How do you awaken the hidden spirit of a public space?
Hostile, outdated, unloved: this is the popular image of Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles. Yet beneath the sun-baked surfaces of this historic park exist countless stories of refuge and reinvention. Redemption Square is an investigation of the soul of a park and the soul of a city, and of a major perceptual gap in Los Angeles that propels vicious cycles of demolition and misguided design. Oscillating between two distinct ways of seeing and experiencing Pershing Square, the project reveals overlooked moments of transformation that can serve as inspirations for inclusive design in the midst of rapid urban change.
I chose Pershing Square as a case study to test the use of film as an urban design tool for my MIT master’s thesis in 2016. Concurrent with an international competition to redesign the park, my experiments involved conducting nearly 100 interviews with visitors to the park, unearthing forgotten writings of visitors in every generation back to the 1860s, and teaming up with a woman whose life experience was intimately connected to the park’s transformation.
The project’s two main outputs, a short film and a web series, present a new reading of the park through the eyes and memories of its users, and a manifesto about story-driven design that can apply to any context.
Full Film (19:40)
In the footsteps of many unique Angelenos, a down-on-her-luck woman finds a new identity in Pershing Square, a notoriously unloved space in Downtown Los Angeles.
Three years after I released the project, major changes to the park have yet to begin, the nonprofit that ran the competition has dissolved, and the LA city council member who spearheaded the 2016 competition was arrested for wide-ranging political corruption. While I doubt Redemption Square had any impact on these events, it won awards at several LA-based film festivals and was praised by Christopher Hawthorne, Mayor Garcetti’s Chief Design Officer, for expressing “a sense of history and memory that is sorely missing in conversations about public space in LA.”
Beyond Los Angeles, the value of Redemption Square lies in its argument that the salvation of a city’s public life lies not in strict adherence to nostalgia or reinvention, but in the ability to get diverse people to talk to each other and see their realities reflected in the design process. The film has screened at design- and urban-related film festivals around the world, and the short episodes are now used as templates for students’ final projects in a seminar at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Role: Director, Writer
For: MIT DUSP
Date: 2018
Type: narrative strategy, community engagement, urban design, research
Produced by: Anne Whiston Spirn
Starring: Lorraine Morland, Lisa Biagiotti
Cinematography: Drew Ganyer, Garrett Lamb, John Moody
Edited by: John Moody
Original Music: Nicholas Myers, Colin Yarck
Motion Graphics: John Cranston, David Vega-Barachowitz, John Moody
Sound Design: Colin Yarck
Full credits
Web Series Episodes
Click episode titles for original sources and behind the scenes!
1. On My Mind
A mysterious woman serenades a lonely public park in downtown Los Angeles, remembering the ghosts of her past. (1:32) (more info...)
2. Campfire (1860s)
In 1866, a pioneer settler encounters a mother and son camping in the park in front of her house, while L.A. officials take steps to beautify the park as a new centerpiece for their expanding city. (1:55) (more info...)
3. Working Men (1900s)
In 1908, a visitor to L.A. encounters the greatest “working man’s park” he has ever seen, while the Park Board streamlines the park’s design to keep pace with surging business activity downtown. (2:07) (more info...)
4. Unafraid (1940s)
In 1944, a social misfit finds a new home amongst Pershing Square’s “ever-shifting group of people,” while a business association campaigns to transform the park into an underground parking garage. (2:25) (more info...)
5. Safe Haven (1980s)
In 1986, a woman with nowhere to go finds refuge in the run-down Pershing Square, while a new business association fights to redesign the park as a beacon for international investment in downtown L.A. (3:36) (more info...)
6. Versions of the Truth (2018)
A young journalist discovers a park that is not what it seems, while local officials push for a new design to capture downtown’s renewed identity. (6:01) (more info...)
7. Time in Place
In Pershing Square, two women reflect on life in Los Angeles and make an unusual connection. (3:40) (more info...)
Initial Proposal: Marriage of Film + Planning Practice
MIT Thesis: A Test of Methods
Check out the thesis here: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/104985
Abstract:
Each person experiences urban space through the shifting narratives of his or her own cultural, economic and environmental perceptions. Yet within dominant urban design paradigms, many of these perceptions never make it into the public meeting, nor onto the abstract maps and renderings that planners and designers frequently employ. This thesis seeks to show that cinematic practice, or the production of subjective, immersive film narratives, can incorporate highly differentiated perceptions into the design process. By investigating a single public space, Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles, California, with three cinematic "acts," this project puts three different methodological approaches to the test… (read more…)
Mood Board
Map Collages
Screenings + Awards
AIA Blueprint for Better, Savannah, GA (2019)
Istanbul Int’l Architecture & Urban Films Fest, Istanbul, Turkey (Oct 2019)
Buenos Aires Film Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Aug 2019)
Los Angeles Poverty Dept. Free Movie Nights, Los Angeles, CA (Aug 2019)
Shahr Urban International Film Festival, Tehran, Iran (Jul 2019)
Documentary Short Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (Apr 2019)
Architecture & Design Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (Mar 2019)
Architecture & Design Film Festival, Washington, DC (Feb 2019)
SF Urban Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (Nov 2018)
Architecture & Design Film Festival, New York, NY (Oct 2018)
DTLA Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (Oct 2018)
New Urbanism Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (Oct 2017)
Response + Praise
ArchDaily article by Tom Dobbins, 2018
John Moody purposefully concentrates on the perception, memory, and identity of the space in his documentary Redemption Square—winner of the Best Urban Design Film 2017 at the New Urbanism Film Festival. Using the voice of strangers, residents and those who used to call it home, Moody guides you from the park’s formation in 1866 to its impending renewal: a “radically flat” redesign courtesy of Agence Ter and Gruen Associates… (read more…)
Audience reactions from LA Film Festival, May 2019
I’m not an LA native, I knew nothing about Pershing Square before this but now I find an attachment and I’m like emotionally invested in what this means for the community. I feel I know about something that’s very important in Los Angeles now. It was really touching and heartwarming, it wasn’t something that was just like, ‘here’s some facts after facts after facts.’ It was, ‘let me share a little bit of my city with you. And just let me share it with you because I wanna share it with you.’ And it really felt warm. It made me feel warm.
- Audience Member, LA Feedback Film Festival
Panel Discussion: Collective Memory in the Civic Commons
Read the article, Nov. 2018
Public Spaces are encoded with meaning, and every person experiences them in a unique and specific way. These places are shaped by the decisions of governments, institutions, communities, and individuals. At the same time, their location, design, and regulating mechanisms shape forms of social organization and activity. This program will feature a collection of shorts exploring human stories about how places transform through different eras in response to our evolving societal expectations of these public spaces, their meanings, and their possibilities.