MIAMI, Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Koreatown district of Los Angeles has a new distinction: one of the first mixed-use projects in the city to be built around a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) station.
Designed by the international architecture firm Arquitectonica, Wilshire Vermont Station is a mixed-use, urban "village" developed above an underground stop on the Metro Red Line, approximately three miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The building has been completed and was open to the public on August 17.
Jointly developed by MacFarlane Partners and Urban Partners, LLC, with MTA taking an active role in the construction process, Wilshire Vermont Station occupies the entire city block bordered by Wilshire Boulevard, Vermont Avenue, 6th Street and Shatto Place. It consists of two seven-story buildings centered on an exterior public plaza and a renovated subway portal to the existing Wilshire/Vermont MTA underground Metro Rail Station. The development also includes a new MTA bus plaza located on the eastern side of Shatto Place.
The two buildings extend for a full block north and east, respectively, from the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. Together, the buildings feature a total of 449 rental apartments (20 percent of them are designated for low-income residents), 36,500 SF of retail space, and three levels of underground parking for more than 660 vehicles.
"The design is largely about the grand gesture that announces the transit station, taking the pedestrian from the corner through a courtyard to the station," said Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA, Arquitectonica's founder and the project's design architect. "The buildings are comprised of a series of rectangular prisms that define the surrounding streets and create an internal space. There is a purposeful celebration of arrival. The buildings reinforce this notion in their layout and emphasis of color and form."
"The courtyard and flanking buildings are activated by retail spaces on grade," added Fort-Brescia. "Their facades are interrupted by vertical bands that respond to the living rooms within and change from black to white from prism to prism. The urban alignment is broken at the corner announcing the entrance to the inner courtyard and the transit station beyond. Two monumental murals invite pedestrian traffic to discover a second red portal. This portal houses the descent to the transit station below."
ARQUITECTONICA: A full-service architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning firm, Arquitectonica began in Miami in 1977 as an experimental studio. Led by founders Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA and Laurinda Spear, FAIA, ASLA, the firm has evolved into a practice of 500 professionals specializing in Cultural/Institutional, Education, Government/Public, Hospitality, Interiors, Mixed Use, Office, Planning, Public Assembly/Sports, Residential, Retail/Restaurant and Transportation design.
Arquitectonica has offices in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Madrid, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Lima, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires.
Images available from pressrequest@arquitectonica.com.
Arquitectonica
