L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has called for building 100,000 additional housing units in the city. There are close to 500,000 backyards in Los Angeles, and cityLAB has found that around 100,000 of those backyards are large enough and flat enough to easily host a small backyard home. The low-cost, low-impact Bi(H)ome could serve as housing for an elderly parent, a returning college graduate, or a rental unit. It is designed to be easy to install, requiring no sewer hookup and just a hose for water supply, and easy to remove. It is almost entirely recyclable. And rather than requiring a mortgage, it could be leased, like a car, so it does not need to be permanent, but can flexibly serve the needs of homeowners for as long as they want, and then be removed. The environmental impact of the structure over its entire life cycle is between 10 and 100 times less than a conventional auxiliary dwelling. The 500-square foot backyard home contains a bedroom, living room, kitchen and dining room, and bathroom. The floor is mounted on a temporary low rock wall and posts that can be screwed into the ground, so it doesn’t require a foundation. 

As one of two core members of the structural frame design team, I facilitated various details about the conceptualization, fabrication, and construction of the BI(h)OME skeleton including: cutting, bending, drilling, fastening Steel EMT members, designing base angle and drag strut details and developing framing hierarchies.