An Interview With Sevak Petrosian: part 2

by Tony Chavira

Sevak Petrosian is an amazing architectural and urban designer, who I happen to know through a long-term project that we’re both working on developing in the city of Los Angeles. In the first part of this interview (where you’ll also find his full bio), we spoke about the need to increase the amount of equal partnerships between non-profit entities, for-profit entities, and the government in order to have balanced, equitable development throughout the world. But knowing Sevak’s personal history with designing and planning massive entertainment spaces, I had to inquire:

You’ve told me that you’d like to incorporate “entertainment” into your civic planning and developments. What do you mean by “entertainment”?

The idea that I had involving the Upward Spiral dynamic refers to this exactly: we’re going to go back to our roots first. At the bottom of the spiral, before we start moving upward, we need to lay a foundation and the foundation will come both from local culture and the local government. People in communities can learn from each other, and I want to be sure that any new plans and development that I design always begin with this question: “What does your community want?” Absolutely the community has heritage that it wants to show visitors; absolutely the community has festivals that it wants everyone to partake in; absolutely the community wants a space where it can work, a space where it can shop, a space where it can eat, a space where it can relax ... in Los Angeles, the Grove is a good example of this. In 1995, there was no Grove. The old Farmers Market still existed, but it wasn’t attractive in any way to the average worker, shopper or citizen. So what did it take to draw in businesses and crowds? It took planning that incorporated the elements of entertainment. Now, every couple of miles should require a centralized node like this as a destination.

You might say that it’s a little kitsch or cheesy, but what makes it feel that way to people? It isn’t necessarily the Disney-fication of the space; what we’re actually doing is designing the negative space in a landscape. Think of a square-mile of park space with no trails in it. In a city where most people use their cars to get around, hardly anyone will travel to the open center of that space (the negative space), and that is unfortunate. What I’m essentially proposing is to re-landscape, re-streetscape, and re-design the entire community around that park so that it incorporates directly into the lifestyles of the people living there. It reflects what they want and it’s even something that visitors will come from a distance to see for themselves.

But here is the best part: the reason visitors will come is because the space is actually very educational. Good programming will give a planned space the qualities of a strong community, and the flexibility for the community to develop its own identity as it grows. Visitors will actually learn about other cultures and other people by integrating with these communities, much like public forums or public spheres. Anyone can walk through them, and the local communities can easily develop them. If a community is designed and built to be open, entertaining and useful, then it will naturally be educational to visitors who seek to discover their charm. Everything that the community wants will be there for them, and each of these communities will be a unique and insightful experience to you as a visitor. Imagine a civic space like police stations or county courts designed like this! It would actually make them less ominous, and help them to better incorporate into their own communities.

I call these Experiential Learning Spaces. They become destinations, almost their own attractions that are naturally developed by the people living there. By working in entertainment, I started noticing the word “edutainment” ... a sort of mix of education and entertainment, and it’s not always successful. Disney, for example, isn’t that good at it because it’s always a Disney version of education. Disney-brand community, it sounds terrible.

Instead, there’s no longer any hierarchy. The educational experience is developed as the community continues to develop. You’ve designed a space that creates public forums, for people to discuss their ideas and argue their points of view. Everyone says that Southern California has few central points, “nothing like Time Square.” But that doesn’t matter if we begin to design like this, because everywhere you go will be a localized experience. Los Angeles is already a little like this, but better programming of an entire area would better engage the local culture, local history and local leaders and allow anyone living throughout all of Los Angeles to better connect their communities. It creates business and provides opportunities. All you need to do is find the for-profit entity, non-profit entity, and government willing to try it. But when you already have a really good idea, money will come.

I’d like to thank Sevak Petrosian for allowing me to grill him, and also for putting up with the amount of editing I did on our conversation in order to turn it into a block of prose.

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