The project of housing has always been confronted by two primary concerns: the acquisition of substantial precincts of property in order to fulfill larger planning aspirations, and the need to forge place (difference) within the repetition of units that characterize those plans. In a proposal for a project for housing in Los Angeles, Livable Places Incorporated (LPI), a non-profit affordable housing corporation, presented us with an opportunity to address both concerns within a renewed spirit of innovation and the desire for community. Upon examination of the problem we were immediately faced with a dilemma: how to make architecture within a constrained budget, under such extreme conditions, and in response to a complex and widely varied spectrum of owner profiles. Like evolutionary cycles, how might we engineer complexity over time while maintaining coherence? We began with a set of scenarios that suggested the incorporation of extremes, producing a broad bandwidth of housing and lifestyle types.
Diverse(city) The entire site is broken down into three primary parcels. In response to the edge condition, one and two story courtyard types are located along Avalon Boulevard to the west. The interior core of the site is occupied by three story vertical loft-tower types, more loosely organized within an intensely green landscape puncuated by collective pools. The eastern, rear portion of the site features one and two story ‘strand’ types. Each of these three primary types have the potential to be live-work units. A secondary overlay of rental units and co-housing areas is intended to offer a greater degree of tactical planning options within the primary strategic ordering and contributes to the diversity of living modes on the site.
