'Next Up: The LA River' Mini-Session #8: Mia Lehrer

11/29/16 • 15 min

It's here: our final interview from 'Next Up: The LA River', featuring Mia Lehrer of Mia Lehrer + Associates. Lehrer was a major driving force in the 2007 Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan, and has worked for nearly 20 years on projects related to the River—undeniably preceding any involvement from Frank Gehry.

Paul Petrunia sits down with Lehrer to speak about her history with the river and its redevelopment, as well as her thoughts for how the project must proceed.

Paul Petrunia sits down with Lehrer to speak about her history with the river and its redevelopment, as well as her thoughts for how the project must proceed.

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'Next Up: The LA River' Mini-Session #7: Renee Dake Wilson (LA City Planning Commission) and Alexander Robinson (Office of Outdoor Research)

Our penultimate Mini-Session interview from 'Next Up: The LA River' pairs Renee Dake Wilson with Alexander Robinson. Dake Wilson, principal at Dake Wilson Architects, was appointed by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti to serve as Vice President on the city's volunteer-based Planning Commission—an array of professionals who make recommendations between communities and the city on planning projects. On the commission, she's worked particularly with proposals to change the height and density limits on development in Elysian Valley, aka Frogtown—the neighborhood along the LA River that has become a major node in the city's ongoing gentrification discussion.

Robinson, while teaching at USC as an assistant professor, runs the Office of Outdoor Research and just recently completed a term as a Rome Prize recipient, researching the Tiber River as it relates to LA's and other cities' river infrastructures. He has also previously worked with Mia Lehrer's office on LA River projects.

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HUD-winked

When president-elect Donald Trump nominated Ben Carson to lead the department of Housing and Urban Development, the response was resoundingly: huh?

The neurosurgeon came onto the national political scene in 2015, during his run for the Republican nomination, but after Trump took the presidency and started throwing around the idea of offering a Cabinet position to Carson, a spokesperson said "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." Despite all that, Carson is now (almost definitely officially) secretary of HUD (which he knows just enough about to seriously backtrack the agency's work as pushed by Obama). So here we are.

Special guest Marc Miller joins us on the podcast to discuss the implications of Carson's inexperience for HUD, as well as chew on the latest Schumacher-induced controversy: when the architect promoted the privatization of public space and trashed social housing at a recent talk in Berlin, ZHA responded to his remarks in an open letter, distancing the firm from its principal's so-called 'urban policy manifesto'.

Miller has degrees in landscape architecture, architecture and fine arts, and has practiced as an architect, urban designer, campus planner, and architectural lighting designer. He currently teaches in the landscape architecture department at Pennsylvania State University, and previously at Cornell.