An "elevated" vision for Downtown LA, circa 2030

As we’ve noted, architecture giant Gensler is moving from Santa Monica to Downtown LA (a move that has seen its share of  controversy lately thanks to the firm’s city-provided subsidy). With the help of three talented  students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Professional Studio program, the firm has put together a video about their new ‘hood.  It documents Downtown’s dramatic growth and change over the years, and offers predictions and suggestions for its future.

Downtown Los Angeles from tam thien tran on Vimeo.

Their intriguing ideas include: putting parking on the periphery and closing the rest to cars; keeping production local; developing a new ground plane in the sky; and transferring cars’ kinetic motion into energy. Wishful thinking, of course, but that’s a good thing in a studio meant to be a “marriage between reality and mythology.” The studio was led by Gensler Design Directors Shawn Gehle and Li Wen and the three students/filmmakers/visionaries were Sarah Fleming, Tam Thien Tran, and Toon Virochpoka.