Lucas Kamal, Emma Woolcott

Situated at the confluence of the LA River and Arroyo Seco is the industrial zone of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood, known as ‘Glendale Junction.’ Cut off from its surrounding context by Interstates 5 & 110, the area has become largely forgotten, manifesting in a high vacancy rate and storage yards for city services. However, cultural assets on the site reveal a latent potential for new, next-generation public infrastructure. The old Lincoln Heights Jail, a historic registry structure known for its original art deco façade, offers both access to the LA River and a desirable adjacency to Elysian Park. This project proposal leverages theses assets, along with the approaching 2028 Olympic Games to propose a new way of thinking about water and recreation in the public realm. An interwoven system of water collection, treatment, and distribution is coupled with the re-use of abandoned rooftops for recreation and Olympic festivities—bringing the games to a part of Los Angeles not slated to be in on the action. The result? A once privatized and forgotten part of the city becomes a seed for a new type of neighborhood—one that is designed for both extreme drought and flooding, with multiple planes of public realm, and a localized water collection and food production system to support it.