LAtino Urban Forum

MAK Institute Fellow Research Update

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:06:47 -0700

Keep checking out our boy’s research work at his blog site under the MAK Institute. He’s here until mid August.

http://makcenterufi.org/?author=3

Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lasser (Free Concert)

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:57:50 -0700

Free Concert Series at Universal City Walk
Sunday, August 24, 2008 from 5:30 pm - ?
Maria Daniela y su Sonido make their return to Los Angeles. I believe this is their third time performing in Los Angeles. They last performed in L.A. in December of 2007.

Location: Universal Studios City Walk

MY Urban Land Institute (ULI) Mixer

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:45:36 -0700

Thursday, July 24, 2008 from 6:00 pm. to 9:00 pm.
The popular annual summer networking reception will be at
the Wells Fargo Retail Court. This wonderful space with an
outside patio has views of Downtown Los Angeles and was
graciously donated by Maguire Properties. At "My ULI"
Night we will celebrate ULI LA's accomplishments, thank
our current members and welcome new members. There
will be festive food, interesting conversation, music, drinks
and information on programs and membership. Cocktails
will be served with a cash bar. Come join us for a summer
evening in the city!

Wells Fargo Center
Space is on 2nd Level Atrium
330 S. Hope, Suite 3-012
Los Angeles, CA 90403

flyer.pdf

Day to Day Downtown

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:45:08 -0700

Lewis MacAdams to speak on Day to Day Downtown
Thursday, July 17, 2008 from 12:30 pm. to 1:30 pm.
Downtown resident, neighbor, and writer Lewis MacAdamsLocation will speak on his perspective on living in downtown LA. For more information visit: www.habeasindex.org
Location: The Art space 7&FIG at Ernst & Young Plaza 735 S. Figueroa Street Middle level Los Angeles, CA 90017

- james

Commentary on Bike Advocacy

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:38:32 -0700

As the price the price of gas goes up more Angelenos walk, cycle, and use public transit. The streets of Los Angeles however are becoming as violent as Baghdad, minus the carnage, when it comes to cyclist and pedestrians interactions with motorist. In Pacific Palisades a driver deliberately sped up in front of two cyclists. Then the motorist slammed on his brakes in front them causing the cyclist to crash and become seriously injured. In May a cyclist was killed in El Monte. Latinos have the highest rates of pedestrian and bike fatalities in Los Angeles County and now is the time to change the behavior patterns of motorist. I bike a mile to work in downtown LA I on many occasions been intimidated by motorist. It's time motorist change their behavior patterns toward pedestrians and cyclist in Los Angeles. We need legislation that protects non-motorized transportation from motorist. Help LUF by sending us your ideas on how to advocate and craft legislation

- james

Elephants in Pershing Square?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:53:49 -0700

Jeremy Rosenberg | Mon, Jul 7, 2008 | from the Next American City

The high-rise hotel and office buildings of Bunker Hill have vanished.
The perennially soon-to-be-reopened Angels Flight "shortest railroad in the world" is gone. And the art museum has disappeared, same as those graceful Victorians that two generations ago peppered this same downtown Los Angeles acreage.
Instead of all the above, Bunker Hill — some of Downtown L.A.'s choicest real estate — is back to being just a hill. Or, at least here inside a Downtown art gallery — a model-builder's representation of that topography, crafted out of window screen, construction paper and moss.

The model-builder is the populist city futurist James Rojas, a 10-year resident of downtown, and a man who carries more titles than an online bookseller. Rojas is, in no particular order: a trained urban planner; an art gallery owner; a transportation planner for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA); the founder of the Latino Urban Forum; a community activist known for open space, mobility, and environmental justice efforts; and an artist whose model cum sly participatory planning piece was exhibited most recently at The Art Space, an ephemeral gallery directed by Linda Pollack.

Rojas' work is titled, Imagining A Sustainable Downtown LA Through Model-Building. "What you're looking at," Rojas indeed said one recent weekday, "is a future idea for a sustainable, livable Downtown L.A."

The model is fingers-and-fists tall and eight-feet-long by four-feet-wide; it rests on two foam boards that top a white table. Rojas towers over the streetscape like Godzilla over Tokyo. Bunker Hill, as described above, takes up one corner of the model's grid, which is bounded by Figueroa, Los Angeles, Eleventh and Temple Streets.  
The work's "buildings" are composed of Legos, Jenga pieces, Scrabble tiles, bottle caps, peppershakers, a translucent Boeing corporate paperweight, and the like. About 2,000 of these knickknacks were incorporated into the work a week into the gallery show. Fifteen small tubs filled with more tchatches stand by, intended for gallery visitors to get their Rem Koolhaas on. "This is a way of really attempting to engage people," Rojas says. "Having fun with the city and kind of visualizing the city, giving them three-dimensional tools to play with, because cities are three dimensions."

Rojas does what he does in part because he thinks urban planners err in how they deal with the public. "The planning profession has become more of a profession of land use policemen, telling people what they can't do and how to regulate that, rather than be visionaries," he says. "People like cities – people love cities, in fact. It's just that we've made it really dry and boring, and [so] people hate planning."
 Technicolor and teeming like a more rigid coral reef, Rojas' downtown model is anything but boring. City hall is an Avon bottle. Mah-jongg tiles become row houses. Two Legos and a pitched red roof represent Rojas' real-life residence, a downtown loft.

Not long ago, Rojas' 727 Gallery hosted a Los Angeles River variant of the model. (Rojas is soon scheduled to debut a Hollywood version.) Rojas also leads even model-building workshops at academic institutions and for community groups. He recalls one such happening held in a southeastern Florida city with a diverse population of 4,000.
"I did a workshop in a town called Fellsmere… ," he says. "You could feel the racial tension there. But through the whole modeling process, it broke down the barriers." Rojas explains that in his experience, recent immigrants tend not to speak up at public meetings due to their limited English language skills. Building a model is, obviously, a non-verbal exercise. "Everybody has a fair share at putting input in," he says.
On his downtown model, Rojas advocates for public transit, cycling paths, and pedestrians. He places twin red stripes along three east-west and one north-south artery. The strips — so-hued in homage to the city's late, great Red Car streetcar system — rest atop construction paper representing greenways. There are no parking lots in this downtown, but plenty of pocket parks and paseos. As intended, gallery visitors have since come along to play Mothra, or maybe Jane Jacobs, to Rojas' `Zila, or Pierre L'Enfant. That means, apropos of the real world, this simulacrum evolves.
Rojas' original simple green construction paper representing L.A.'s overdue Grand Avenue park now boasts two tall buildings plus playgrounds — and a pledge from the buildings' "developer" to pay for the park. Another visitor pined for historic preservation. So, Rojas says, the man added costume jewelry to craft an Art Deco structure. Another man bent down to check what was underneath the table. "No subway yet," Rojas said. Someone else added moss and declared a "green roof."

Another participant stuck two miniature glass elephants in Pershing Square — which already is a concrete-laden, proverbial white elephant of a public space. Was this a plea for a pachyderm petting zoo? A new Banksy happening? Irony? Rojas isn't certain, but in his experiences, model-building does turn out to be a sort of Rorschach test." Sometimes when you do these exercises," he says, "just by hearing people's comments, it tells you a lot about [them]," he says. "`I'm building the Grove.' `I'm building Santa Monica.' `I'm building the beach.' People give so much reference to stuff that they know."

There's knowing, of course, and then there's knowing.
Consider one participant, a preacher, who Rojas says participated in the Florida workshop. "He built a city in like fifteen minutes, and it was all high-rises, and it was all perfect. It's like he built New York," Rojas says. "You look at what he made, and you think, this guy has a mission. This guy has a really strong agenda of what he wants to do in life, and where he wants to go. He just built it really quickly and that was it."
As for Rojas, he too has a mission: "[To] create the tool to engage all members of the public in an interactive exercise that generates ideas and dialogue to develop a vision for their urban future."

We are also responsible: a public renactment

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:50:27 -0700

We Are Also Responsible, A public reenactment of a 1971 speech by Cesar Chavez
Saturday, July 19, 2008 @ 6:00 p.m.
CREATIVE TIME with LACE presents "WE ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE"
a public reenactment of a 1971 speech by CESAR CHAVEZ. The fourth event of the PORT HURON PROJECT, a series of reenactments organized by artist MARK TRIBE Part of Creative Time's 2008 public art initiative Democracy in America: The National Campaign

Location: EXPOSITION PARK
SOUTH LOS ANGELES
PARKING IN LOT 3

Is Pedestrian too Pedestrian? ‘Creating Culture and Character in LA’S Streets

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:45:44 -0700

Friday July, 18, 2008 @ 7:00 am.
Wouldn't you like to know the challenges and opportunities facing authentic retail streetscapes, or are we destined for just driving miles between malls? | $45-$55 reqd | panel discussion 7:00am at

Location: The Regency Club 10900 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, 310-322-1520

MAK Institute Fellow hangin’ with James

Thu, 3 Jul 2008 21:47:14 -0700

Different perspectives on the built environment get me goin'! Particularly by those researching the LA city-region. Visit the blog of an architect from Venezuela visiting L.A. via the MAK Institute's Urban Initiatives Fellowship.
Very little narration, just good design and images. James from LUF took him around town visiting significant places in Southeast Los Angeles, and other areas on the Eastside.
next week he"ll be rollin' with me to the San Fernando Valley.

http://makcenterufi.org/?p=105

Tour Downtown Art Walk by James Rojas

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:33:47 -0700

Downtown Art Walk

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Explore the popular art scene on Spring and Main Streets. Give a holler if your interested in hanging out and exploring, James Rojas 626 437-4446.

LUFites hangin’ with MAK Insitute Fellow

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:55:54 -0700

Here are some images taken on Wednesday evening at an intimate dinner for visiting MAK Institute Fellow Efrén Santana. Santana who hails from Venezuela will be in Los Angeles for the next two months researching (and contrasting) how Latinos shape Los Angeles through the physical and social interactions with the city-region.

On hand were various colleagues from the MAK Institute, and other notable activists, researchers, architects, and artists whose work focuses on the built environment. The dinner took place at the beautiful Leland House (designed by R.M. Schindler) situated atop the Hollywood Hills. Guests were treated to an excellent dinner, wine, kick ass coffee, great conversations on the city-region, and just a plain ole’ good vibe. Nobody jumped in the pool though. Various LUFites will be showing Santana around the city over the next two months...including the quintessential trip to the criminalized taco trucks in East L.A.

-metrovaquero

LA2TJ Conference: San Ysidro Quick Slideshow

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:28:37 -0700

Talk on Interactive Downtown LA Model

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:43:17 -0700

June 26, 2008 @ 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

This is an interactive model of downtown LA I constructed downtown from Los Angeles Street on the east to Figueroa Street on the west to 11th Street on the south and Temple Street on the north. The plot is eight feet by four feet. The building are constructed from a wide variety of recycled materials, such as Legos building blocks, bottle tops, game pieces, dominoes, mahjong tiles and jewelry pieces.

Location: 7th and Fig (City Corps Plaza) on the Mezzanine 2.

Voyeuristic Landscapes Audio Slideshow (View from LA2TJ Mobile Conference)

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:53:55 -0700

This is a view facing the western horizon aboard the train. Due up soon, the east view and others. No analysis needed.