Low Rise Housing

This project was named a Citation winner in the 69th Annual Progressive Architecture Awards, and was featured in the March 2022 issue of ARCHITECT.

“I thought the scale and the composition were quite well done and that indoor-outdoor space-making was quite well done.”— Juror Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA

In Los Angeles’ ongoing battle against rising housing costs, the city’s own Kevin Daly Architects has furnished policymakers and fellow designers with a potent new weapon. The firm’s Low Rise Housing concept attempts to fill what has long been a glaring gap in LA’s approach to the housing problem: Despite planners’ persistent efforts to encourage higher-density residential development, the endemic low-density character of the local urban fabric has stymied reformers, throwing up logistical and political obstacles.

Confronting this predicament head-on, Daly and his team devised a cost-effective, easy-to-build housing typology that uses the existing low-rise scale of the city while maximizing the potential units per area—all while activating the ground plane for the purposes of social interaction and ecological conservation. Imagined as a series of semi-detached two- and three-story mini-towers, the Low Rise Housing scheme creates infill blocks that can slip almost unnoticed into any conventional single-family neighborhood, subtly transforming it into a pedestrian-friendly cityscape with outdoor areas enlivened by plantings and pathways. Deploying simple, off-the-shelf materials, the structures themselves make the most of the Southern California climate, boasting floor-level arbors and upper-story balconies to provide optimal comfort with minimal energy consumption.

PROJECT CREDITS
Project: Low Rise Housing, Los Angeles
Client/Owner: Jay De Natale
Architects: Kevin Daly Architects. Kevin Daly, Principal, FAIA; Courtney Gibbs, Project Manager; Jeff Rauch, Project; Architect; Connor Verteramo, Project Designer; Ciro Dimson, Project Designer
Size: 1,100 square feet
Cost: $350,000