In light of COVID-19, our living environment has the power to either give us freedom or imprisonment. Over the past year, society has recognized how important living spaces affect our psyche and health that reaches beyond the physical. With restrictions in movement and access to familiar lifestyle, the new normal has brought the background into the forefront, which could be defined as the built environment. This was further evident as governmental orders would bring to light which activities were permitted every day and businesses continually readapted their spaces for new purposes. This sequence of restriction and flexibility, resulting in malleable uses of space, has raised the public’s awareness of architecture’s effect on our daily lives. This project is a proposal to not only regain what we have lost but put light into recovery and playfulness that will guide how we can think about architecture’s role in going forward from the pandemic and lockdown as we head into a post-pandemic era.

Through the use of multiple quasicrystal-shaped massings, unified by a truss system serving as the primary structure, a variety of programs become dispersed throughout the whole building. This part-to-whole relationship leads to moments where programs sometimes act as independent agents or merge with adjacent ones, inviting notions of unfamiliar and speculative use of programs as it relates to space, igniting spontaneity and exuberance to recreate the feeling of discovery. The design aims to introduce these concepts of unexpected moments of surprises into the forefront of the daily lives of its occupants, in which the inhabitants can live, work, while their daily activities and needs can be met within the skyscraper. The evolution of the District Tower will be a reflection of unification, freedom, and openness to innovation.

CONTEXT
The District Tower is located in Downtown Los Angeles surrounded by multiple districts ranging from financial, governmental, and cultural institutions. Being in the middle of these diverse ranges of districts, the building occupants will be able to experience much of the city’s identity within the tower. Standing at 1,013’, it is the third tallest building in Los Angeles after Wilshire Grand Center (1,100’) and U.S. Bank Tower (1,018’).

The District Tower is situated on a corner lot across from the Pershing Square Metro Station, qualifying for Transit-Oriented Community incentives, encouraging public transportation, and allowing more affordable housing to combat Los Angeles’s housing crisis while reducing road traffic.