Design innovative ideas for professionally designed post-fire reconstruction in Los Angeles
The summer studio at Artcenter College in Pasadena, the resilient buildings do not have to be ruthless, formulaic bunkers. The 14-week class focuses on imagining new buildings in the fire evaporating community at the foot of the mountain, but is a world away from the school’s pastoral mountain ranges campus.
James Meraz, vice president of Artcenter’s Space Experience Design Program, said members of the Artcenter community lost about 40 homes in the Eaton fire. In a post-disaster landscape that dominates technical issues (for good reason), he reinforces that such a building is as important as the people and stories within the space and requires turning the page from the trauma.
“I tell students: Become a voice and conscience of rebirth. Create meaning from the chaos of life,” Melas said. “Mylas said his 20-year-old son died in 2019, a tragedy that strengthened his belief in creativity as a tool for healing.
James Meraz left, who co-teached the Resilient Futures Lab, provided Sandy Yang’s feedback on her project “Refrain” which included open, mobile buildings.
(William Liang / The Times)
Undergraduates and graduates from the Space Experience Design Program are tasked with designing grids, sustainable homes that can resist fire and earthquake damage. They studied irrepressible materials and planting, complex field features, green strategies, structural robustness, toxic debris removal and reconstruction logistics.
In addition to technology, Meraz and Mertzel prompted them to think for themselves. The class visited Professor Artcenter’s destroyed house and spoke with the local shop owner. Some students studied stories of families who lost their homes, even heirlooms. Others tend to be personal contact: relatives who suffer losses or close ties to other nearby areas.
“It’s really a focus on who we are building for,” Merzel said. “In the best case scenario, reconstruction will be a very special personal process.”
The designers are also based on courses offered by Altadena’s unique buildings, such as its multigenerational compounds, artist colonies, artisan bungalows and medieval experiments. As a result, they developed tools to expand typical single-family homes and innovate in prefabricated, co-living, multi-generation housing, ADU, material experiments, and more. For example, the typical duplex living space intertwined by undergraduate Lydia Liang makes it a collaborative complex filled with indoor planting and rooftop gardens. Cheng Cui builds a live/work/exhibition space for artists and uses sponge-like public areas and a rotating ceramic skin that can be updated or expanded by the designers inside. More student projects are documented below. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed the cleanup of the area Residential Propertysome people may resonate with those planning to rebuild – especially those willing to try something different.
Students who show off their work in late August will have the opportunity to continue iteration. The course will begin in the fall and students of all disciplines are encouraged to explore the social impact of design.
