This new five-story, 300,000-square foot (27,870-m2) Motor Transport Division and Main Street Parking facility is a major component of the expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department within the city’s downtown. The concrete and steel structure will house800 employee and Motor Pool cars, as well as a mechanic’s garage where the growing fleet of LAPD vehicles will be fueled, washed and maintained.
Three main strategies of camouflage integrate the large mass of this mid-block infrastructural building into its context—a neighborhood that is quickly revitalizing into a thriving residential, culturally diverse, arts-oriented hub:
First, the Motor Transport Division component of the program is embedded at the rear of the building’s mass, below sidewalk level, keeping it out of public view. The main volume of the structure is set back from the sidewalk in order to preserve views of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, which now serves as a cultural center.
Second, a 140-foot- (43-m-) long public Gallery is sited along the southwest edge of the site. It enlivens Main Street,enhancing its pedestrian appeal, and provides a diversion from the utilitarian structure to which it is appended. Located approximately midway between the numerous art galleries clustered in the Bank District and MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary, this gallery space will strengthen the link between the two areas.
Third, a patterned, stainless-steel woven wire mesh screen, supplied by W.S. Tyler, Mentor, Ohio, that drapes the primary façade on Main Street will imbue vibrancy and depth to an otherwise banal elevation. Functionally, it camouflages the LAPD personnel using the building, thereby addressing the Department’s stringent requirements for security.
The perforations in the 8-foot- (2-m-) wide woven wire mesh panels provide natural ventilation for the structure.Held off the building by a series of over 150 steel pipe struts, the screen’s 34 vertically oriented panels fold in, out and around the cantilevered walkways, forming the primary access to each of the parking levels. The resultant surfaces,of varying depths, create a layered effect that effectively dematerializes the massive concrete structure behind it. The streetscape is animated by the play of light upon the screen’s undulating topography, and the dynamic quality of the shadows and reflections cast by it.
While strategies of camouflage both disguise and protect, they are also a metaphor for the natural world. The north and south facades of the building have been landscaped with a cover of creeping fig vines. To expand on this ongoing “greening of Los Angeles, and to create a joyful streetscape for pedestrians and motorists alike, the natural color of the stainless steel screen is painted with a magnified, graphic pattern of leaves in two shades of green. At night the lit up screen creates a warm, friendly glow to the general renaissance of downtown LA.
W. S. Tyler also provided assistance for the project from the design stages to final installation. Installation of the mesh panels was provided by Metallon Specialties Inc., Long Beach, Calif.
Claudia Kessner is an architect at Los Angeles-based John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects Inc. For more information, go to www.jfak.net; or for more information on Architectural Woven Wire Mesh, go to www.wstyler.com, the USA Architectural Design Group page. " />