Chris Yueng

This thesis project is the Jackie Tatum/Harvard Park located in South Central Los Angeles. The area of Harvard Park residents is mostly blue-collar with the neighborhood with a dangerous rating. It has a long history of sociality system difficulties, like poverty, crime, and lack of access to basic services. This area is facing challenges, the community has a rich cultural asset and a resilient spirit. This thesis recognizes the potential of architecture as a catalyst for positive change, aiming to use design principles to solve complicated socioeconomic processes and improve quality of life for residents. 

In this project, the thesis is aiming to explore the transformation of architecture in reviving urban areas, focusing on the Jackie/Harvard Park. The site is an existing Los Angeles parks and recreation center with a 400,000 sq ft outdoor area. The site right now lacks sidewalks for the residents to walk around the neighborhood. Meanwhile the site does not have enough landscape for the park. The project aims to solve the neighborhood’s social economic difficulties by using sustainable architectural interventions that encourage community involvement,empower residents, and promote environmental protection. This thesis provides a comprehensive framework for sustainable development that respects the area's cultural history while imagining a more dynamic and resilient future, using a multi approach that combines architecture, urban planning, and social sciences.

By doing so, the park has introduced a number of new programs, sports, into the park to encourage people to go to the park. By blocking the sport court circle block. The recreational will be an irregular circle.

To make it functional the park is designed with sustainability. The sports court is buried (Tuck) into the ground for installation. The park also has a bunch of plants  and cover to create shade for colling. With an integrative landscape as bleacher, it creates a gray area to connect between recreation and sport court. So it is not just about looking out the building for a view.

Since the original landscape of the site is flat. With the dig up soil for the sports court, it will be reused to create a little hillscape. With the landscape recreation user gives the resident a look into the sport court while doing recreation activities.

To be sustainable, the landscape of the recreation center will not be using any concrete, it will be using recycled material and decomposed granite. Program will be different from any recreational center using a building to prove the area for the program. In this thesis area and shade is created by vegetation rather than new building complexes.