Grand Park N.Y.E.L.A.

For Gloria Molina Grand Park’s N.Y.E.L.A. celebration welcoming 2019, yU+co transformed Los Angeles City Hall into a monumental canvas for the city’s youngest voices. Working with Gloria Molina Grand Park and The Music Center’s Education team, fifth-grade students from five Los Angeles schools were invited to imagine the future of their city through drawings, poems, and essays. Their ideas explored everything from cleaner neighborhoods and healthier communities to housing and a more inclusive Los Angeles.

Inspired by their responses, yU+co created a large-scale 3D projection-mapped countdown that brought the students’ visions to life across City Hall, while their original artwork and writing were projected onto the County Hall of Records throughout the evening. By translating personal ideas into a shared civic experience, the project turned a New Year’s celebration into something more meaningful: an opportunity for thousands of Angelenos to see the future of Los Angeles through the imagination of the generation that will inherit it.

This collaboration was part of a much larger relationship with Gloria Molina Grand Park and The Los Angeles Music Center. For eight consecutive years, yU+co helped shape N.Y.E.L.A. through large-scale projection mapping and animated content created specifically for the architecture of Los Angeles City Hall. Each year brought a new visual concept and creative challenge, allowing us to continually reinvent the countdown experience while building a recognizable tradition for the city. What began as an ambitious public projection grew into an annual canvas for storytelling—one that celebrated Los Angeles, reflected its communities, and brought thousands of people together to welcome the new year.