Rendering of Studio One Eleven's West Gateway project. Image courtesy of Studio One Eleven.

In a word, the work of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California-based Studio One Eleven focuses on cities. Throughout a range of scales running from tiny parklets to community master plans, the growing office thrives by "using design to create better outcomes for the communities we serve," according to the architects. 

The approach is one that takes shape pragmatically, as the firm is not guided by any singular project type, formal concept, or design methodology. Instead, an interdisciplinary team made up of architects, urban designers, and landscape architects works to tinker across the built environment, applying tactical design expertise wherever possible to help boost transit-oriented development, increase the supply of affordable and market-rate housing, and instill other forms of community-oriented economic development and revitalization. 

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Archinect caught up with founding principal Allan Pullman and design director Michael Bohn of Studio One Eleven to discuss the firm's evolving approach to projects, the changing nature of urban development in America, and how design expertise can help to create more livable cities.

Where and when did your Studio One Eleven start? 

Pullman: We started the studio in Downtown Long Beach, California in 2000.

How did you come up with your name and company ethos? 

Pullman: The name was our address at the time, 111 Ocean Boulevard. Our name reflected our desire to create a design firm rooted in place and local context. It also lent itself to a catchy logo.

How many people work at the company?

Pullman: Currently, we have about 40 employees, which include architects, urban designers, sustainability experts, and landscape architects.

Why did you decide to start an office?

Pullman: I started my career working in a series of architectural practices that worked nationally on commercial projects. Over time, I realized that my work was becoming more about supporting developer-driven real estate investment, and had too little to do with creating a sense of place or sustainability. I thought there was a need for a local, community-driven architectural practice keenly focused on revitalizing cities, which I saw a key to sustainability. I also wanted to contribute to places I knew and cared about. Once we launched, we found that there were clients and dedicated staff and collaborators who valued the same things.

What are other offices that you look at for guidance and why? 

Pullman: We’ve always looked at firms that have an integrated approach to architecture and “citymaking” with a focus on outcomes for people. Jan Gehl has inspired our work and process of analysis. Many non-profits inspire us in their place-making and social impact focus. There are also many firms that we follow as we try and look for innovative ways to increase housing affordability for more folks. Alejandro Aravena from Chile and Michael Maltzan in Los Angeles come to mind in that regard. 

We want to be respected for addressing city-related issues all at scales. Project sizes can range from a broad multi-block downtown vision plan to something as granular as an individual parklet in front of a restaurant. Both have significant impacts to communities.

Bohn: We admire many firms in New Zealand and Australia, as well, such as the work of Tim Hay and Jeff Feron with Feron Hay Architects. When we heard they were in Los Angeles scouting for a Southern California office, we met with them and hit it off well. We are now looking for opportunities to collaborate and complement our strengths. We also have a lot of respect for landscape architect Mia Lehrer with Studio-MLA and are currently working with them on a waterfront opportunity that we hope to win. 

What would you want your firm to be known for? 

Bohn: We want to be respected for addressing city-related issues all at scales. Project sizes can range from a broad multi-block downtown vision plan to something as granular as an individual parklet in front of a restaurant. Both have significant impacts to communities. We are currently interested in defining successful public spaces through community and contextual design, many times with limited budgets. When successful, these interventions can activate space, speak of a particular place, and become an opportunity for diverse people to be together. 

What were the first 365 days like?

Pullman: We started by working exclusively with community redevelopment agencies on small commercial storefront revitalization projects and streetscape improvements in under-invested communities. It was roll-up-your sleeves type of work where we had to be efficient to not go bankrupt. It was a fabulous training ground for our young staff, and the benefits we saw made it worthwhile. I think it continues to drive the ethos of our practice.

What were the biggest obstacles along the way? 

Pullman: The elimination of California’s Redevelopment Program and the loss of redevelopment agencies in 2011 was a challenge since it was a large part of our client base. We had to pivot at that time towards non-profits and private developers to maintain our mission. Looking back, however, I feel that we became more resilient as an organization because of that challenge. 

What are you currently working on? 

Bohn: A wide range of projects that range from affordable and market-rate housing to retail and office projects. We are pursuing alternative construction methods with our clients, including shipping containers, wood modular, and mass timber technologies. 

What other avenues of creative exploration does your office pursue?

Bohn: We are always interested in new ideas generated by students. This year we formalized an intern program for the first time. Every Friday, our interns chose to study how to create a humane homeless shelter that would also provide a community benefit in the City of Long Beach. The interns shared their work with the city's Director of Health and Human Services and the city councilperson whose district will have the shelter. The final project was packaged by the interns as a booklet to add to their portfolio. 

We also have strategic partnerships with many universities, including Orange Coast College Architectural Technologies Department, where we are exploring how FrameCAD can address the housing crisis.

Urban development must go beyond just providing profits to investors but also contribute to making cities more livable and sustainable for all residents. For us, design is a critical component towards achieving those goals, and architects have a responsibility to think holistically about the effects of their projects.

What are the benefits of having your own practice? 

Pullman: The ability to create a long-term strategy of what to work on, and where that will take us as a group is what the leaders most enjoy. Not every initiative or project succeeds, but we feel that we grow and learn from them all.

What is the main thesis of your office and has it changed over time?

Pullman: Urban development must go beyond just providing profits to investors but also contribute to making cities more livable and sustainable for all residents. For us, design is a critical component towards achieving those goals, and architects have a responsibility to think holistically about the effects of their projects.

That thesis has not changed from the beginning, although our practice themes do evolve. Right now, we are focusing in on affordability and equity, urban mobility, reviving the public realm, and creating a sense of place in transforming urban contexts.

Where do you see the office in 5 years? In 10 Years? 

Bohn: Since its inception, our passion for cities has never been more relevant. With 2.5 billion more people of the world’s population projected to move to cities by 2050, our work has never has been critical.  We want to continue to deepen our understanding of how cities work and thrive. We have developed strategic partnerships with many related consultants, such as transportation, parking, and economic analysis firms. We are now interested in developing partnerships with foundations such as Knight Cities and Bloomberg as well as other think tanks.

How do you look for talent for your office?

Bohn: The most successful approach for us is word of mouth through publicity and our staff.  

What is the normal working process for your office and in what mediums do you work? 

Pullman: An essential process for us comes at the beginning–which involves deciding which project opportunities to pursue. We have robust conversations amongst the leaders around what a project contributes to our mission, our staff development, and our business. Once we take on a project, there is a process of analysis and goal-setting. Our urban design team employs a lot of research methodology into projects, and we use them as a part of almost all of our architectural and landscape work. Our design tools include digital drawing tools and model making, and we have been investing lately in our fabrication shop, which is a re-used shipping container located in our back patio. We also have staff that enjoys handmade model making as well as a means of quickly exploring form.

An essential process for us comes at the beginning–which involves deciding which project opportunities to pursue. We have robust conversations amongst the leaders around what a project contributes to our mission, our staff development, and our business. Once we take on a project, there is a process of analysis and goal-setting.

Studio One Eleven’s work seems to be guided by an outcomes-based approach, as opposed to an aesthetic or formal one, how does that mindset affect the way your team faces each project?

Bohn: Our work is influenced by making cities better. This focus requires us to have a deep understanding of the context and to address community concerns. For instance, a particular community we were working in was not interested in having an affordable housing project. When we learned there was a severe lack of parking and traffic moving too fast along their street, we proposed diagonal parking with round-abouts to increase parking and calm traffic speeds. These improvements would be paid for by the developer, and resulted in quickly gaining neighborhood support. Data and metrics of how our developments perform over time also contribute to our work. Understanding how past projects succeed and struggle is a critical way to inform our current work. 

The “urban acupuncture” approach your office takes in The Bloc repositioning represents an interesting approach for retrofitting an existing tower-and-podium complex, can you share some of the goals of the project and how you achieved them?

Pullman: Constructed in the early 1970s—a period of severe decline of American downtowns at the hands of the suburbs—The Bloc, originally named Broadway Plaza, represents a planning strategy that sought to regenerate the city center by inserting a suburban mall model into downtown. Despite also including an office and hotel tower, Broadway Plaza never revitalized its surrounding context and fell into decline for decades. For us, the challenge for the project was how to reposition this hulking, inward-facing project to connect to the surrounding city and avoid just updating one suburban typology with another. 

Our approach avoided a controlling “master plan” because we realized that so much of the project success rested with tenants that would evolve. With our client NREA and The Ratkovich Company, we set about a series of straight forward interventions – removing the roof to make the open space an urban plaza rather than an enclosed mall, directly connecting to the subway station, removing gates, and punching openings and passages in the exterior wherever we could. The idea emerged to create a framework for urban life to activate what was formerly a closed system. It’s an organic approach that takes time, but we see the progress over the last year and feel like something special is developing, as we envisioned.

What are some of the new and/or under-explored ideas in commercial / retail design that your team is exploring? 

Bohn: We are exploring the use of shipping containers organized to create communal space in areas considered food deserts. We have had tremendous success in both the cities of Santa Ana and Bellflower with others opening soon in Garden Grove, Anaheim and Bell. Many of these are serving as anchors to revitalize traditional main streets.