SPRING STREET LOT
Los Angeles, CA
A trio of derelict warehouse buildings on a light-industrial parcel in LA’s Chinatown neighborhood was transformed into an urban generator envisioned to accommodate events, creative work, and public or private gatherings at all scales. Elysian’s landscape concept artfully stitched together the ensemble of buildings to create a coherent micro-campus devoted to cultural cross-pollination.
A linear central courtyard garden joins together the vast multi-use structure on one side, programmed for art, music, fashion, film, and photography events, and two smaller structures ranged along the other side.
One was retrofitted for David Chang’s Majordomo restaurant, the other built out for creative offices. In this ‘space between’, where a weekly green market pops up, Elysian also developed a chef’s garden, with Onggi fermentation pots embedded within, that wraps the outdoor dining patio. An African Sumac tree at the center of the patio steps off ‘Pipette’, a dreamy fable in the form of a mural by Taiwanese-American artist James Jean, animating the scene.
Invading planted areas here and there, graphic fragments in hot hues rise up from the ground plane between buildings and run up the building walls, drawing the spatial focus toward the center of the site.
The hardscape design enters into a lively aesthetic dialogue with the brilliantly hued and unruly sculptural forms of Elysian’s native and drought-tolerant plant palette.
Client: Gaw Capital
Design Team:
Elysian Landscapes
Completed: 2018
Area: 2.7 acres