La Brea Tar Pits Design Competition

La Brea Tar Pits & Museum Master Plan

design competition

RANA collaborated with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on a design competition to reimagine the world renowned La Brea Tar Pits 13-acre campus, which encompasses the world’s only active paleontological research site in a major urban area. The design proposal, which was selected as a top three finalist from a list of 85 teams, strives to strengthen the relationship between the Page Museum, The Tar Pits, Hancock Park, and the City of Los Angeles by fostering new connections and uses in the park – from past to present, manmade to natural, and science to art.

Fitting into a broader narrative of a wetter “past” a drought prone “present” and a much more arid “future” RANA designed the landscape to provide a living demonstration of the diverse and changing ecosystems of southern California. The proposal reinterprets the park as a series of blended environments of transitional landscapes, or ecotones, designed to evolve gradually to amplify assets, soften park edges, and reduce water consumption.

The design also envisions a future built environment organized around the principals of symbiosis, where places of tomorrow forge new relationships between geology, ecology, and infrastructure to promote healthy resiliency of both natural and human ecosystems. The building and landscape for the new project will be symbiotic: exchanging water, energy, and waste resources to produce a self-sustaining, carbon neutral future for the Tar Pits.

LOCATION

Los Angeles, California

TEAM

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Hood Design Studio

COMPLETED

2019