... los angeles community center
Blurring Boundaries
University of Illinois BSAS: Spring 2021
South Park, an area located just outside of downtown Los Angeles, is home to apartment complexes, a hospital campus, and numerous retail establishments. However, one thing that the area lacks is a connection to LA's natural environment. The response is a community center that works to provide a variety of different natural spaces for an otherwise desolate site.
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The center blurs the boundaries between the built and natural environment by integrating these natural spaces directly into the building program. Community rooms reside on the rooftop terrace, providing community members with a more intimate connection to nature. The building becomes the landscape and fully fuses with the program, just as we too should comprise our everyday lives with a blended system of work and leisure.
A timber system was used for the cafe, nature walk, multipurpose center, and meeting rooms.
A steel system was used for the elements that were more hidden, like internal lobbies, hallways, and elements not on the perimeter of the structure.
A concrete slab foundation was used as well as for the egress cores.
A composite system of timber and steel was used, with the timber framing supporting the structure at moments where the indoors met the outdoors.
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The concept of blurred boundaries was reinforced in every aspect of the design, including the structural framing of the project; this provided more warmth and natural tones in spaces that wer emore in tune with their surrounding nature.
