Studio Purpose:
To redesign a 3-mile stretch of Medea Creek that runs between Agoura Hills in Los Angeles and Oak Park in Ventura County. The studio went through three phases: an intial three mile masterplan, a detailed masterplan of a 20,000 square foot stretch of the plan, and a further detailed study of a section from a building and how it relates to the landscape.

Design Intent:
Medea Creek becomes an impetus for suburban transformation by targeting the endangered Bell's Vireo. The Bell's Vireo nests in riparian trees about 1 meter above the base of the tree. Human activity disrupts nesting and to protect nests, a grid of sunken tree pods are placed in the community. This grid is spaced at 20' which creates a high density of potential nests while providing the minimum necessary open space between pods.
Riparian pods will be setup with an initial influx of water from irrigated front lawns. Every lawn can produce enough water to create one fully submerged riparian pod. One pod in each front lawn is designated as a fully submerged riparian pod while other pods within the front lawn help channel water to these underwater pods. Flow directions are dictated by the topography on the site.
The amount of water which flows to each pod defines what type of vegetation it can hold. The first pod in a channel system holds an oak tree with chaparral vegetation, the middle pods hold ash trees with river bank vegetation, while the fully submerged pods contain willow trees and riparian plants.
Streets are reduced from the current 25' width to either 10' or 20' depending on whether the streets are to become one-way or two-way. This allows more pods to placed within the community.
This system of riparian pods transforms suburban front lawns from under-utilized and highly inefficient turf into a native public park. The park is divided by a winding road, narrowed as much as possible. Every two houses share one accessway to garages. The soil excavated to create the riparian pods is used to make hills which vary in slope depending on how much water the abuting pods require to sustain the designated vegetation. Those pods which hold oak trees have been widened to accomodate the larger drip-line of the tree.

Building:
Along the creek itself a filtration channel will be dug to filter runoff from backyards. The dirt from the channel is used to flatten portions of the creek banks to make program pads. In sections of the creek where backyards abute the creek edge these pads will hold park space and where the creek neighbors a street the program pads becomes retail. This retail space is moved from the stip malls near the main road. These old retail buildings are now community centers.
The retail pavilion is created on four of the creek bank's flattened building pads. One building pad is 2' lower then the other so that pedestrians along the street can look through the building down to the creek. The building
bridges over part of the filtration channel and the water from the channel runs through the building to help cool it during the summer.
The pavilion has a solid wall along its street edge, while the walls perpendicular to the street edge are made from tilted wood siding allowing those inside the building to look outside, but will not allow views inside from the exterior. The rest of the walls are extensions of the retaining walls lining the filtration channel. These retaining walls become planters.