Downtown Los Angeles Park Wins National Award

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) recently announced that Vista Hermosa Natural Park in Los Angeles, designed by the landscape architecture firm Studio-MLA, has won the ASLA 2023 Landmark Award. This award is bestowed upon a distinguished landscape architecture project completed between 15 and 50 years ago that retains its original design integrity and contributes many benefits to the surrounding community.

Vista Hermosa was the first public park built in downtown Los Angeles in more than 100 years. Formerly an oil field located in a park-poor neighborhood, the park offers residents of a dense, primarily working-class Latinx neighborhood with “a window to the Mountains,” opportunities for recreation, access to nature, and quiet reprieve. Advancing both environmental and social justice, the park provides a safer environment in what was previously a dangerous and contaminated vacant lot. As re-created habitat in the heart of the city, Vista Hermosa features numerous resilient, nature-based solutions that were ahead of its time. The park has become a symbol of Los Angeles, bringing a natural experience to residents who are unable to visit the nearby mountains and open space.

Vista Hermosa Natural Park is a prime example of the type of environmental restoration called for by the 2022 Los Angeles Countywide Parks Needs Assessment Plus (PNA+). Specifically, the PNA+ identifies priority areas for environmental restoration which are areas that have the most environmental burdens with respect to groundwater threat, hazardous waste, poor air and water quality, and pollution burden. Examples include oil fields (such as the Inglewood Oil Field in Baldwin Hills), brownfields, landfills (such as the Puente Hills Landfill), and other degraded lands which may be converted to parks and open space in the future. The restoration of degraded lands is of great importance and a matter of environmental justice in L.A. County where numerous underserved communities are plagued with environmental burdens.