design consultants, Fluidity.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, posted a fabulous video today of the restored Arthur J. Will memorial fountain during its illumination test. The fountain is one part of the re-design of Grand Park. From his blog:
“…the 1960s-era fountain is being spectacularly re-imagined for a starring role in a $56-million transformation of Will’s long overlooked public space, which stretches from the Music Center to City Hall. The parking ramps have been demolished and moved, and the fountain has been restored under the watchful eye of the Los Angeles Conservancy.”