Freeway Pools

Reyner Banham’s “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies” explored the freeways as a key element of Los Angeles’s urban fabric, viewing them as a symbol of the city’s unique “autopia” and a major agent of its sprawling suburbanism.

Conceptual Approach

In this context, the concept of “Carpool Lanes” is reimagined as a poetic gesture, where the open road meets cooling waters, blending travel and leisure in a surreal dialogue with the landscape. Elevated concrete lanes of turquoise colored waters introduce a fluid juxtaposition of motion and stillness. This speculative intervention seeks to relieve the relentless congestion and monotony of the freeway experience, offering drivers a moment of serenity amid the rush.

The project is part of a larger series examining the LA freeways and their profound impact on the urban and cultural environment, using generative AI to visualize alternate futures. These AI-driven compositions evoke both nostalgia and futurism, reinterpreting Los Angeles through the lens of technological imagination.

Prompts & Software

The prompt served as the starting point, and through multiple rounds of generation, subtle word adjustments, and careful planning and zooming into the details, the final images were created.

Pool level, sitting inside pool, freeway pools, elevated pools intertwined with the freeway. Oddly elegant, hundreds of people everywhere, – no cars in pools –ar 4:5

Created in Midjourney v6.1