Join us tomorrow at the the HABEAS INDEX at our usual 12:30 - 1:30 PM discussion time to meet York Chang of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission. York will discuss the Cultural Affairs Commission’s recent efforts to reinvigorate the City’s cultural energy and dynamism. The Cultural Affairs Commission is responsible for the review and approval of all public architecture and public art designs, and has been engaged in a year-long effort to create the necessary conditions for consistent and long-term excellence in public architecture, public art, urban design that best reflects Los Angeles’ international stature as a vibrant and creative cultural center.
York Chang is a painter and conceptual artist based in Silverlake, Los Angeles. He was appointed in 2005 by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as Vice-President for the City of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Commission, and has been working as Co-Chair of the Commission’s Design Review Group.
www.yorkchang.com
http://www.culturela.org/events/cac.html
The HABEAS INDEX and its programs are sponsored by Brookfield Properties in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
the HABEAS INDEX presents: What to do in an earthquake…with Martin W. Fellbaum, CPP
Thursday, August 21, 2008 12:30 - 1:30 PM
* Reception: 4 - 6:30 PM @ the HABEAS INDEX // Lounge music by DJ Tony // Bar hosted by The Edison
On August 14th, you are invited to participate in “WALK WITH US!”, a walking tour that will survey the many splendid points of architectural and cultural gems that you can find along Seventh Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. In the window of the HABEAS INDEX is “IMAGINING DOWNTOWN”, a playful model of Los Angeles, which presents our Downtown as a comprehensive urban art form. Created by urban planner and downtown advocate James Rojas, the model offers several noticeable modifications. Notably, Seventh Street and Broadway have been turned into pedestrian zones! According to Rojas, these two streets have such an abundance of eye candy that they beg for us to walk them, as pedestrians, to fully appreciate and savor everything that they have to offer. The tour will visit several exhibitions, including the LA Art Girls Art Fair Biennale Los Angeles at Phantom Galleries LA, and conclude at the Artwalk’s center, the Bert Green Fine Art, on Fifth and Main Street.
Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of The Urban Homestead, have become increasingly interested in the concept of urban sustainability since moving back to Los Angeles in 1998. In that time, they’ve slowly converted their 1920 hilltop bungalow into a mini-farm, and along the way have explored the traditional home arts of baking, pickling, bicycling and brewing. Infused with the DIY spirit and distrust of the pre-packaged and the spoon-fed, they believe in that in this age, gardening and the home arts can be an revolutionary gesture.
Kelly and Erik blog, Homegrown Evolution explores a fast-growing new movement: urbanites becoming gardeners and farmers. Since 2006, they have shared their successes and failures while including step-by-step directions and links to resources that will get you started with urban homesteading immediately- whether you live in an apartment or in a house!
As a follow-up to their spirited presentation at the launch of the HABEAS INDEX in June, dynamic art groups FALLEN FRUIT and ISLANDS OF LA will give a progress report on their thought-provoking and edible collaboration LOVE APPLES, on Thursday, July 31 from 12:30 - 1:30 PM.
LOVE APPLES is an installation of seventy tomato plants on twelve traffic islands in LA, carefully tracked to see which thrive, which survive and which perish. The tomatoes will be harvested in a public festival in August. LOVE APPLES (an early European name for the tomato) occupies twelve sites in Echo Park, Silver Lake, Cypress Park, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, El Sereno and Glassell Park. The tomatoes are planted on unoccupied and irrigated public space. LOVE APPLES is a test of the definition and use of public space in the city of Los Angeles, imaging new ways in which such spaces could be better utilized for the enjoyment of all.
Park 101 with EDAW’s 2008 intern program
Eric Richardson
July 24 starting at 12:30, participate in an informal lunchtime chat at the HABEAS INDEX, featuring Park 101, a proposed visionary urban design solution to cap the half-mile length of the 101 Hollywood Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and reconnect the city’s historic core, north of the freeway, with the civic, cultural, and financial cores of modern Los Angeles to the south. Strongly being considered by the Los Angeles Community Development Department and Caltrans for implementation, the project provides a unique opportunity to create an iconic urban park in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, focused on re-visioning the existing infrastructure that supports and encircles the core of the city —freeways, channelized rivers, streets, and public transit. The focus of EDAW’s 2008 Intern Program, the project brought student interns to participate with the client, EDAW staff, and other design professionals for an intense two-week charrette style workshop. Park 101 is the final work product illustrating the team’s solutions. The model will be on display, and Project Managers Gaurav Srivastava and Mike Williams, along with Intern Program participants Gustavo Alejandro Garcia and Henrik Olsson, will present.
From 5 to 7:30 PM, you’re invited to join the team again for a more formalized presentation of the project, which was initially presented in a public event at Caltrans Plaza, and a question and answer period. For more information on the project, please contact Gaurav Srivastava at Gaurav.srivastava@edaw.com.
IMAGINING DOWNTOWN lunchtime discussion
On Thursday James Rojas led a discussion based on his fanciful model of downtown that has been gracing the HABEAS INDEX for the past few weeks. Built from discarded lego parts, perfume bottles and plastic bric-a-brac, James encourages visitors to add their wishes of downtown to the model. A number of planners came out to move buildings around and create walking zones.
“Raise your hands if you work in planning!”
”Seventh Street and Broadway are a chock full of eye candy”, says James. ”These two streets could be turned into walking zones”.
As part of the Downtown LA Open House taking place June 6, 7 and 8th, the HABEAS INDEX will host two project projects; LOVE APPLES and IMAGINING DOWNTOWN
LOVE APPLES is an installation of seventy tomato plants on twelve traffic islands in LA, carefully tracked to see which thrive, which survive and which perish, à la Survivor, and then harvested in a public festival in August. LOVE APPLES (an early European name for the tomato) occupies twelve sites in Echo Park, Silver Lake, Cypress Park, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, El Sereno and Glassell Park. The tomatoes are planted on unoccupied and irrigated public space. LOVE APPLES is a test of the definition and use of public space in the city of Los Angeles, imaging new ways in which such spaces could be better utilized for the enjoyment of all. Visitors are asked to sample but not hoard any tomatoes they find in public.
LOVE APPLES is a collaboration between ISLANDS OF LA (http://www.islandsofla.com), which turns traffic islands in LA into territories of art, and FALLEN FRUIT (http://www.fallenfruit.org), an activist art project that uses public fruit to talk about people and neighborhoods. On Saturday June 7th, the LOVE APPLES crew will be on hand to talk about the state of tomatoes and guide visitors through their cultivation process!
IMAGINING DOWNTOWN: Making a Model for Downtown Los Angeles - features a fanciful model of downtown Los Angeles. Made from an array of ‘traditional’ elements (legos, building blocks) and untraditional material (perfume bottles, various bric-a-brac, costume jewelry), the model invites us to add to the cityscape as we see fit. IMAGINING DOWNTOWN is a project by James Rojas, a transportation planner at Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), and cofounder of the Latino Urban Forum.
Map © 2008 Cartifact, Los Angeles: www.cartifact.com
With a little help from my friends
Marco Kusumawijaya of Jakarta Indonesia (left), is the inaugural fellow of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture’s ‘Urban Futures Initiative’ (www.makcenterufi.org). I had the good fortune to have Marco and HABEAS LOUNGE designer Mark Gee visit 7+FIG to offer their expert analysis on the ideal placement of the big red couch. I think they got it right on.
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