Artist Edgar Arceneaux is the man behind the Watts Towers Project, a collaboration of international artists to make the poverty-stricken neighborhood facing on the famed folk art structure into works of art in their own right.
“What is Watts? What does Watts need? And what does Watts deserve? These have been among the hard questions Arceneaux, with the help of residents, hopes to answer. To the outside world, Watts is many things: code, a euphemism, a one-word cautionary tale. "It's a place that everybody thinks they know about but are afraid to go to," says Arceneaux. "And this project offers a chance for people to come together and build something collectively."
After dozens of community meetings, fundraisers, late-night porch talks and a trip to buy a foreclosed property at auction, this first chapter of Arceneaux's venture -- a grand-scale collaboration involving local artists and the city's major arts and educational institutions, as well as residents -- is finally beyond the drawing board phase. Based on artist Rick Lowe's Houston development, Project Row Houses, the Watts House Project (WHP) -- part conceptual art, part activism -- is a mission that Arceneaux, its director, describes as "an artwork in the shape of a neighborhood development."
At the moment, his medium looks like many old streets in L.A., those elder neighborhoods that have eluded the nip-and-tuck of assembly-line gentrification. Here stands a row of bungalows, some stucco, others with their original wood, some fronted by neat lawns, or gardens tangled with succulents or bright splashes of bottle brush."
FULL STORY: Watts House Project: art meets architecture near the Towers
Pennsylvania Mall Conversion Bill Passes House
If passed, the bill would promote the adaptive reuse of defunct commercial buildings.
Planning for Accessibility: Proximity is More Important than Mobility
Accessibility-based planning minimizes the distance that people must travel to reach desired services and activities. Measured this way, increased density can provide more total benefits than increased speeds.
World's Largest Wildlife Overpass In the Works in Los Angeles County
Caltrans will soon close half of the 101 Freeway in order to continue construction of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing near Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County.
Eviction Looms for Low-Income Tenants as Rent Debt Rises
Nonprofit housing operators across the country face almost $10 billion in rent debt.
Brightline West Breaks Ground
The high-speed rail line will link Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area.
Colorado Bans No-Fault Evictions
In most cases, landlords must provide a just cause for evicting tenants.
City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Tufts University, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.