University Village Redevelopment

This comprehensive design project calls for the massive redevelopment of the University Village retail site of downtown Los Angeles. It is located immediately north of the University of Southern California, which recently purchased the site.

The semester is divided into two halves: in the first, the entire University Village site is master planned; in the second, one part of the master plan (the K-12 charter school) is developed in more depth. The break occurs at midterm (roughly nine weeks each).

The master planning program asks for the following: conservation (through relocation if necessary) of all existing retail space; addition of 1200 beds for student and community housing; condensation of surface parking from existing site and nearby university lots to one or more parking structures; a new unversity building on the scale of the von Kleinsmid Center (VKC); a new K-12 charter school to be partnered between USC and LAUSD; and a gym complex to be shared between the charter school, the housing, and the general public.