Episode 17: Rachel Allen and Allen Compton

On today’s podcast I interview Allen Compton, Principal and Founder of SALT Landscape Architects and Rachel Allen of Rachel Allen Architecture, who, among other projects, are helping to reimagine one of the more contested public spaces in America: Pershing Square. Our conversation in their studio space in Downtown LA’s Fashion District, was discursive and exploratory, probing the themes of homelessness, architecture, landscape architecture and urban design and exploring how those design disciplines are poised to respond to the challenges of homelessness in a city where the phenomenon is most prevalent and widespread. We explore the deliberate design of Skid Row, Allen’s work for the Skid Row Housing Trust and the future of downtown LA’s open spaces, but we started the conversation with their reflections not as designers, but as Angelinos.