los angeles

/  by Thomas DeVoss

mobylosangelesarchitecture:

ok, look, a house!

i’m obsessed with these little cabins in the angeles national forest (which is why i’ve posted them before). and i don’t really want to know much about them, as i prefer to think of them as abandoned hobbit houses.
or something.

there are around 50 of them, perched over and next to the river that might or might not have a name and that runs through sturtevant falls. sturtevant river?
ok.

and at present they’re all boarded up and kind of ominous.
but pretty.
and ominous.
and without electricity.
just waiting for their hobbits.

oh, and they’re also in los angeles. i mean, i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it many times again in the future, tautologically, but we live in a very odd city county place.

if you live in, say, new york.  or brussels.  or berlin.  or tokyo.  you might be asking yourself, legitimately, ‘how is this a city?’
but yes, it is.
and/or county.
urban semantics.
with hobbits.

moby

/  by Thomas DeVoss

Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. 

Master plan by Thomas DeVoss. 

Lincoln Heights is an emerging neighborhood at the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and Los Angeles Rivers. 

This master plan builds off the Cleantech corridor plan, the Perkins and Will plan, the Cornfields plan, and the LA Riverworks plans for river revitalization. This new plan aims to position Lincoln Heights for self-sustainability and enhanced connectivity to the rest of the city.  Primary goals: Unify the North and South sides of the river, create new pedestrian and bike paths, mend the break in the LA River bike path, add urban agriculture and leisure, and provide for healthy wetland habitat…

/  by Thomas DeVoss

mobylosangelesarchitecture:

when i was growing up in new york and connecticut i imagined california as looking like this. palm trees and architecture that looked nothing like the center hall colonials of connecticut or the tenements and skyscrapers of nyc.

and then when i first started coming to l.a i was amazed that this was a CITY but that people primarily lived in houses. and granted, many of the houses in l.a are kind of ugly and beige.

but then there are these perfect little jewel box mid century houses, reminding me of my post-adolescent l.a/california visions. and i guess one could argue that architecturally these mcm houses aren’t as arbitrary as norman castles or swiss chalet in the desert.

i mean, architecture like this opens itself to the outdoors but keeps the sun at bay when necessary. and it has the quasi-privacy screen, sort of saying ‘well, we like our privacy, but it’s ok if you peek a little bit’. the paradox of exhibitionist privacy.

-moby

/  by Thomas DeVoss

mobylosangelesarchitecture:

i was out hiking today and i came across this perfect little a-frame house.

whenever i see perfect little a-frame houses i think of record producers in the mid 70’s reading about est and sitting in the hot-tub thinking about how best to record background vocals for the doobie brothers.

they seem quintessentially californian, the perfect home in which to make lentil stew for robert plant and melanie. which is odd. odd because with their super pitched roofs they’re designed for alpine climates where it snows 8 months out of the year. further re-inforcing the idea that almost all architectural vernacular in southern california is arbitrary. awesome, but arbitrary.

swiss chalets in a place where it never snows? down the street from normal castles and center hall new england colonials?

delirious los angeles.

-moby