Designing for Humanity in a Car-Centric City

When car ownership surged in the 1920s, the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier saw an opportunity for radical urban transformation.

He proposed strict zoning to separate commercial and residential areas and elevated highways to separate cars from pedestrians. These ideas transformed modern urban planning but also inspired a backlash. Jane Jacobs’s classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), pushed back against Le Corbusier’s strict division of the city’s elements, arguing instead for mixed-use development that would make metropolitan life feel more connected, seamless, and exciting.

Ana Lasala, a Los Angeles architect and author of On the Street/En la Calle, grew up thinking more like Jacobs. Her father was Pablo Lasala, a Spanish-born Venezuelan architect whose archive is now held at Getty. “Many of my ideas are inspired by or related to my parents’ projects, particularly those where buildings blend into the urban landscape through the manipulation of natural and artificial topographies,” she says, referring to her father’s passion for topography and blending natural landscapes with artificial ones. Her mother, Silvia Hernández de Lasala, was his professional partner and remains an active researcher and writer on architecture.

Architect Jan Gehl defines urban space as “the life between buildings,” encompassing not just the physical area but also what is visible from it, and the activities and interactions that take place within it. He asserts that the success of public space is tied to the number of nonessential activities occurring there, where people use the location because they want to, not just because they need to.

Lasala underscores that successful urban design projects often feature spaces that are free to enter, playful, kid- and dog-friendly, and offer food options with a range of alternatives and prices. It may be surprising to consider that many developments in car-centric LA already embody mixed-use ideals.

If you would like to experience these ideals, here is a guide to Lasala’s favorite urban design projects in LA.

Tongva Park
Santa Monica

On a former parking lot, landscape architect James Corner Field Operations designed the 7.4-acre Tongva Park and Ken Genser Square. Infill soil, taken from local construction sites, was used to create the different elevations of the park. Ironically, this process was inspired by an arroyo landscape, with topographic washes and ravines that existed on the site long ago. The park was completed in 2013.

Lasala says the park’s integration into Santa Monica is part of its allure. Tongva is located diagonally across from the Santa Monica Pier entrance and is situated between the I-10 freeway, Ocean Avenue, and Santa Monica City Hall. Ken Genser Square sits in front of City Hall and connects to the park through a series of water features.

The LA Metro E Line lies two blocks away. With easy access, its water features, and colorful, basket-like play structures, the park draws many families. Native and drought-resistant plants create visual interest, as does the park’s central art piece, Weather Field No. 1 by Chicago-based artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.

By manipulating topography and using landscape strategies like innovatively tucking the bathrooms underneath one of the higher elevations, the park, according to Lasala, offers varying visual experiences. But the best vantage point? The view of the Pacific Ocean from one of the park’s protruding, space age-like steel structures.

Coastal Boardwalks
LA Beaches

“The best main public space in Los Angeles might be its beaches,” says Lasala. “Cities with a significant beach presence have a unique energy, as these spaces foster interactions among all kinds of people.”

Lasala also points out that the network of public parks along the beach, the piers where people gather to enjoy the ocean, and spaces where individuals interact with one another, are akin to the stoa in ancient Greek cities (covered walkways or porticoes that were designed for public use).

“The boardwalk connects all these areas and exemplifies the perfect urban space—one that people use because they want to, not because they need to,” she adds. In particular, she praises the core of Venice Beach, where the skate park attracts a diverse group of people every day, whether to skate or watch others skate.

Culver Steps
Culver City

“Culver Steps is a great example in LA of a collective space built by a private developer,” says Lasala of the 35,000-square-foot Culver Steps, a public plaza that has an additional 110,000 square feet of retail and office spaces (Amazon Studios was an anchor tenant). A public/private partnership between developer Hackman Capital Partners and Culver City, designed by Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects, the project was completed in 2020.

Lasala praises its underground parking lot entrance, running perpendicular to the street. She explains that projects with parallel-running parking garage entrances “kill” the street because they deter people from being there. This is because the trajectory of the ramp occupies almost the entire border between the lot and the street, making it impossible to create new pedestrian connections.

The entrance to Culver Steps is tucked away and covered by a sloping grass surface where kids and dogs play. Across from this is a movie theater and a wide staircase that people use as stadium seating. On any given day, you’ll see individuals eating on the steps with goods from the local grocer, coffee, or ice cream shop. Sometimes, they’ll be watching programming like a musical act taking place in the plaza below.

Platform and Platform Park
Culver City

When Platform opened in 2016, it called itself “the mall of the future.” Designed by Abramson Architects, the open-air, mixed-use development has 220,000 square feet of upscale retail spaces, offices, restaurants, and a central courtyard.

A winding path takes visitors through these features, until it opens onto a wide, dog-friendly green space under the Metro tracks with landscaping by Terremoto. Here, native species mingle against a Memphis Milano–style wall mural, and seating is provided on felled local trees that were repurposed into timber benches.

“Platform is commercially driven, but it has an excellent flow,” says Lasala. “And that underpass park shows you how little you need to make a successful space. It has a couple of rocks that kids can climb on and space for people and dogs to move around,” says Lasala.

One Santa Fe
Downtown Arts District

The One Santa Fe building in Downtown LA, designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture, contributes to the streets and sidewalks around it by inviting foot traffic into the building’s interior—especially through its long proportions. “Even with its massive scale, the urban spaces feel very well proportioned,” says Lasala. “Instead of creating a solid street wall, its form and articulation pull the public realm inward—through setbacks, courtyards, and transparent façades—blurring the boundary between outside and inside.” Inside, a variety of shops including restaurants, an amazing bookstore, and a cool boutique activate the space, encouraging pedestrian movement and enriching the urban experience. The building also responds thoughtfully to the character of the neighborhood, enhancing public accessibility and connectivity by linking nearby streets and public transit, creating a vibrant, integrated urban hub.

The Westin Bonaventure Hotel
Downtown

In 1976, architect John C. Portman Jr. brought his “atrium hotel” model to LA with the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown’s Bunker Hill district. This concept brings the outdoors in: restaurants, salons, shops, and even mailing and printing centers are all inside the hotel. “Here, there is a vision of an artist to create an aesthetic, spatial experience that’s an important destination point,” says Lasala. Portman also lured people into the hotel’s spectacular interiors with fountains, glass elevators, and iconic hanging pods with booth seating. (The Bonaventure was a filming location as well for Blade Runner and Interstellar.)

Lasala says the vision was also to connect hotel guests and visitors to the amenities around it, particularly through its innovative skybridge systems. The Bonaventure connects pedestrians to the Los Angeles World Trade Center, the Paul Hastings Tower, and the Stuart M. Ketchum-Downtown YMCA.

While Lasala believes that the Bonaventure Hotel has great ideas, it never reached its ambitious potential. In her view, it represents the antithesis of what a building should be if it aims to integrate collective spaces with public urban ones. It outright denies the street; in fact, it creates its own internal streets and can be understood as a private, indoor city, isolated from the rest of LA, yet situated within it. She says its tenants also need refreshing.

“If the hotel added different amenities, like a bowling alley, arcade, or mini golf, and the city brought people to the area by organizing public events and cultural and educational activities, then this project might reach the utopian ideas it once had,” she suggests.

Lasala’s ultimate hope? That the city of Los Angeles will encourage the construction of privately owned public spaces to enrich the urban network of collective ones, enabling more social experiences and a healthier, more engaged population.