Small Talks LA: Chinatown

PART 1: INNOVATION CHALLENGE – REIMAGINE. REUSE. RECLAIM.

Saturday May 4th – Los Angeles State Historic Park – Chinatown, Los Angeles CA

“If a community articulated what it stood for, what it believed in, what is aspired to be – as a city, as a neighborhood – would it have a better chance of creating and sustaining a more healthy, vibrant place with positive, economic, health, civic, cultural, and environmental conditions?” – The Just City Lab @ Harvard Graduate School of Design

At small talks:LA, we believe in the idea of empowering community members so that everyone knows they have a voice. So that everyone knows they are a designer. So that everyone knows their background/all their experiences that have led to this point matters – and has a place at the table. The third installment of the small talks series centers around the idea of communities as urban designers of their own neighborhoods.

This workshop challenged participants to study a selection of shared community values and their meaning through the lens of various public spaces in Los Angeles. All these spaces, while public, evoke a diverse range of moods/tones as they relate to the culture of Los Angeles. The workshop investigated what it means to work together as a new community and arrive at some shared values. The result was a visual map explaining our shared community interests in efforts to guide how we create a space for us – by us.