The design of Grand Park has no smaller aim than to express the multicultural diversity of Los Angeles through landscape design and architecture. The park transformed a 12-acre space filled with parking lots into “The Park for Everyone,” a community gathering place that has redefined Downtown Los Angeles. Grand Park creates an important link between important Los Angeles civic buildings and cultural icons — from City Hall to Grand Avenue, connecting the Park with The Music Center, Disney Concert Hall, and the Broad Museum.

The program features a restored historic fountain and new interactive water feature, new lawns and gardens, a dog run, a playground, and a pedestrian loop. Custom site furniture was designed in a bright magenta that has come to be known as “park pink,” playing a large role in defining the park’s identity. The furniture creates a community Southern California-backyard feeling with the inclusion of freestanding benches, café tables, and chairs.

The park’s layout takes inspiration from Goode’s homolosine projection, an innovative mapping process for depicting the three-dimensional world in two dimensions with minimal distortion. To represent the many cultures that have settled in Los Angeles, Grand Park features species from each of the world’s six floristic kingdoms – Cape, Boreal, Neotropical, Paleotropical, Australian, and Antarctic. The unique conditions in each of these regions favors different flora, but they all flourish in L.A.’s climate of easy adaptation.

Website: www.rios.com/projects/grand-park/

Design:

Rios – Landscape and Architects of record;

Water Feature Redesign – Fluidity

Project location: Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

Design year: 2006

Year Built: 2012

Manufacturer of urban equipment: Chairs, Benches, Tables – Designed by Rios and manufactured by Janus et Cie.