This project explores the relationship between infrastructure and city in order to understand ways to fill the gaps that often exist between them. This research responds to the oil infrastructure remaining in Los Angeles, specifically through “The Curious Case of Signal Hill”…

The citizens of Signal Hill declared their administrative independence from Long Beach as a way to regulate their oil market and maintain lower taxes; the city still remains independent today. It is a hybrid of urban land uses, containing oil infrastructure alongside city life. Companies and private land owners alike continue to exploit these oil fields. However, the oil fields will be depleted by the year 2050, thus eliminating Signal Hill’s reason for independence.

This project’s scenario proposes that solar energy will become the new justification for independence, thereby contributing to a new economy and social opportunities, while forming a more symbiotic relationship between city and infrastructure.

Taking the regional impact of most infrastructures, specifically those concerned with energy generation, and rethinking their impact at a local scale can ultimately improve the social and physical perception of the city. This in turn can create an identity, not only through the changes to the physical landscape but also, by evolving the perceptions and interactions of society, ultimately rendering the infrastructure revolution invisible.

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