Lowline

The LA River situation as presented by David Fletcher in The Infrastructural City offer a huge amount of potential. My first thoughts are to exploit the massive amount of nutrients slowly flowing down the monolithic trenches of modern infrastructure that cut through LA and see what types of large scale aquaponic system could be integrated. Maybe form community effluent gardens, or construct bare bones intensive biofiltration ponds and let the homeless river dwellers operate them. Rouge ecologies of aluminum sales and fish fry - I’ve long thought the homeless are our best chance of post-econo-societal survival.

What finally got me in the end, however, was the clear parallels to NYC’s Highline. Whereas the Highline finds it’s seclusion raised up above street level, cutting through the roofscapes and hovering above the heads of an unaware populace, the LA River is hidden by it’s own unsavory character, the very detritus that makes the landscape unique currently repels people from investigating closer.

What the LA River needs is a young Giovanni Battista Piranesi to etch radical poetic scenes of squalor, titillating perspectives of aerosol art forms inching up colossal concrete walls, racy images of exotic plant life blown to monstrous scales, all set with the unflinching backdrop of pure engineered rationale.

What if LA embraced this vein of neo-nature, celebrated the fusion of human efforts, the relentless battle of biodiversity, and the unstoppable routine of geologic forces. LA River could host The Lowline, a series of paths and stages superimposed upon this exciting swill of ecological crisis. LA’s own next level Cave of the Winds.

Choreographers such as Sally Jacques could send dancers flying from side to side filling the void with human joy. Outdoor classrooms could be set up for schools to grow microbiotic pets and learn about the great American Ecological Meltingpot of invasive species. Some areas would be elevated, the user invited to contemplate the void, imagining themselves as THX1138, but where the paths touch down the walls would erupt in color, changing nightly, proudly boasting one kid’s victory over conformity, mediocrity, and his curfew.

The whole structure would have to have a dual life, just as the river. In summer the Lowline would be open in it’s entirety, but in winter, with the rains, a thrilling elevated secondary program layer would be activated. There are far too many potential design factors to start listing, but with a program as dynamic as this one, incorporating spaces within the structure of a giant city wide gutter - living and breathing from the waste of millions, the city would be guaranteed some incredible architectural proposals.



The goal is to re-legitimize the space by adding to the vibrant concoction; supercharge the advance of a new ecology.