An Award Winning Proposal

This neighborhood revitalization plan was submitted to the 2023 Livable Communities Initiative Design Competition. The prompt was simple: Reimagine a major boulevard in Los Angeles to be more livable, safe, and beautiful. I worked with Cal Poly classmates Douglas Ridley and Drew Davies to propose a plan reenvisioning Pico Boulevard between Robertson Boulevard and South Beverly Boulevard. Our submission won grand prize.

Our proposal begins with a section on the neighborhood’s development in the 1920’s, and existing conditions discussion and summary of our visit to the street, and a summary of public outreach we completed. The rest of the report is split into three main parts: Parks and Plazas, Streetscapes, and Land Use.

The full proposal can be viewed here.

Before & Afters

For the three main chapters, I prepared “before and after” pictures to illustrate our ideas. Some of these are shown here.

From Streets to Plazas

One of the biggest challenges in Pico-Robertson is a lack of public space. The city of Los Angeles already owns the broad boulevards here, so we had an idea—what if the streets could become the public space? Using retractable bollards and stone pavers, the streetscape can instantly transform from a thoroughfare to a public plaza. We suggest the bollards go up on weekends, when through traffic is at a minimum and local synagogues host large crowds of worshippers.