Los Angeles River Signage Program
A guided tour of a vacant lot
Clockshop and the California State Parks System asked me to develop a project for the Bowtie, a 13.5 acre parcel of land adjacent to the Los Angeles River. The Bowtie is owned by the California State Parks purchased in 200X as both a preventative measure (with community groups hoping to prevent the site from turning to industrial uses) with the eventual goal of connecting to the Los Angeles River State Park to make a massive 200-acre park site. In the meantime, the Bowtie appears to the casual viewer as a more or less abandoned post-industrial vacant lot.
The Los Angeles River Signage Program is a set of three connected signage systems that takes visitors through the vacant lot in maps, diagrams and stories, hopefully using the uncanny beauty and mystery of the location as a hook The interpretive systems look at real-estate speculation, native plant ideology, and water systems, respectively.
The LARSP is open for view 24 hours for the indefinite future. Best at dusk and dawn. Headphones recommended. Here’s a map. Ok?
