Angels Landing
Los Angeles, CA
The site is the last piece of native hill in downtown LA, surrounded by gridded streets, cubic buildings and gleaming towers. The steep natural hill is terraced to create a series of habitable landscape platforms. A pair of stairs link these platforms from the historic core below to Bunker Hill above. Angels Tower and Stepped Slab are assembled by stacking blocks at the scale of the historic core in the sky. Our hyphen architecture is a bridge, merging the grids and cubes of the Historic Core to the scale of the towers of Bunker Hill. At the base of the hill, on Hill Street, is a Trellised Public Square, Sinai Plaza. Angels Steps link Sinai Plaza to Olivet Plaza at the top of the hill, bridging Olive Street. Like the Spanish Steps in Rome, this grand urban stair has many opportunities for inhabiting and use. The first run doubles as Angels Amphitheater, overlooking the square. At every landing and on all sides of the stair, Retail and restaurants are located. Another stair parallels Angels Flight Funicular. Cross Paseos link these two stairs. An Elementary School with access from Angels Steps as well as the Olive Street drop off via elevator, occupies two levels of the landscaped terraces. The school spills out to a rooftop garden play yard, a green learning oasis in the midst of the city. On the other side of Angels Steps is a Hotel. The Hotel Lobby is accessed from the Porte-Cochere on Fourth Street, and the Hotel drop-off and turnaround in a grand covered space. The stepped slab Hotel is the base, with blocks of Residences above, and two rooftop amenity areas. Over Olive Street, California Plaza is expanded with Olivet Plaza. A fourth commercial edge is provided to the main level of California Plaza. Olivet Steps connect from street level to Olivet Plaza. Angels Tower is placed at the top of the hill, aligned precisely with the gap between California 1 & 2, preserving their view corridors and ensuring views from all four sides of Angels Tower. This tall Bunker Hill scale tower is housing. The project’s iconic quality is derived from common language, making it exceptional and ordinary simultaneously, a bridge, merging the grids and cubes of the Historic Core and the Towers of Bunker Hill.