[Update] Bunker Hill: Resurrecting a Lost Community Cindy Olnick 00:00 Hello, Save As listeners. Cindy Olnick here. We’re bringing you another Encore episode from our very first season. This one’s about a project called Bunker Hill Refrain. It’s super cool.…
Tag: architecture
Architecture + Advocacy in L.A.’s Sugar Hill
A group of architecture students at the University of Southern California wants to do more than just design buildings. They want to work with communities to “un-design” spatial injustice and leverage the power of residents in shaping their neighborhoods.
In this episode, producer Willa Seidenberg talks with students Reily Gibson and Kianna Armstrong about L.A.’s Sugar Hill, a very important neighborhood cut in half by construction of the I-10 Freeway. A nonprofit they co-founded, Architecture + Advocacy, worked with neighborhood partners on a community celebration and a design-build project.
Reily and Willa walk and talk about Sugar Hill’s history and legacy of activism, and Kianna shares how a new generation of architecture students is using heritage conservation (even if they don’t call it that) to help neighborhoods affected by structural racism and gentrification.
Architecture + Advocacy in L.A.’s Sugar Hill Trudi Sandmeier 0:00Today on Save As … Kianna Armstrong 0:01It was powerful to know that in the past there were people that looked like me that were living in these spaces and they…
Valuing the Vernacular in Beaufort, SC
When Emily Varley arrived in Beaufort, SC for a summer internship, she had no idea she’d make a discovery that would change the course of her studies at USC. Her research for the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park led her to a boarded-up Freedman’s cottage associated with both Daniel Simmons, a Black soldier for the Union in the Civil War, and Edith Stokes, a Black woman who lived there for nearly 60 years. Edith’s granddaughter Annie Mae Stokes was born in the house and shared stories with Emily about everyday life there. Will those stories be part of the park’s Reconstruction-based interpretation? Emily talks with co-host Trudi Sandmeier about her summer and her thesis, Reconstruction Right Now: Conserving Vernacular Heritage in Beaufort, South Carolina as an Act of Reconstructing Preservation Practice.
Allensworth: The Past and Future of a Black Agrarian Utopia
Allensworth is a tiny town with a big history—and its residents are grappling with some very big issues. The only town in California founded and governed by African Americans, the Central Valley farming community was free of oppression and full of opportunity. It also faced more than its share of obstacles. Residents have been fighting to save it for decades, from working to restore the long-neglected cemetery to lobbying for the town center to become a state historic park.
They’re still fighting—this time to restore the land itself, flooded by the historic storms of spring 2023 and headed for much worse as the Sierra snowpack melts. USC landscape architecture professor Alison Hirsch created a class to work with residents on aspects of Allensworth’s community plan including the cemetery, regenerative farming, and ecotourism. Hear from Professor Hirsch, students Luis Mota and Nina Weithorn, residents Sherry Hunter and Denise Kadara, and park docent Emmett Harden about Allensworth’s rich history and remarkable community.
Mysteries of Modernism at Schindler’s Buck House
One of the many great things about Los Angeles is its unrivaled legacy of modern residential architecture. Students in @peytonhall’s Materials Conservation class got to do their case study at the John J. Buck House (1934-35) by R. M. Schindler, one of the legendary architects who defined Southern California modernism. We got to tag along on a site visit and talk with Peyton, students Sam Malnati and Julie Dinkin, and owner Jocelyn Gibbs.
The house is in great shape but has changed over time—even Jocelyn, an architectural historian, says it’s full of mysteries. Buck did an original concept, and Schindler (who often made changes during construction) redesigned it. Buck added Art Deco touches inside, so Schindler didn’t want the interiors published in his lifetime. Subsequent owners also altered the house and the grounds.
To unravel some of the mysteries, Peyton’s students documented the Buck House down to the Bakelite doorknobs, analyzed it inside and out to identify original elements and alterations, and suggested approaches to restoring the property (if anyone ever wanted to).
The Postwar L.A. of Gin Wong
Chinese American architect Gin D. Wong, FAIA (1922-2017) defined what it means to achieve the American dream. He immigrated from China as a boy and went on to have a 60-year career as a successful architect in Los Angeles. He played a key role in the design of post-World War II L.A., with projects including LAX, CBS Television City, and the iconic Union 76 gas station in Beverly Hills. In this episode, new alum Nirali Sheth discusses her thesis, A Silent Legacy: The Influence of Gin D. Wong’s Work on the Los Angeles Built Environment. She talks with co-host Cindy Olnick about Wong’s life and work, how credit can elude architects in big corporate firms, and how she researched her subject without access to his archive.