Evolution ruminating for over a decade in Los Angeles architecture, infrastructure, and transportation is now swiftly coming to light with technological advances. To get a better grasp of how this affects Angelenos and the built environment as a whole, Woods Bagot, Metropolis, and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) are hosting “LA 3.0: Development and Design for the New Los Angeles,” a half-day conference on February 1, 2018 taking place at SCI-Arc’s Art Districts campus. There, some of the most influential architects, planners, private developers, city officials, and transportation leaders in Southern California will gather for a complex conversation on urban transformation and what factors are driving it today.

Los Angeles is accustomed to changing. What was originally a sprawling metropolis before World War II became the ultimate model for the modern city—shaped by the highway, automobiles and single-family tract houses. But now, the shift is being propelled by several factors.

Split between two major panels, “The Girders: Transportation, Infrastructure, & Citywide Initiatives” and “The Fabric: Districts and Developments,” these trends will be discussed in detail. The panelists featured in the first talk, “The Girders,” include Jenna Hornstock, executive officer of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, William Baumgardner, principal at international engineering consulting firm Arup, and Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. It will be moderated by author, futurist, and researcher Greg Lindsay. The second panel, “The Fabric,” will include Lorcan O’Herlihy, principal of Los Angeles-based LOHA, Ava Bromberg, senior vice president of Kanon Ventures, and Wade Killefer, founding partner at KFA, and it will be moderated by Frances Anderton, the host, and producer of the radio program “DnA: Design and Architecture,” on KCRW—the National Public Radio station out of Santa Monica College.

The Girders will touch on different projects currently being built in Los Angeles. These span from ambitious public transportation initiatives and tech-enabled shared transportation services to the redevelopment of LAX and the 2028 Olympics. The Fabric will review individual districts that are being built. Often dense in population, these mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly developments are being intermixed with the traditional single-family houses, shopping malls, and freeways the megacity built itself on more than half a century ago. These types of districts are now an essential part of the area, rather than just a trend, and so those responsible for its growth have to reconsider how this affects zoning, land-use, parking, and other factors apropos to the area’s makeup.

Attendees, panelists, and moderators alike will come away with an idea of how the nation’s second-largest city will transcend from a society historically dependent on cars and suburbia to one that is more sustainable.