Land Art Generator

LAGI 2016

Santa Monica

Above is a small sampling of LAGI 2016 submissions including the shortlist as chosen by the selection committee.

LAGI 2016 came to Southern California at an important time. The sustainable infrastructure that is required to meet California’s development goals and growing population will have a profound influence on the landscape. The Paris Climate Accord from COP 21 has united the world around a goal of 1.5–2° C, which will require a massive investment in clean energy infrastructure.

LAGI 2016 is meant to provide a positive and proactive vision of how these new infrastructures can be enhancements to our most cherished places. Whether providing clean and renewable electricity to power our homes and automobiles, or providing the clean water so vital to our survival, public services are at their brightest when they can be a celebrated component of urban planning and development.

As California works to achieve its important renewable energy portfolio goal (raised to 50% by 2030 in the governor’s January 5, 2015 State of the State Address) large-scale exurban generation will be increasingly augmented by urban micro-generation. As the infrastructures that will cleanly power our future productivity become more prevalent in our commercial and residential centers, the issue of their aesthetic integration becomes more important.

Power plants, once unseen and forgotten, will become an integral part of our daily lives. Embracing this fact, the time is now to pro-actively address the influence of these new machines on the built environment, and imagine a future in which clean energy technologies have been intentionally designed into well planned cities.

Design Brief

Follow this link to find the > LAGI 2016 Design Brief Document

 

Publication

Powering Places, Prestel Publishing
Purchase >

 

Jurors

 

Senator Ben Allen

California State Senate (District 26)

Chair, California State Legislature Joint Committee on the Arts

 

Kevin McKeown

Mayor, City of Santa Monica

 

Craig Watson

Director, California Arts Council

 

Eric Corey Freed, RA, LFA, LEED AP

Vice President Global Outreach

International Living Future Institute

 

Dean Kubani

Director, Office of Sustainability and Environment

City of Santa Monica

 

Jessica Cusick

Cultural Affairs Manager

City of Santa Monica

 

Tom Ford

Executive Director

The Bay Foundation

 

Dominique Hargreaves

Executive Director

USGBC-LA Chapter

 

Shari Afshari

Deputy Director

County of Los Angeles Dept. of Public Works

 

Pauline Kamiyama

Interim Director of Civic Art

Los Angeles County Arts Commission

 

David Hertz, FAIA

Founder and President

The Studio of Environmental Architecture (S.E.A.)

 

Ned Kahn

Ned Kahn Studios

 

Elizabeth Corr

Manager Art Partnerships & Events

National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

 

Trevor Lee

Principal, Suprafutures

 

Jack Becker

Executive Director

Forecast Public Art + Public Art Review

 

Vicki Scuri

Vicki Scuri SiteWorks

 

Freya Bardell and Brian Howe

Principals, Greenmeme

 

Phillip K. Smith III

pks3.com

 

Laura Watts

Associate Professor, Technologies in Practice (TiP) Research Group, IT University of Copenhagen

 

Santiago Muros Cortés

LAGI 2014 1st Place Winner

LAGI 2016
site typology: coastal

 

LAGI 2016 was an ideas competition to design a site-specific public artwork that, in addition to its conceptual beauty, has the ability to harness energy cleanly from nature and convert it into electricity and/or drinking water for the City.

 

The 2016 design site offered participating teams the opportunity to utilize wave and tidal energies as well as wind, solar, and other technologies.

Now, more than ever, energy and water are intertwined. As California faces severe water shortages in the coming years, the amount of energy required for water production and transmission is sure to increase.  For this reason we expanded our definition of sustainable infrastructure artwork to include proposals in 2016 that produce drinking water—either in addition to, or in place of—clean electricity.

 

LAGI 2016 fits well into the context of the ongoing efforts being made in Santa Monica to increase efficiency of water consumption and to harvest water sustainably. The Santa Monica Pier is currently investigating ways to drastically reduce the use of potable water on site, like the use of recycled seawater for toilet flushing, to take one example.

 

The City of Santa Monica has demonstrated the ability of sustainable infrastructures to provide an aesthetic and educational amenity for the community through its Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility (SMURFF), located just next to the Pier. Visitors to the facility can learn about stormwater runoff, water-borne particulates, filtration processes, and large-scale rainwater reuse at the facility, which treats an average of 500,000 gallons per day of urban runoff (and looks nice too).

 

Proposals to LAGI 2016 will serve to push the conversation even further and will provide new ideas for innovation. By elevating the vital urban systems that provide our energy and water to the level of public art, we can challenge those who would disapprove of these important infrastructures on aesthetic grounds, especially at sites that are cherished for their cultural value and identity (like the Santa Monica Pier Breakwater).

The LAGI 2016 awards were presented by
Eric Corey Freed at Greenbuild 2016 in Los Angeles. LAGI 2016 exhibitions included Greenbuild at the LA Convention Center (Los Angeles), the Annenberg Community Beach House (Santa Monica), and SXSW ECO (Austin).

 

 















LAGI 2016 Supporters

 

Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation

For support of the 2016 LAGI Prestel Publication

Individuals

Rhonda Hauff, Anita Monoian, Peter Coombe, Lance Diernback,
Geoffrey Glick, Dan Hughes, Michael Ferry and Susie Boucher, Rebecca Ehemann

 

 


LAGI 2016 Partners

 

The City of Santa Monica

Santa Monica is an 8.3 square mile city situated at a gateway to the Pacific Ocean on the west side of Los Angeles County. Offering an environment of unparalleled natural beauty, the city is home to a mix of residential communities, commercial districts, and recreational and art venues. Santa Monica’s residential population is approximately 90,000, increasing to an estimated 250,000 during the day with visitors and employees. The City incubates a thriving tech sector and is known as the birthplace of Silicon Beach. Recently named by National Geographic as one of the Top 10 Beach Cities in the World, Santa Monica is home to three miles of beaches and the Santa Monica Pier, and attracts over 6 million visitors annually.

 

The City of Santa Monica is a national leader in environmental, economic and social sustainability. A full-service city, Santa Monica has diverse service agencies including police, fire, harbor guard, streets, sewers, refuse collection, recreation and parks. The City also operates Big Blue Bus, Santa Monica Pier, CityNet, Santa Monica Airport, Woodlawn Cemetery five community libraries, and water department. Connect with the City of Santa Monica on (www.smgov.net), follow the City on Twitter (@santamonicacity), and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/cityofsantamonica).

 

 

Green Public Art Consultancy

Green Public Art Consultancy teams with progressive public and private agencies, artists, architects and urban developers in the U.S. and abroad, to increase the aesthetic appeal of new construction and city planning with site-specific public art. Green Public Art specializes in the integration of public art into green building projects and provides comprehensive project management services for both public and private spaces including conceptual programming, artist and material selection, community engagement strategies, as well as oversight of fabrication, installation and maintenance of artworks.

 

USGBC LA

A non-profit environmental organization made up of over one thousand architects, designers, engineers, students, property managers, builders, consultants, and lawyers.

 

USGBC-LA offers a variety of events including tours of green building projects, LEED workshops and customized trainings, conferences, networking mixers, and volunteer appreciation events. In April, USGBC-LA and the Southern California Gas Company co-host the annual Municipal Green Building Conference & Expo, one of southern California’s longest premier green building conferences. At the end of each year, the chapter holds its largest fundraiser and social event, the Annual Green Gala, to celebrate a year of achievements in the local green building movement.

 

MOAH Museum of Art & History

The Lancaster Museum of Art and History is dedicated to strengthening awareness, enhancing accessibility and igniting the appreciation of art, history and culture in the Antelope Valley through dynamic exhibitions, innovative educational programs, creative community engagement and a vibrant collection that celebrates the richness of the region.

 

County of Los Angeles Dept. of Public Works

LA County Public Works is responsible for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of roads, traffic signals, bridges, airports, sewers, flood control, water supply, water quality, and water conservation facilities. Its diverse operations fall within six core service areas: Transportation, Water Resources, Waste Management, Public Buildings, Development Services, and Emergency Management.

 

The Department's responsibilities include monitoring and controlling traffic signals county-wide from its Traffic Management Center in Alhambra. As a first responder agency, Public Works also maintains a 24-hour Dispatch Center and an on-call Department Emergency Operations Center. In addition, it provides project management services for the design and construction of the County Capital Projects Program and plays a leadership role in the county-wide transportation system, traffic mitigation efforts, and solid and hazardous waste management. The Department also manages about 150 active capital projects with a total construction value of over $2 billion.

 

Its annual operating budget of $2.3 billion is funded by restricted revenues, such as gas excise and sales tax, benefit assessment, water and sewer sales, user fees, and Contract Cities revenues.

 

The Department's workforce is made up of 4,000 employees in more than 500 job classifications including professional, technical, clerical and skilled crafts.

 

Santa Monica Pier

 

The Bay Foundation

The Bay Foundation (TBF)—also known as the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation—is a 501(c) 3 non-profit environmental group founded in 1990 to restore and enhance the Santa Monica Bay and local coastal waters. TBF is staffed by science and policy experts who are passionate about understanding and protecting the Bay and the Bay watershed, and all the benefits that a healthy ecosystem can provide all those who use and enjoy it.

 

TBF works with a broad group of stakeholders, including government agencies, environmental groups, local communities, industry and scientists, to create and put into action innovative policies and projects that clean up our waterways, create green spaces in urban areas, and restore natural habitats both on land and underwater, such as wetlands and kelp forests.

 

TBF is part of the U.S. EPA’s Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program (NEP). The SMBNEP is one of 28 similar programs established under Section 320 of the 1987 Clean Water Act and administered by the U.S. EPA.

 

Los Angeles County Arts Commission

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission fosters excellence, diversity, vitality, understanding and accessibility of the arts in Los Angeles County, encompassing 88 municipalities, and provides leadership in cultural services. In addition to its role implementing the County’s Civic Art program, the Arts Commission funds 364 nonprofit arts organizations through a two-year $9 million grant program, implements Arts for All,the regional initiative dedicated to restoring arts education to 81 school districts, programs and operates the Ford Theatres and funds the largest arts internship program in the country. The Arts Commission also produces free community programs, including the Emmy® Award-winning LA County Holiday Celebration for public television. lacountyarts.org.

 

Shawati' Magazine

Shawati' cares about serving our readers with information that empowers, inspires and creates change as we promote and support the principles and practices of intellectual freedom. Shawati’ is not a podium comprised of fast-paced news blurbs written for the masses; it is an in-depth and timeless visual manuscript comprised of; new innovations and inspirations, creative explorations, insightful interviews, as well as multi-cultural dialogues provoking a global exchange of ideas, additionally we examine each aspect related to life and environment. Moreover it is our aim to offer those outside of our country insight into our culture and national pride—the threads of our identity; thus bridging the gap or ‘shores’ of diversity that unite us under one global village.