Willowbrook, CA, USA

The Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park Event Center by Paul Murdoch and Milena Murdoch of Paul Murdoch Architects for the Los Angeles County, Department of Parks and Recreation adds a crucial piece of sustainable architecture to the park’s plan as a community space grounded in an identity unique to a revitalized South Los Angeles.

The project is the first phase of a master plan to transform the 120-acre Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park, the largest public open space in South Los Angeles, into a high-performance model of sustainable park design for the 21st century. 

The first phase of master plan implementation includes a new, multipurpose community event center; renovated lake; a lakeside loop trail with picnic areas, fitness equipment, scenic viewpoints; a destination children’s play area and outdoor classroom; a wedding area and native landscaping irrigated with water captured from the regional watershed and cleaned via green infrastructure and natural systems. 

For its sustainable and community-focused design, The Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park Event Center has recently been awarded a 2022 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Within an area of oil fields operating early in the twentieth century, the site was later used for oil tank storage.

In the 1980s, the County of Los Angeles developed the site into a park with a grass lawn and artificial lakes.

Since then, the park had become dilapidated but was still heavily used. 

The recently completed renovation converts a brownfield site into a social, cultural, and recreation activity center for the underserved community, demonstrating sustainability, resilience, and social equity. 

The lake has been transformed into a bio-habitat with more diversity of flora and fauna than the pre-existing concrete-lined basin.

The project recycles and treats stormwater runoff from both the park and the adjacent 375-acre urban watershed, creating a viable Net Zero Water system from older infrastructure, such as the purely manmade lakes found in the park. 

These aging lakes are revitalized to not only provide beauty and recreation but also as a reservoir that stores reused water for irrigation and improved ecosystems. 

The event center occurs alongside the restored lake, serving as the social and educational center of the park.

The architecture is meant to express both its civic stature for the community, which lacks a similar facility elsewhere, and its identity as a park building. 

The center is organized into a classroom zone with an exterior court and adjacent playground, public entrances at the front and back leading to a lobby with reception and offices, a kitchen, and an event hall that can be subdivided into as many as three spaces. 

A long, horizontal cement plaster volume, corresponding with the horizontality of the water, frames interior and exterior spaces accessible from both the entrance and lakesides. 

The event hall volume projects above the frame bringing natural light to the interior and serving as a visible anchor throughout the park. 

Curtainwall and brown fiber cement soffit panels infill the frame, shaded by fiber cement paneled piers and horizontal aluminum shade screens.

The entrance is marked by green embossed fiber cement panels and glass with a fritted pattern to prevent bird strikes.

Simulated wood veneer wall and ceiling panels continue the warm tone inside with white walls and acoustic ceiling slats. 

Artwork in the main hall, by a local artist, adapts the colors and visual texture of the building with its natural park setting to embellish the community space, grounding it in an identity unique to a revitalized South Los Angeles.

Project: Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park Event Center
Architects: Paul Murdoch Architects 
Lead Architects: Paul Murdoch and Milena Murdoch 
Design Team: Eric Cunningham, Kin Lee, Miroslav Minkov, and Helen Hyon 
Landscape Architects: MIG, Inc. 
General Contractor: S.J. Amoroso Construction Co, Inc. 
Client: Los Angeles County, Department of Parks and Recreation 
Photographers: Eric Staudenmaier Photography