Union Oil Gas Station

Situated at La Brea and Slauson Avenues in Los Angeles' Mid-City neighbourhood, the Union Oil Gas Station is a marriage of the city's historic love affair with the automobile and today's modern, one-stop shopping spirit of immediate gratification and convenience. The daring and active design seeks to resuscitate a streetscape through integration of a 12-pump gas station, mini-market and car wash. The resulting structure is an original machine of vehicular form and function. Mirroring Southern California's ubiquitous freeway interchanges, two planes soar from the ground. One, a concrete ramp, takes patrons up and over the rear of the mini-market and back down into a car wash. The second, a sinuous and curvilinear metal structure, swoops down from the sky to serve as the roof of the mini-market. The form regains an upward momentum that carries it around the front of the market where it becomes a 30-foot canopy over the pumps.