“Faces of Elysian Valley” is an integrated public artwork that serves as a gateway to the five communities which surround it.  The artwork is designed to  be a visual feature to the  first roundabout in Los Angeles, as well as a stormwater detention landscape that traps water coming form the adjacent bridge. We chose to use a locally sourced California granite and created a method by which four sculptures came out of one block of stone.  

Every piece of stone was used, with the off-cuts creating the outer granite ring, which serves as a barricade to traffic.

To define the optimal shape, the height and density of the sculptures, they were designed to the ideal “visual sight-
lines” for objects within a roundabout, as defined by Oursten Roundabout Engineering.

We designed a stormwater detention landscape, including an outer ring of permeable, vegetated pavers that serves as the required truck apron. Curb cuts and a sculpted topography, capture and detain stormwater from the bridge. The landscape uses local, water wise plants, typical of the riparian LA river corridor and irrigated with reclaimed wastewater.