Week Four: South Cost Plaza

It’s interesting how lighting and architecture can create such a different kind of feel from one location to the next.

The picture to the left is one of the entrances for South Coast Plaza. It’s trendy, modern, and a break from the luxurious. It’s interesting that this is at an entrance. Perhaps they don’t want people with a sub-million dollar income to feel like they don’t belong. At first.

The outdoor-like newsstands, and the Starbucks play into this idea of “trendy” as well as the “average” person.








Interestingly, the part of he South Coast Plaza on the other side of the bridge has a more homey, everyday feel. The lighting isn’t overwhelmingly luxurious, and there are the cheesy winter projections on the wall.

The stores in here are stores that are more realistically with in the price range of the who aren’t not super rich.

I think same idea of welcoming a particular type of person through lighting is also apparent on the outside of South Coast Plaza. The blues in the picture above are trendy, yes, but they’re not particularly overwhelmingly neon.

The blue and white mix together, creating a sore of lushness that people approach. It is soft, and not very edgy.

The same can be said of the picture to the right. It is a romantic sort of setting, with a bit of edge in the back. The edginess, however, is again muted by the purple. It’s a very pretty site to see this blanket of stars with a lush purple behind them.

The picture to the left, however, is what people see who are coming from the less expensive part of South Coast. The neon isn’t muted at all. It’s very blue, and has more of a clubbing feeling than luxurious feeling.

It’s interesting that so much was done on the other side to mute the neon feeling, and to create a romantic feel, yet on this side the only things people see are neon and metal.













The bridge connecting the two sections of South Coast is kind of weird. It’s extremely trendy, and futuristic. Yet, it doesn’t totally feel like something that is far out of our future.

While the blue does give it a spaceship sort of feel, the bridge is sort of an interesting representation of “real life”.

This bridge, though it is suspended through air above a major road, looks like a pathway one would take in quiet suburbs, or in a less busy part of a major city. It looks like a pathway that would lead to a park, or the pathway that is next to ocean on the other side of the street from Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.

 It is a weird look into the future, and creates, again, a comforting feeling that isn’t luxurious, but is trendy. It is an odd merging of worlds.

The lights on the bridge were very interesting,subtle, and powerful. I didn’t even notice them at first, yet they’re doing so much. I thought that was really cool. The light the pathway, give light to the pedestrians, and add an accent for the structure. 

I think it would have benefited the structure if there were more purples than blues, or perhaps another color. The statement-ness of the blue creates a disconnection from where we were, where we are going, and how we are getting there. Though there is a different luxuriousness between the two places, and sometimes a sense of the trendy, there is never a moment in the buildings that makes me feel like I’m in Star Trek. The purple is less statement oriented, so perhaps more of the purple would make it more of a neutral space. Then again, it could make it even more confusing, and less further disconnect from the blue we were over exposed to at the escalators. 

Again, I feel like this is another moment of disconnect caused by trying to appeal to too many different kinds of people. I do really like the old vintage light bulbs. I think they’re awesome. And I do really like beachwear. I can be a California beach bum one day, and a hipster the next. However, those are two very different ideas. I would go to different stores to get those different kinds of feels. As someone who likes both styles, I’m a little put off by the mixture of it. Perhaps if they had vintage beach posters, and made the walls a little less clean, it could work. Unfortunately, they failed to make the bridging of target audiences. 

I don’t know if they’re waiting for a certain day to light the lanterns (which I believe have no lights in them), but I think it would added a really nice romantic, cultural, and soothing touch if the lanterns were lit. It was kind of awkward that they were just there. 

I really like it when people light trees. 

And Satan! The lighting fixture is actually pretty nice. The art deco-eqsue feel adds to the luxuriousness of the area.