Hasta La Ideas

What does it take to change the mind of a city? Concerted effort and pilot projects that prove the concept, says Streets for People‘s Margot Ocanas and Anna Peccianti, and Frank Clementi of Rios Clementi Hale Studios.

The Sunset Triangle Plaza is Los Angeles’ first street-to-plaza project. It was created by Streets for People (S4P), an initiative of the City of Los Angeles City Planning Commission in partnership with the County Department of Public Health. Designed by Clementi, this one-year demonstration project closed down a redundant street where Sunset and Griffith Park Boulevards meet and opened it up for pedestrian use. The plaza opened two months ago to much excitement.

I finally went over to check out the plaza at an event produced by design-enthusiasts Design East of La Brea (deLab), who have given me more reasons to venture on the east side of town.

Although Los Angeles has seen its share of road closures for the immensely popular cycling celebration CicLAvia and Los Angeles marathons, these events are small scale one-day events not year-long proposals. At first glance, the 11,000-square feet area doesn’t seem like much—the plaza bears all the familiar markings of public space: potted plants, cafe tables, chairs and sun umbrellas. All furnishings were deliberately movable, so people feel empowered to make use of the space, says Peccianti, who used to work with New York’s Department of Transportation. But even with small changes, the project needed demanded a series of meetings between the departments of transportation, public works and highways and building and safety. “Designing a street to be not a street is anti-thetical to how the LA system was built,” explains Clementi.

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