Dezeen Magazine

Los Angeles skyline in 2030

Visualisation reveals how the Los Angeles skyline might look in 2030

A glimpse at the future of LA shows a growing number of skyscrapers that will spread southwest from the Downtown cluster.

The rendering by New York creative agency Visualhouse shows towers set to rise in Los Angeles between now and 2030.

As viewed from Griffith Park, behind the iconic observatory, the image shows the string of skyscrapers planned along and around South Figueroa Street in the city's South Park neighbourhood.

They begin at the 1,100-feet-tall (335.3-metre) Wilshire Grand Center, which recently became the tallest building in the American west. It also claimed the title of tallest building in LA, overtaking the US Bank tower that was recently fitted with an external glass slide at its top.

At the other end of the row is the Circa pair of towers, underway opposite the Los Angeles Convention Center.

In between is the Gensler-designed Metropolis development, due to complete in 2018, and the two 40-plus-storey towers of Oceanwide Plaza slated to finish the same year.

Los Angeles skyline in 2030

The three residential skyscrapers of the Olympia scheme, unveiled by SOM and P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S in December 2016, is also shown.

"We're at a real turning point where the skyline of downtown Los Angeles is about to expand, and we feel it's important to document this," Visualhouse founder Robert Herrick told Curbed.

Downtown LA has seen a huge rise in demand over the past few years, spurred partly by the growing influence of the nearby Arts District – where BIG has proposed a huge mixed-use complex – and the renovation of many of the area's older buildings.

Elsewhere in the city, Frank Gehry's Sunset Strip development has received approval and MAD has proposed a project that looks like a hilltop village for Beverly Hills.

All of the projects featured in the Visualhouse image are approved and should be complete by 2030, although many more buildings at various stages of planning could alter the skyline even more dramatically by then.