New Park Design in Los Angeles, Part One: Exhibition, June 2-July 8, 2011

Within the past five years many important parks have been designed for a wide variety of areas within the Los Angeles Basin. Yet there has been little discussion about these parks: what they look like, how they function, and how they relate to contemporary Los Angeles. This exhibition will survey six major parks that are currently being designed, that are in construction, or have been completed recently. The hope of this exhibition and symposium is to open up a dialogue among the Los Angeles design community and discuss the work critically.

Highlighted projects will include the following, at a minimum:

▪ Orange County Great Park, Ken Smith Workshop

▪ Palisades Garden Walk and Town Square, Field Operations

▪ Civic Park, Rios Clementi Hale Studios

▪ Park 101, AECOM

▪ Vista Hermosa Park, Mia Lehrer and Associates

▪ Los Angeles State Historic Park, Hargreaves Associates

The exhibit will foster discussion about the current state of public park space and design within the city. How does park design differ in Los Angeles than in other cities that enjoy more critical discourse on the subject? What does it mean to build a public park in this time, in this economy, in this part of the world? How are social and cultural issues being brought into the park design process, and how are they manifest? And finally, how have the designers strategized for sustainability within this semi-arid and capital-strapped environment.