Climate and Culture at La Brea Tar Pits

Los Angeles is a city of paradoxes, committed to the invented, yet to be imagined future and nurturing both real and fictional histories. La Brea Tar Pits, the largest urban paleontological research site in the world, is located on Wilshire Boulevard, the city’s “Miracle Mile” and embodies these diametrically oppositional identities.

In 2018, The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles announced a competition to develop a master plan to reimagine the La Brea Tar Pits and museum. While the competition focused on the evolution of the 13 acre park and a refreshed museum, this studio is focused on the creation of a new, international research center on climate evolution, informing a paradigmatic transformation of the Natural History museum into a place that can also expand its scientific mission to engage the urgent questions climate change provokes. Together, the climate research center, museum and park will offer a new hybrid place of science, culture and recreation, with productive intersections that have yet to be invented.