From Lot to Spot

We had such a blast engaging residents, hearing from community members and being inspired by their excitement during the Bicentennial Park Revitalization community outreach process. It was so refreshing to hear community members ideas, suggestions and design recommendations on how to improve their park. We look forward to continuing the dialogue on how to transform this space into a source of community pride!
Coming next will be the Community Engagement Art and Design Workshops in 2011!

Click on the link below to read how FLTS is engageing the community to participate in the redevelopment of Bicentennial Park!

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_14195275

Our intense and comprehensive community design workshops are over and now its time to hear from the community on the first drafts of the conceptual plans for Bicentennial Park!
The workshops were very enlightening not only from a planning perspective but from cultural and social perspectives as well.
Community members were very excited to be part of a project where their voices were not only heard, but sought. It was true community planning at its core. The most popular amenities community members expressed they wanted in the park were a basketball court, a walking trail, playground and lots of vegetation and landscape features. Fencing , proper lighting and recycle receptacles were also popular features.
The following are three plans created by the Trust for Public land based purely on community input.
Please provide your comments, ideas, suggestions to Viviana@fromlottospot.org or on www.fromlottospot.org, under “Contact”.
Thank you so much and we look forward to presenting a final design concept within the coming weeks!

Here is the latest map from From Lot to Spot’s Spaces of Blight Fall 2009 class!
This semester students have been learning about the urban form, the built environment, local government, community economic development, land use and how all these factors affect their everyday lives. As part of the Spaces of Blight project, students were assigned to identify a space of blight , or SOB, in their community, take a picture and describe why it is a space of blight. The students defined a space of blight as a visually unpleasing, economically depressed space.

The following map documents the students SOBs in their communities. Students documented SOB's from the neighborhoods in South LA to Gardena to Compton.
Click on “placemarks” to see pictures and descriptions of SOBs in their communities. (Note: you may need to zoom out to view all placemarks)

Needless to say, they were not hard to find and some students went beyond the minimum requirements.
Students living in urban areas often traverse these types of spaces while on their way to school, home, friend’s houses, etc. These types of environments are not conducive to learning, to growing or creating a healthy quality of life. We teach students that in order to change this reality, their reality, they must be part of the solution.
It is interesting to see what they identify as blight and their perspective about the built environment; I invite you to read their comments on what makes their identified SOB, a space of blight.

This spring 2010 students will be working on greening a portion of the Dominguez Channel - stay tuned!

View FLTS Spaces of Blight - Fall 2009 in a larger map