Weiss/Manfredi release designs of unfolding experience at La Brea Tar Pits in LA

American architecture studio Weiss/Manfredi has released updated designs for the "reimagined" La Brea Tar Pits campus in Los Angeles, including a research annexe to the Page Museum and a redesign of the surrounding grounds.

Announced in 2019, the project will encompass linking and expanding existing elements at the historic La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, a 13-acre site that wraps around the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and is the "only active paleontological research site in the world located in a major urban area".

Weiss/Manfredi will serve as the project's lead designer, while Gruen Associates is the project's landscape architect, and Kossmann DeJong will design exhibits.

According to the studio, the project's design was informed by "a close analysis of what is present".

"The firm's site plan builds on what is already distinctive about La Brea Tar Pits, reimagining the Page Museum, active excavation sites, and Hancock Park as a single inside-outside museum closely connected to the surrounding landscape and neighborhood," said the team.

Plans include the addition of the Samuel Oschin Global Centre for Ice Age Research, a semi-submerged exhibition building that extends the existing subterranean elements of the Page Museum.

Renderings show a glass facade located under a large circular berm, wrapping around the base of the bas-relief-clad museum.

An elevated pathway wraps up and over the facade, and creates a small, covered pavilion area where visitors will enter the new annexe.

Another circular pathway is located at the centre of the site, while others branch off and link to the surrounding grounds.

The studio utilised a "Loops and Lenses" design concept.

"Our reimagination of the park and museum emerges from a close analysis of what is present, inspiring a commitment to preserve and magnify the park, the tar pits, and the museum as an ever-changing campus for discovery," said the studio.

"The La Brea Loops and Lenses form a triple Möbius strip that links all existing elements of the park to redefine Hancock Park as a continuously unfolding experience," it continued. "The different themes of the loops embody journeys, with programming that appeals to diverse interests – from palaeontology to bird watching, from science to play."

Although meandering pathways already travel through the La Brea site – connecting existing elements such as a lake, a restroom pavilion and the central Page Museum – the landscape design will seek to streamline the pedestrian experience, while adding elements such as an outdoor amphitheatre and exhibition sites.

According to the team, the site has not been "renovated or considered comprehensively" since it first opened in 1977.

Efforts are now focused on raising the funds to break ground, with the team hoping for completion in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Previous designs showed a spiralling building added to the site, although it has since been pared down. The La Brea site sits next to LACMA, which was recently renovated by architect Peter Zumthor.

The images are courtesy of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County

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