It’s surreal that, in central Los Angeles, natural asphalt pits have been oozing and bubbling since the Ice Age—and fossils of mammoths, sabretooth cats, and extinct plants and insects from the past 50,000 years are still being found, trapped, in these sticky ponds. An extraordinary phenomenon, the La Brea Tar Pits lie in a public park, with a paleontological museum dedicated to this active excavation site—yet you could pass it all without even noticing (except for the whiff of petroleum and a few fiberglass mammoths in the shadowy depths). But that may change. As the neighborhood evolves—with Los Angeles County Museum of Art, next door, poised to build its new, Peter Zumthor-designed home, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures preparing to open nearby in a Renzo Piano–adapted Art Deco relic—a major initiative is underway to realize the Tar Pits’ potential for visitor and community engagement. On August 26, the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHM), which oversees the site, hosted a public event, unveiling three conceptual master plans that would transform the Tar Pits’ existing George C. Page Museum and 12 acres of the surrounding Hancock Park.

The contending firms—Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Weiss/Manfredi, and Dorte Mandrup—were chosen from a list of 85, then whittled down to 13 that later responded to an RFI. In June, the competition hosted an ‘ideas incubator,” a gathering of some 70 experts—ranging from paleobotanists to exhibition specialists—with the three finalist teams.