WESTWOOD UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Honoring the Boulevard: Opportunistic Urban Place-making/ Park-making

This project illustrates how there are no throw-away spaces.  It honors the city and it honors the (Wilshire) boulevard by creating a quasi-public pocket park out of what was destined to be an otherwise grandiose, people-less driveway.  

The simple program, a bathroom addition with planters, was opportunistically leveraged into architecture as building/landscape/urban furniture to create a new archetype - the quasi-public pocket park. 

BACKGROUND

The project came about when the Church leased its huge parking lot to an upscale senior housing developer for 55 years.  The space between the new housing and the Church was going to be filled with a large driveway lined with planters, which also presented a significant accessibility problem.  The critical urban contribution—and new Wilshire Boulevard archetype—is transforming the ubiquitous driveway into a bona fide pocket park.

Every inch of marginal space was consolidated and orchestrated to create grand processional spaces, and new, found gardens.  The new stairs, ramps, benches, and gardens, provide efficient, accessible circulation and the space around the Church, creating a series of discrete places to walk, sit gather, and contemplate. 

In addition to providing a striking new setting for the Church, the austere beauty of concrete poured-in-place architecture and seamlessly integrated landscape provide a wonderful amenity for the parishioners and inhabitants of the senior housing complex.