VENETIAN MEDIATION ZONE
Master Planning - Venice Blvd.
Professor Christof Jantzen
Location:
Venice, Los Angeles
Goal:
Evolving an underutilized major throughway into a community oriented space by adapting new urban strategies under the guise of collective memory.
How can Venice Blvd. create a mediation space for localized and globalize connections? How can this speak to the collective memories of Abbot Kinney as well as the settlers of the Oakwood and surrounding neighborhoods?
Users: Generational Venetians, The Gentrifiers, and Tourists.
The neighborhood of Venice has a rich history; one filled with marginalization and gentrification. The overall agenda of Abbot Kinney, the founder of Venice, was to create an amusement park town in which people would come and experience the canals in order to access their vacation homes. The history of Oakwood, a segregated black neighborhood, helped build and preserve the elements of Venice that made it original and diverse. As of today, Venice has experienced decades of gentrification, widespread homelessness, and unsustainable housing markets. Venice urbanity remains confused.
Venice is the one of the biggest tourist attractions in Southern California, second to Disneyland. The influx of tourism has created a skewed commercial market, which in turn has brought a new wave of rich venetians to the area. Today people visit for the street performers and the historic canals and boardwalk, with much of Venice’s history no longer present.
So why not learn from the past in order to influence the future? There is not proper public infrastructure in place to accommodate the level of tourism, while at the same time there is not the housing capacity to create a diverse housing market.
Abbot Kinney had big ideas, or suggestions rather, for what Venice Blvd. could become. The portion shown above is filled with high end retail and light industrial corporate offices. Most of the public space around Venice Blvd. is underutilized, or rather fenced off in order to displace homeless encampments. Venice Blvd. instead has turned
into a six lane, auto-oriented corridor that connects the beach with the rest of Los Angeles. Venice Blvd. instead has turned into a six lane, auto-oriented corridor that connects the beach with the rest of Los Angeles. Venice Blvd. in this case acts as a divisive urban element, segregating the 11 different neighborhoods.
So is there a way to create urban nodes of connection between the tourists and the locals? Venice Blvd. in turn would need to become pedestrian oriented, while simultaneously adding multimodal, green transportation options as well as increase housing capacity. A series of transit hubs will negotiate the level of
private transportation comes in and out of Venice, in which the station located at Lincoln Blvd will have parking infrastructure for tourists, demanding they take other modes of public transit to the beach.
The overall masterplan functions best with all elements shown. However, there is the ability to enforce various urban strategies without a complete overhaul, with something as simple as a road diet. The masterplan consists of two plazas with different functions, as the overall urban qualities change from west to east of Abbot
Kinney Blvd. More green space and lower density housing to the west with higher density, live/work housing is promoted to the east. Overall, there is a series of interconnected pathways for public transit, as well as a primary rail line.
Higher density housing with a variety of housing types is promoted along Abbot Kinney and Venice Blvd. Larger transit stations are located in the industrial zone of Venice Blvd. Electric Plaza and Grand Plaza act as the glue which connect the twenty plus landmarks located in other parts of Venice. Venice Blvd acts as the stitching.
Currently, Venice Centennial Park is sandwiched between north and south Venice Blvd. The proposed changes minimize private travel by 75%. Various walkways connect to other nodes, creating diverse walkable paths expansive enough to accommodate influence of tourism and multimodal transit. Overall, open space is preserved.
Electric Plaza is multi-functional, creating space for performances or farmers markets. What was once light industrial warehouses has now been converted into high density housing, along with live/work space
for artists and local vendors alike. Private transit is still allowed, however it does not act as an element of disconnection and is its overall impact is minimized.
