Platform for Architecture + Research

For the exhibition Shelter: Rethinking how we live in Los Angeles, PAR proposes a new model of high-rise courtyard housing, integrated with mass transit, on LACMA’s proposed tower site on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile. The tower typology, an important element in the contemporary metropolis, has become anonymous, defined mainly by its height. Typical residential towers, while successfully providing density, rarely produce unique living environments with access to green space, qualities that are emblematic of Los Angeles living. PAR’s proposal, developed in close collaboration with Buro Happold, acts against this endemic monotony, creating a 930 foot tall stack of individual houses, each with a direct connection to nature through oversized terraces, some containing common spaces and leisure zones.