‘The Infrastructural City': Public Works Have Shaped L.A.

To prepare for our interview you read the book, The Infrastructural City: Network Ecologies in Los Angeles, edited by Kazys Varnelis and a project of Network Architectural Lab in collaboration with the Los Angeles Forum in Architecture and Urban Design. Regarding this collection of essays, Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times opined, "A doggedly detailed guide to Los Angeles as a physical thing." Can you give some general reactions to this timely book of essays?

I was very excited to see this book because it focuses on a topic that, from where I sit in the Bureau of Engineering and as an architect, is extremely important to the city of Los Angeles. It is important to make apparent that the layers of infrastructure that support a city of the scale of L.A. can be determinants of the physical and social life of the city. By necessity, the infrastructure systems that the book talks about in are very large and complex systems. When we think about upgrading or changing these systems, refocusing them and reviving them using new priorities, that investment will have a huge impact on the nature and composition of the city and on the potential for the city to change and thrive.

One thing that strikes me is that the climate change debate will be a great motivator of new thinking in our approach to infrastructure. It has already been a motivator. There was a state report that came out recently that talked about coastal properties that are at risk from rising sea levels and the massive scale of investment necessary to address this threat.

Going forward, we have many choices to make on how to address the climate change challenge. The choices will be physical, requiring new infrastructure, and based in policy. The issues raised in this book make it clear that these decisions will have many direct and indirect consequences that will change how the city functions. Revealing the impact of infrastructure on the form and use of a city as this book does is very salient.

One of the themes of The Infrastructural City is that large infrastructural projects are less possible now than they were in the early years of Los Angeles. Do you agree with that assertion?

When you have open space, a less dense city, and a younger city, you have an easier time organizing infrastructure projects. However, there is a lot going on currently in our region in terms of construction, design, and planning of infrastructure that is flying somewhat under the radar. Half of the work the Bureau of Engineering does has to do with reconstructing the sewer system. It is a huge investment to upgrade the sewer system in L.A., which has been going on for at least 25 years. The Alameda Corridor construction was a large infrastructure project. There are extensive design and construction efforts proceeding at L.A. World Airports facilities. LADWP has sizable infrastructure improvements planned. The city is doing the Prop O storm water upgrades, which alone is a $500 million project.

In addition, there are discussions about large projects such as the Hollywood Cap Park over the 101 Freeway, which could create a huge central park in a dense area of the city, L.A. River improvements, high-speed rail, and the Subway to the Sea. The Orange Line extension is proceeding. There are numerous large-scale projects going on; they just are not reported in a consolidated manner.

The investments that have gone on over the last seven years-the city bond measures that allowed us to build six new police stations, 19 new fire stations and 36 new libraries, LAUSD investing in new schools, and the Community College District investment-are all large-scale infrastructure projects that do not have the same kind of public attention as, say, the project by Mulholland to bring water from the Sierras.

As the senior architect in the Bureau of Engineering, is placemaking valued in the city? There are obvious champions for place-making in the city, such as the City Planning Director and the CRA/LA, but is the Bureau of Engineering actually collaborating with others to create livable, as opposed to efficient, urban places?

We are doing a better job every day. Given the current generation of champions for design and place-making all across the city, there is a lot more discussion than previously occurred. Is it as much as I might like? Probably not, but I am hard to please, and we have come a long way. The people you mentioned from around the city who are advocates for good design are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more staff-level discussions about design issues than existed ten years ago. That's positive. Are we making great decisions every time about place making when addressing an infrastructure or engineering project? Probably not, but the discussion is happening more regularly, and I am very optimistic about that.

One of the central themes in The Infrastructural City is that geography is determinant of a city's infrastructure and of place-making. Can you respond to this assertion?

That is an extremely important part of the book. As cities get analyzed in terms of their growth, their past, and their future, geography is an over-riding determinant for what is possible.

A particular example is the L.A. River, which is a huge infrastructural landmark in our city that we are currently trying to make more of an urban amenity. The entire structure of the current river is based on the slope of the mountains, the flow of the water and the geography of the basin. It is really based on the geography of the watershed. You cannot think about changing pieces of the river without thinking about the watershed and the overall geography of the system.

The sewer system in Los Angeles is largely reliant on gravity. Geographic features determined where L.A. was founded, with the choice to settle on the banks of the river. Every change that we have gone through in terms of the city's form always refers back to the basic geography.

People are currently talking about solar energy and solar on roofs. That has to do with our climate-a basic aspect of where we are in the world, our geographic characteristics, and what our resources are. The sun is one of the most plentiful local resources.

This emphasis in the book is something I found very exciting and which I would like to see discussed more. An understanding of our geography and our resources-like sun and good weather-should be crucial to the changes we target and to the intentions of the place-making we define. It helps make L.A. distinct from other places. These discussions are very valuable; ultimately they are discussions about sustainability because the dialogue raises awareness of what is unique about our natural resources.

The book's collection of essays also raises questions about the complexity of regulations in the city of Los Angeles. What is your opinion on the current state of regulation in the city given your vantage point at the Bureau of Engineering?

With any big city, regulatory layers can be a challenge. For those of us that have worked in this complex arena, our success is based on our ability to understand that the layers are there for specific purposes. The opportunities to streamline regulation will come from a detailed understanding of the intent of the original regulation. In other words, efficiencies are most successful if they build on historic knowledge.

Part of the reason that some of the infrastructure projects I mentioned earlier take so long-like the Hollywood Cap Park, the L.A. River, and high-speed rail-is because there are many more regulatory layers than 30 years ago.

The understanding that community involvement is mandatory, which in some ways adds another type of regulatory layer, has been a positive change in how public agencies do projects. The whole neighborhood council movement has been a very positive change, but it does make things more layered and more complex.

I continue to work on the L.A. River project. Our approach to completing the L.A. River Revitalization Master Plan was to be as transparent as possible in every decision we made. It did not mean that the public always agreed with every decision. There were always some very loud voices that disagreed. Usually when we were open with the public about why we made certain decisions we reached a consensus, and we also always noted opposing viewpoints. The additional layer of public oversight is very important because as L.A. becomes denser and there is less and less open land, there are a lot of valid concerns from many corners about the changes that are happening.

Are there opportunities to simplify some of this bureaucracy? Sure. Back to the L.A. River-we have been working hard to set up more continuous dialogue with our partners at the county so that the changes we talked about in the city's Master Plan and that the county proposed in their 1996 Master Plan can happen with greater speed than they might have in the past. Again, it's about making transparent what the intentions are and then trying to see how we can streamline the oversight. Reaching for more efficiency is important.

Accepting the laudatory goals and many public works planned and executed by the L.A. Bureau of Engineering, it is interesting to note that the most ambitious of projects, the L.A. River Revitalization, is being led by the Bureau of Engineering rather than by the Planning Department or other elements of the city that are in the business of place-making. What bias is implied when engineering leads on a project like this?

I would beg to differ with your characterization. The Bureau of Engineering led this project, but an engineer and an architect led the city's team. That's very appropriate given the nature of the infrastructure and the basic flood protection role of the river. It is very much a collaboration. The Planning Department was there throughout the entire process.

In fact, out of that effort, the Planning Department has created a River Improvement Overlay Zone (RIO). The RIO aims to change people's attitudes toward the river so that construction along the river will begin to face the river and see it as more of an amenity. In addition, the Department of City Planning is in the process of developing a Specific Plan for the Cornfields area, which will be a Neighborhood Development pilot case for the LEED green building rating system. That came out of the Master Plan for the river.

Actually, the Master Plan was very much a collaborative effort amongst many folks who have different professional perspectives-engineering, flood control, place-making, and aesthetics. It continues to be that way. We continue, within the city, to hold a bi-monthly Task Force meeting, quarterly public meetings, as well as reporting monthly to the Ad Hoc Committee of Council on the LA River.

Certainly the discussions have to bridge both disciplines: How can we improve how it looks? What do we do to improve public access? How do we make a 32-mile linear park for the region? How do we continue to provide flood protection for the city? How do we also do habitat restoration in that context? It's a complex problem.

The input that we have had with our team is multi-disciplinary. That's what it ought to be. I'm not sure that having an architect or an urban planner leading this on their own would have been appropriate, or that it would have been better than the team we had. The many professional voices have nuanced the suggested changes, and created stronger, multi-purposed goals.