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Team 1
Chinatown/Elysian Park Housing Project
The Chinatown/Elysian Park Project is an assignment to design and develop a housing complex that would include a community center, retail area, open spaces for recreation, and parking area for the residents and visitors. The site is situated north of the community of Chinatown, south of the Los Angeles River, east of Elysian Park and west of the abandoned Southern Pacific rail yard.
Our concept for this project was to illustrate the hierarchy that exists in our site from the top of the hillside to the bottom of the flatland area and
also to introduce park-like settings within an urban environment. In designing this project, we tried to achieve these goals in several ways. We design
housing units that would have terraces so that the residents would have exterior space and views of the site. The buildings were placed in such a
fashion that the buildings would seem to rise from the bottom to the top of the hillside. The housing designed on the hillside were surrounded by a park
area for outdoor recreation. The housing in the lower part of the site were designed to be built to define and create formal outdoor spaces such as courtyards, plazas and an open mall.
A pedestrian walkway was designed to cover and connect both parts of the sites that are separated by Broadway St. The walkway starts atop of the hillside at the front of the housing tower moves its towards the park area and then across Broadway St. which leads the pedestrians to the retail/housing area that
serves as the gateway into the lower half of the site. It directs people to an open plaza designed for outdoor community gatherings. Housing units define
this plaza that wraps itself halfway around it and is defined by the community center on the other side.
The community center houses many sports and other recreational activities such as tennis and basketball courts and a swimming pool. It also provides facilities for conferences and meetings. The community center serves as the turning point for our site. It is the node from which the project radiates
from. Two axes radiate from this area. One axis leads into the retail area and the other leads to an open mall surrounded by terraced housing, which visually creates a valley. The housing along the train yard addresses noise issues by creating projections from the facade of the building to block the noise, but
at the same time allowing light to still filter in. Quarried rocks form a barrier at the bottom of this specific housing row to disguise the view of the
train yard. At the end of this row another pedestrian bridge connects the two halves of
the site and completes the pedestrian path back to its starting point at the front of the Housing tower sitting atop of the hill. This bridge is more
private for it has no link to Broadway.
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