Team Members
Kevin Correia, Yash Srivastava, Ruoxin Bai, Karen Liu
My Key Contributions
• Leading the team in the research phase of the project.
• Preparing 3D assets to be used by members of the team to communicate their designs.
• Designing the heavy mobility systems for the site.
• Developing the user journeys used to communicate the master plan for the site.
Playa Vista, 2020
The site of Playa Vista offers an interesting mix of living spaces, working spaces, and nature.
Opportunities for Change
We found an imbalance between the needs of the primary stakeholders of Playa Vista and the built infrastructure. Future trends help us to define a new Playa Vista that can respond to the delicate human ecology in the site.
Value Statement
Create universally accessible transportation systems and responsive infrastructure that define a new human ecology to achieve holistic sustainability in the context of emerging living, working, and mobile lifestyles.
Key Transformations
Our final design achieves our goal by making Playa Vista more human scaled and drive the conservation and expansion of natural resources in the area.
Heavy Mobility In Playa Vista
My key responsibility was to define how heavy mobility would change in a more human scaled Playa Vista in 2040. To ensure connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods, I wanted to take a pragmatic approach to balance use of road networks with introducing new built infrastructure so that our master plan is both ecologically and economically sustainable to implement.
Playa Vista Loop
An underground tunnel system for electric autonomous vehicles that connects Playa Vista to the surrounding road network.
The Tunnel System
The Playa Vista Loop is an example of how the built infrastructure can respond to the lifestyle of the user. On the surface, the interior walls of the tunnel displays journey-contextual information, but behind the scenes, the infrastructure is connected to the autonomous vehicles to manage traffic flow.
User Journeys
The design decisions all work to define a user journey for the stakeholders of the site. Each team member worked on a short video that was developed in TwinMotion for Unreal Engine to communicate their designs.
Playa Vista Loop and The Incubator
Alexa's story is representative of a person who arrives in Playa Vista from the Loop system, and works in the reimagined business park - The Incubator.
Video by Kevin Correia and Karen Liu.
A New Human Ecology
Albert's story is representative of a person who uses the Ballona Creek bike path and is visiting Playa Vista for recreation. This presented us with opportunities to improve the experience for users of micromobility in the site.
Video by Yash Srivastava.
A Human-Scaled Playa Vista
Jane's story is representative of a resident of Playa Vista. Jefferson Boulevard, which was a car-focused artery of the site, has been converted into a human-scaled street with micromobility interactions, and new forms of retail involving delivery robots.
Video by Ruoxin Bai.
