LIVING.BRAND — The Innovations Tower
The Innovations Tower (2014)
A building proposal for future living & working in LA.
In an age where (digital) work can be performed anywhere, architecture takes on the increasingly critical role of bringing people (physically) together.
It is therefore relevant to provide a spatial identity for the development of innovations within the boundaries of incubators and accelerators in response to the city of LA.
Concept: Identity is not defined as an object, but as space — four public levels are integrated within the 22 floor layers that provide open space to create permeable places for imagination, collaboration and interaction. So called “Think Tanks” are flexible work spaces arranged along the public floors to support the creation of ideas within the same physical boundaries of the innovation tower apart from the accelerator and incubator programs.
The project positions itself in an explicit symbolic resonance with the urban context adjacent to Wilshire Blvd along other commercial and office buildings that become part of LA´s skyline.
Architecturally it revolutionizes the original language of other campuses like the UCLA campus in LA by extruding the spaces vertically instead of using LA’s horizontality.
Program: The Innovations Tower is a new 22 story high-rise complex located on Wilshire Boulevard right across from LACMA in Los Angeles. The development of about 250 000 square feet will be added to a landscaped public plaza; a multi-level vertical campus with commercial offices on the bottom levels, the main accelerator and incubator programs including housing properties with a gym and shared office space operated by the school facilities with an alumni space; four public levels that provide open and green space with additional public office spaces called “Think Tanks”; and an event hall with a restaurant and a bar on the two top floors.
The Innovations Tower will be the most ambitious complex of contemporary architecture and urbanism in Los Angeles. The design of the Innovations Tower dismantles the typical tower and podium typology, creating a high-rise that melds with the city by gradually dissolving as it flows downward to meet the ground.
A series of indoor/outdoor terraces along the towers façade plus the four public open spaces accommodate entertainment by merging program and landscape together.
The overall spatial layout and connections create a constant flow for the user as circulation through the entire building is provided apart from the core — forming a valley of social, dining and leisure spaces that serve the residence and public. The entire site around the Innovations Tower is designed as a dynamic public plaza, a spot for planned and spontaneous cultural events, a landscaped retreat for the city´s inhabitants, and a rare venue for cultural and social interaction as an addition to the cultural facilities of LACMA across from Wilshire Blvd.
It also uses the public plaza to further interact with the two other towers on the site. The combination of separated housing and working spaces along north and south deals with an overlapping through mainly double height spaces on the east and west by adding external circulation modules apart from the core. These transitional moments in these double height spaces lay the foundation for the dialogue between living and working on one or two floors within the building that merge into a monologue of one thing becoming the other.
Plans/Section: Due to the programmatic behaviors of mixing living and housing vertically as well as horizontally, spaces become flexible and provide a gradient of multiple work environments within the building. The shared working spaces for the accelerators and incubators are connected by atriums, so it essentially creates one vertical working space throughout the entire building. The top of the tower houses a two-story bar/restaurant and an event hall accessible for everyone involved in the building including the public. This double-height spaces and an outdoor terrace express 360° views, floating 330 feet above the city.
The new building opens a space of imagination and collective experience within the city, emerging as a symbol of unification by making it accessible to everyone. The accelerators and incubators not only form an actual platform of collaboration through mentorship, but also project its sense of community through exposed glass elements as a powerful gesture towards the city. It is the visual dialogue with the inside and the outside facing LACMA and the open public spaces that reflect its communal sense.
Façade: The façade has been carefully carved to control the relationship and connection of inside and outside that coils up the tower´s full height to reveal the inner life of the building. This generates a set of specific features — exposing the second layer, curtain glass walls, of the façade to the outside, which creates an immediate visual connection. The façade has been designed to maximize and minimize visual connections from in to outside.
Housing facilities are located on the southern site of the building, which is more enclosed as it is in need to control sunlight, whereas the northern façade can expand the exposition of glass to create such visual connection as mentioned before.
