Proving Ground: A Love Letter to Los Angeles
At ArchDaily, our work is grounded in stories. Between practices and projects, editorials and news, we write to share how architecture and design are changing both the way we live and why. We also have a responsibility in our choice of which stories are told and which are not. What follows is a reflection on design in Los Angeles, a beautiful, huge, sprawling and diverse city that I have called home for many years.
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Los Angeles has been covered countless times before: in city guides, in the news, through its studios and through so many unique and inspiring projects. From Pierre Koenig’s iconic Stahl House to the Eames House to the transformation of the Los Angeles Basin, the city has never stopped searching for a new aesthetic. Between these case study projects and Banham’s four ecologies, which stretch from Pacific sunsets to the San Gabriel Mountains, Los Angeles is home to more than 12 million people across the metro. Their stories are what shape the city today.
As Los Angeles has continued its sprawl since the wide open spaces of the 1940s, the California test bed has been built on new experimentation. This is best exemplified through its residential projects, from Tiny Home Villages to the single-family homes the city has become known for, with housing projects covering nearly half the city. But any history of LA would be incomplete without acknowledging that the city is riddled with pitfalls: housing shortages, transportation, land use regulations, zoning, wildfires and environmental extremes, not to mention key management issues. some water.
As a writer and journalist, I’ve had the chance to interview many Angelenos and the people who shape Los Angeles today. Greg Kochanowski examined wildfires through his personal experience, as well as what it means to live in a city that adapts and changes. Constantly dreaming of new possibilities, Keely Colcleugh spoke about her role in communicating the future of built environments. Takashi Yanai presented a body of work exploring what California modernism is today. Designing with nature, Diego Cano-Lasso brought the new second home to life. And Natasha Case reminded me that designing for fun is as much about how we work as what we make for the world.
Los Angeles is diverse. From mountains, beaches and valleys, to towers, bungalows and ADUs, to different races, ethnicities and cultures. This richness is felt in the design culture of the city, with influences and roots across the world. And while its urban sprawl may seem endless, the city is slowly becoming denser. At the same time, city officials are scrambling to capitalize on the 2028 Olympics and funnel billions of dollars into Los Angeles transit projects. In the years to come, a diversity of multimodal access, transit, housing and design has the potential to better serve visitors and residents.
LA is not beautiful because it is perfect, refined, understandable or utopian. Its beauty lies in the way it unfolds, a city that seems to be falling apart. It leaves room for new ideas, relationships and architectures to emerge, a prototype for other cities. Designers will continue to reinvent Los Angeles through this experimentation and reinterpretation. The city captures our imagination because it has been shaped by multiplicity, fostering a place where so many communities and people come together.
I love Los Angeles. I hope its experimentations, designers and culture will continue to inspire you and that you can experience the beauty of the city for yourself.
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