The team led by Mia Lehrer and Associates (MLA), in partnership with Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and design innovation firm IDEO, was selected by the City of Los Angeles this morning to design the new $12 million public park located at the intersection of First and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. MLA’s proposal for the so-called FaB Park utilizes a mix of meadows, gardens, and terraces packed with native plantings and mature oak trees to create a shady “California oaklands” landscape that can handle and capture all on-site stormwater for treatment and infiltration.

The design also features a large, split-level structure with amphitheater seating designed by OMA that will be programmed by IDEO with public events focusing on food and entertainment. The structure injects a sizable commercial element into the scheme and features and associated beer garden and test kitchen.

Towering, leaf-shaped shade structures dot the central plaza adjacent to the restaurant and amphitheater and aim to distribute shade across the unplanted portions of the scheme. The plaza will be accessed from a variety of approaches connecting to surrounding sidewalks, each of which frames one of the scheme’s signature gardens. A paseo will runs across the site from the corner of First and Broadway to Spring Street and City Hall and cuts through the plaza. The park aims to not only create place of respite in one of downtown’s most symbolic sites, but also to connect foot traffic between the Rios, Clementi, Hale Studios-designed Grand Park adjacent to FaB Park, City Hall, and the Los Angeles Times headquarters, and new SOM-designed United States Courthouse across the street.

FaB Park is the second major park-related development in the neighborhood, with the Agence Ter and SALT-designed, minimalist proposal for the blighted Pershing Square sitting just four blocks away released just a few weeks ago.