#221: L.A. LIVE TRANSFORMED
Chick Hearn Court, by Poon Design, looking west with Crypto.com Arena on the left (photo by Bradley Wheeler)
It started with a study of adding lamp posts in downtown Los Angeles. It ended up with Poon Design, AEG, and a team of consultants transforming a six-lane, 1/3 mile long vehicular thoroughfare into a public plaza of 250,000 square feet.
As the name describes literally, L.A. Live is a premiere destination for live entertainment in Los Angeles, owned and operated by AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group), a global sports and entertainment company. Between Crypto.com Arena (home of the Los Angeles Kings and Lakers) and Peacock Theater, and adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, and the L.A. Convention Center—sits our Chick Hearn Court, a neighborhood street.
The previous condition never made sense to me: 20,000 celebratory (drunk?) sports fans pour out of the arena and are confronted by cars rushing by the venue’s front door. It’s like directing a highway through Disneyland. The visitors to L.A. Live’s events, restaurants, shops, bowling alley, cinema, and museum deserve something more, and not just safety—rather, something transformative, deserving for those who have dubbed L.A. Live the “Times Square of the West Coast.”
The first step of AEG’s design agenda closed this road to automobiles. But not simply eliminating the street. Through an enormous amount of concrete, the entire road was raised 6 inches to be flush with surrounding curbs and sidewalks, removing all vestiges that this thoroughfare was once for cars. Standard city asphalt was covered over with colored patterned concrete and trees by landscape architect, RELM Studio, in collaboration with civil engineers, KPFF and FPL and built by PCL Construction.
Initially, the proposed lamp posts for this new public space were modest, providing mere illumination and housing speakers and security cameras. After Poon Design presented several radical options to AEG—from a dozen 100-foot arches to giant angels based on L.A. Live’s logo—it became clear that such lamp posts should do much more than address functional requirements.
Our creative agenda became heroic and grand, more urban in scale, philosophical even. Our posts became ambitious towers that framed open space and defined social areas—signaled an unknown but welcoming future.
Our 10 twisting media towers (three at 58’ tall and seven at 37’)—blend architecture, sculpture, art, technology, and urban design. The towers march down the re-envisioned Chick Hearn Court—from awkward street to public plaza—adding rhythm and beat. With eight 13’ x 23’ curved digital screens by Anthony James Partners and everchanging LED lighting design by ME Engineers—media, advertisements, and visual arts flood the space with entertainment.
Infilled with an expanded metal mesh exterior, the box-truss towers spiral upward—a challenging feat of engineering and fabrication accomplished by project partners, LA Propoint and JAMA. The three tallest towers frame the most active area of L.A. Live, a zone that greets the tens of thousands of attendees for a concert by say, Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, or Taylor Swift—or perhaps a Lakers/Kings game.
We have added to the urban fabric of Los Angeles, contributed bold ideas both at a people and city scale. Akin to the installation known as the LAX Gateway—a ring of 15 color-changing glass towers that welcomes visitors to the Los Angeles airport—our project at L.A. Live welcomes visitors arriving to the heart of downtown.
