L.A.’S UNION STATION COMPETITION, PART 2.5

May 1, 2012 by Brad McKee

In Los Angeles, there is much mental activity focused around Union Station, the object of a master plan competition that is down to six shortlisted teams that are vying to redesign 40 acres around the late-1930s transit hub. Those teams sent the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, their final formal responses to the request for proposals in mid-March. Besides all the normal, vital, nuts-and-bolts types of information that goes into an RFP response, the teams were asked to hand in one 30-by-40-inch “vision board” to show what they think the Union Station area could look like in the year 2050. Those boards were presented by Metro at an event last week. The results (below and after the jump) are mostly candy, as they are meant to be, and they are meant to get people talking about the city’s future, which they indeed did (though from reading the huffy Los Angeles Times article on the event, you would think they were supposed to be contract documents). At any rate, the real proposals are under consideration by Metro’s staff, who are supposed to make a recommendation to its Board on June 28. Of course, we would never try to lobby for a winner, but we are very excited that there is one team among the lot with a landscape architecture firm, West 8, as a co-principal.