2 posts tagged “infrastructure”

The Sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury once suggested that the only way to get car-loving Angelenos out of their automobiles and onto public transit was to have Walt Disney design the system, because only he knew how to make people-movers a fun-filled, fantasy ride. Well, the results of a competition for ideas for LA infrastructure  (co-sponsored by SCI-Arc and the Architects Newspaper) have just been released and it looks like the spirit of Walt lives on. These schemes may not be practical (in view of the multi-agency, deeply political process that actually produces public transit) but they certainly make mass transit enticing. How can you not be seduced, for example, by this magnetic levitation train system, by third prize winner, Osborn (headed up by Michael Pinto and based in LA), that calls itself Mag Luv? For more on the goals of the competition, whose jury included architects (Thom Mayne and Eric Owen Moss), planners (Gail Goldberg) and transportation designers (Geoff Wardle), listen to Sam Lubell on last week's DnA.

SCIFI (Southern California Institute of Future Initiatives) program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and The Architect's Newspaper are sponsoring an open ideas competition for architects, engineers, urban planners and students to propose new ideas for LA County's transit infrastructure.

The passage in November 2008 of Measure R, a half cent sales tax in Los Angeles County, will provide as much as $40 billion for transit-related projects across the City of Los Angeles over the next 30 years. Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to make the largest investment since the 1950s to rebuild our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

Download the entry form here.
Entries Due March 13, 2009 at 5pm; Winners Announced March 21 at SCI-Arc.