lar station

A bridge between axis

Client: Conceptual

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Year: 2017

Images produced at Shimahara Visual

The LAR Station and control tower span the LA river around 3rd street in downtown Los Angles, functioning as a central beacon for the LA river's redevelopment plans. The idea was to provide an access and transitory space between the river's concrete bed and railways that run parallel above. The permanency of the LA river's bank was the driving force behind the lofty and craft like nature of the train station. It was important to retain the site's infrastructural presence, while combining it with a structure that would feel both ephemeral in it's posture, yet connected to the existing concrete banks. While the idea was ultimately to create an elevated and lofty type of architecture, the structure and it's permeating landscape needed to feel connected and grounded. As a result, the poetics of the structural system is left in this flux of forces, feeling like it's lifting, yet suspended, grounded yet elevated. All this consequently giving the architecture a sense of weightlessness and congruent motion simultaneously.