For the people of San Pedro, the Port of Los Angeles has been a cultural anchor that has undergone change and development over its 116-year legacy. Today, the Port continues to evolve, with infrastructure adaptation and industrial reuse at the core of its new identity. The Port of Los Angeles is developing a framework to improve public access within San Pedro’s waterfront and connectivity to it from the surrounding neighborhoods and greater region. The Port has hired the planning, urban design, and landscape architecture firm, SWA Group, to produce the San Pedro Waterfront Connectivity Plan.

In collaboration with the Port of Los Angeles, students from SWA Group’s 2023 Summer Student Program spent a month researching the history of and imagining potential futures for the Port’s waterfront in San Pedro. This installation, designed and constructed by the 2023 student interns, serves as a culmination of their research. It was realized with the support of the Port of Los Angeles, SWA, and the greater San Pedro community that assisted with this installation

The temporary installation investigates the complex history of the waterfront through a material archive, making space to acknowledge and celebrate San Pedro’s unique place in history. The five piles displayed represent five core identities to the Port (beginning clockwise starting in the back-left pile): Oil Industry, Shipping Industry, Geology and Topography, Climate Change, and Fishing Industry. Constructed with recycled materials found within the South Bay area, the piles display both materials found within the community and different aspects of the waterfront’s rich cultural history. Recognizing the ever-changing landscape of the Port, these piles of material remain exposed to the elements; shifting, mixing, and continuing to change over time. Standing together and slowly coalescing, these five piles represent the multi-layered and rich history of the waterfront.

Additionally, students compiled images of the waterfront into viewmaster reels, allowing an immersive look into historical and speculative conditions of the site. As community members walk through the park and interact with these piles, they will have the opportunity to reflect on the material identities that have defined this space’s past and present, and begin to consider their future.

Like many parts of the city, The Port of Los Angeles has profited from rich oil deposits. The land around and within the Port itself has long been the site of active oil and gas pumps. Marathon Petroleum Co. first opened its refinery in Wilmington in 1915, with Phillips 66 following soon after in 1917. Today, there are sixty-eight named oil fields within the Los Angeles Basin, and three out of seventeen of California’s oil refineries are located within the South Bay. Large portions of port land are the sites of current or former oil infrastructures. This site, 22nd St Park, was once an oil tank facility for Unocal until it was disassembled in 1989. While this economy has brought wealth and jobs into the area, it has also been the source of poor local air quality and numerous spills, explosions, and other environmental disasters. This pile is constructed from mulch and compost from the LA Sanitation Harbor Yard Trimmings Facility, drought tolerant plantings, and non-toxic glue. Together, these materials represent both the disruption and pollution of earth from oil drilling as well as the potential for future phytoremediation and land reclamation efforts in the area. As the city of Los Angeles and the state of California transition away from fracking and petroleum-based transportation, the Port’s infrastructure, energy sources, and shipping routes will need to shift. The Port of Los Angeles, with its commitment to clean air and expansion of blue economies, will continue to play a role in this oil story: either by ceasing oil activities entirely, or inventing new, cleaner, and safer petrol economies.

The Port of Los Angeles is the busiest seaport in the United States and the Western Hemisphere. Combined with the Port of Long Beach, the San Pedro Bay Port Complex employs over 2.5 million people throughout the nation, serving as the primary import and export hub for furniture, auto parts, plastics, fabrics, recycled metals, and more. In 1899 the federal government recognized the potential of San Pedro as a major port and began construction on the breakwater to protect the harbor, greatly improving the port’s ability to control wave action and handle larger ships. In 1912, the Southern Pacific Railroad company constructed San Pedro’s first wharf. As the Port began investing more in container shipping in the 1940s, the waterfront expanded considerably, constructing facilities, docks, piers, and warehouses to accommodate the increasing shipping traffic. The Port’s robust maritime history is embodied in this pile by recycled concrete rubble from a local construction and demolition site. This is a literal representation of the prolific land making, backfilling, and hard infrastructural changes that fueled industrialized port activities. As the Port of Los Angeles remains a major player in global trade and shipping, it will have opportunities to set precedent for global ports, investigating green economies and safer, more climate friendly shipping practices.

Situated on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, San Pedro’s landforms are shaped by extreme geologic and topographic conditions. Marked by its proximity to the ocean, the area’s scenic features include rugged coastlines with steep bluffs, rocky shores, and picturesque coves, all shaped and eroded by ocean waves. Sitting within the mouth of the LA River, the land of the Port was once a vast array of mudflats and sediment collection. This low-lying land and abundant sea life welcomed early settlers into the sea, and were the foundation for the area’s fishing industry. With the Palos Verdes and Cabrillo fault lines bordering the East and West of the community, San Pedro is prone to seismic activity. Coastal hills built upon shale and siltstones are prone to landslides due to their steep slopes and geological composition. The Port itself has changed the geology and topography of the area by filling and expanding land, constructing the breakwater, and regularly dredging deep channels to maintain shipping access. This pile, constructed from fine gravel, embodies the area’s precarious and complex geology. The aggregate’s loose structure allows it to shift easily with wind or disturbances, mimicking the coastal erosion, and precarious seismic conditions throughout the site. As the pile erodes, a concrete core will be revealed, representing the Port’s influence on the site’s topography. In the future, San Pedro and much of Southern California will continue to live with the threat of earthquakes and landslides, while the Port will battle poor water quality due to reduced tidal flow and sediment build up. The waterfront will continue to develop alongside these conditions, deciding to build against or adapt with the shifting landscape.

Extreme heat, periods of drought, extreme and frequent storms, and sea level rise all threaten Port activities and the low-lying coastal communities of San Pedro. With decreasing tree cover and a multitude of oil refineries and petroleum-based port activities, San Pedro has some of the highest heat in Los Angeles and, together with the Port of Long Beach, remains Southern California’s largest single source of pollution. The waterfront will need to adapt in the future, retrofitting infrastructures and investing in more resilient systems that allow continued coexistence between nature and people along the shoreline. Future adaptation strategies may include beach nourishment projects, protection and expansion of marsh areas, urban forest expansion, and retrofitting rip rap and breakwater areas to create more conducive habitats for marine wildlife. This pile, constructed from oyster shells collected from local fish markets, concrete rubble and a gabion mesh, represents one of these possible interventions. Gabion baskets filled with seeded recycled oyster shells and rubble have become an increasingly popular structure to modify breakwaters and dissipate wave energy along coastal areas, reducing flooding and erosion. These “living breakwaters” create habitat for a myriad of sea life, improve water quality through water filtration by oysters, act as a physical barrier that reduces flooding, and create education, recreation, and research opportunities for the area. This type of intervention embodies the future of the Port: ecologically-minded, socially-resilient climate infrastructures that bring people and nature together.

The West Coast tuna industry was born in San Pedro. The abundant marine life, including a multitude of fish species such as sardines, mackerel, tuna, and halibut, attracted fishermen to the area. Strong communities of Japanese, Croatian, and Italian immigrants were at the heart of the booming fishing industry. As San Pedro became a center for the canning industry, several canneries were established along the waterfront and in Terminal Island. The multi-million-dollar industry played a significant role in the local economy and provided employment opportunities. Beginning in the 1940s, a shift toward container shipping in the port decreased fishing infrastructures. By the 1960s longshoreman jobs had completely overtaken the fishing industry, while Terminal Island was redeveloped to support container shipping following the forced removal of over 3,000 Japanese Immigrants who were incarcerated during World War II. Concurrently, changes in fishing regulations, overfishing, and shifts in consumer preferences led to a decrease in fish stocks, and the fishing industry in San Pedro declined rapidly, with major canneries closing throughout the 1970 and 1980s. Today, while the commercial fishing industry in San Pedro has diminished, fishing remains a significant part of the region’s culture and economy. Sportfishing, recreational fishing, and the presence of seafood markets continue to contribute to the fishing heritage of San Pedro, connecting residents and visitors to the area’s maritime roots. This pile is constructed of recycled fishing nets donated by local Port fisherman, showcasing the area’s still active, albeit reduced, fishing community. As climate change and regulations continue to develop, the fishing culture of the waterfront will continue to shift, potentially embracing new forms of aquaculture (oysters, kelp, etc.) or the implementation of new fishing practices and more sustainable species capture.