La Brea Apartment

Location: Los Angeles, California
Project Size: 19,200 sq ft
Status: Planning Approval

The project is situated in the heart of Mid-city on La Brea Avenue. A single family house is replaced by a 15 units apartment building with 2 affordable housing units. Given the new TOC ordinance, the project has been granted 60% increase in Density, and one additional story pushing the building to 56’ tall.

In order to eliminate the impact of increased building mass due to increased unit counts, with efficiency in mind, an alternating unit alignment breaks down the massing visually. The protruded individual mass broke the massiveness and created the skyline of the project. A checker-board like louver pattern is applied to the corridor side to provide the privacy to its neighboring lots.

Besides of private open spaces inside each unit, a landscaped roof garden with native plants are offered to residences in this high density community. The front façade is designed with contrasting color pallets, in orange metal panel, dark gray plaster and warm white stucco. The selection of the materials and colors skillfully eliminated the monotonicity of the façade. With sufficient onsite parking, we not only provide convenience, as well as minimize the impact of the project to the site and bring add-on value to the community.