This project was a design study to explore the design language and massing for a proposed new residential tower in the Historic Core of downtown Los Angeles. Clad in shades of blue glass, the project sought to exploit the materiality of glass in novel ways by deploying it to maximize its sense of mass and density. Building from a deep, dark, heavily textured base, the project evolves as it rises to culminate in light blue glass where the building meets the sky, along the way transitioning from a language of dense mass to one of light planarity, enabling the insertion of recessed outdoor balconies within the upper levels.
The massing angles and jogs as the building rises, creating relationships that allow it to engage in a dialogue with historical structures on either side, while also taking a place within the skyline of LA above. Threaded through these angled masses would be a new public space, connecting to Spring Street and offering an outdoor gathering space with food and retail and urban streetscape views, connecting seamlessly to the adjacent Spring Arcade.
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