Sunset 2050

Will cruising on Sunset be the same when cars steer themselves? The Sunset Strip—a mecca of iconic music venues and nightclubs characterized by its billboard culture—made the dreams of many an aspiring rock star. Its potent milieu of glamour, stardom, melody, and mischief carry tales far beyond its two-mile run. In a world that is rapidly redefining the rules of access, the Strip is caught in limbo between its layered iconography and the congestion that has become a hallmark of everyday urban living. In a city that is coalescing into urban gridlock, how can we breathe life back into our streets? 

Cut to 2050: the advent of autonomous vehicular technology has rendered a new landscape for the City of Los Angeles. What future can we envision for Rock and Roll’s Crawl of Fame? For the past year, Professor Craig Hodgetts and Marta Nowak have led a research studio at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design to envision a master-plan for the Sunset Strip circa 2050. From tackling the nuances of autonomous technology in a ten-week collaboration with ArtCenter College of Design to spearheading a new wave of “visual billboarding” the studio imagines a future for the Strip that champions its innate charm while embracing an optimism promised by the technological advances of tomorrow.

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