The Chinatown stories : investigating water (in)justice through transmedia urban design in the L.A. River
Name
1227045157-MIT.pdf
Size
28.09 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
626cb9990155a8ff79f6747db28cd511
Author(s)
He, Mengqi Moon.
Advisor(s)
James Wescoat.
Date Issued
2020
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Presenting a case study of the L.A. River, this thesis analyzes the L.A. River revitalization master plans from 1996 and the subsequent efforts by public and private entities to create "an equitable, natural river." It demonstrates that the current urban design framework neglects to take a finegrained approach to distinctive river stretches and communities, lacks clear water justice objectives, and fails to adequately represent local stakeholders, and thus lacks the ability to actualize their vision. This thesis argues that the discipline and practice of urban design can use transmedia storytelling as a tool for power- and knowledge-sharing between urban designers and community members to achieve water justice objectives in the L.A. River. The thesis proposes a transmedia urban design method that incorporates transmedia stories and transmedia community engagement to inform the development of a just urban design.
By applying the proposed method with the Chinatown community and its stretch of the L.A. River, this thesis aims to unravel water injustice in the area. Since the 1930s, Chinatown in Los Angeles has long suffered from hegemonic representation, serving a nostalgic and archaic Orientalist imagination to the West. The misrepresentation of Chinatown has led the river revitalization and urban renewal processes to neglect the community, thus resulting in water injustice. As an alternative, this thesis proposes a counter urban design scheme for the Chinatown community and its river stretch. The transmedia urban design method and design alternatives aim to achieve four water justice objectives: procedural, distributive, corrective, and imaginative. It selects four sites in Chinatown for urban design intervention based a process of site analysis. Then it engages with local transmedia storytellers to generate preliminary programs for those sites. Lastly, it proposes a Chinatown-L.A.
River Master Plan and urban design alternatives for the four sites to address the water injustice revealed in the previous two steps. Corresponding to the four objectives, the transmedia engagement process fosters local community participation and representation (procedural justice), the Master Plan improves the access to the river (distributive justice), the urban design alternatives enhance the community's multi-racial experience next to and with nearby river communities (corrective justice), and the transmedia urban design method proves to create imaginery and voice to a new theme of water justice (imaginative justice).
Description
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, September, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis. Page 130 blank.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 118-129).
Subjects
Architecture.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
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