Archinect - News

Kadre and Lehrer Architects team up for a new transitional housing community in Los Angeles

2024-01-04T12:50:00-05:00

A new supportive housing concept in Los Angeles has been introduced by LA-based practices Kadre Architects and Lehrer Architects. The design teams shared it can become a new model for design resourcefulness and occupants’ dignity at a time when the city, as do many others in America, faces a desperate need.

The new 95-unit Cypress Park New Beginnings Community was inaugurated in early December after first breaking ground in May of 2022. The new housing scheme aimed to serve “displaced populations and environmental and/or socio-economic crises.”

Image courtesy of Kadre Architects.

Their brief called for the construction of 350-square-foot micro-housing units on a disused plot between the Arroyo and Golden State Parkways. Site conditions for the 35,000-square-foot development were extremely challenging in an echo of Lehrer’s previous work on the Tiny Homes Villages in different parts of Los Angeles.

Image courtesy Kadre Architects.

Faced with this challenge, the design team responded ...

The debate around tiny homes for the homeless has inserted itself into L.A.’s mayoral race in a big way

2022-03-28T20:19:00-04:00

At a time when permanent supportive housing takes years to build and the average cost per unit has climbed to nearly $600,000, the cost of these tiny homes came to about $68,000 each, or roughly $35,000 per bed, according to De León’s office. In his speeches, De León likes to ask, “in what parallel universe” is it better to leave people on the street than move them into various forms of temporary housing while awaiting more permanent housing?

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez visited the second-newest in a string of tiny home developments opened in November in a space that had previously been sparsely used as a parking lot for the Eagle Rock Recreation Center and co-owned and operated by the city, county, and utilities giant SoCal Edison. At 224 beds, it is reported to be the largest of its kind anywhere in the United States and was proceeded by four similar Lehrer-designed projects across northern Los Angeles, all of which are run by a local charity called Hope in the Valley.

A frequent criticism lobbed at the mayoral frontrunner Kevin de León echoes a debate within the architectural community as to whether or not such a confined (each cabin is only 64 square feet) and, in the case of the Arroyo Seco Tiny Homes, shared space truly aligns with a humane vision of housing justice championed by de León an...

Los Angeles is turning to Lehrer Architects' Tiny Homes in its fight to construct transitional housing

2021-11-02T18:06:00-04:00

With expediency in mind, Los Angeles is looking to adopt a successful blueprint to solve the growing number of large homeless encampments that have been cropping up in the city since the beginning of the pandemic last spring.

Silverlake-based Lehrer Architects is expanding on its award-winning design for transitional housing thanks to another commission from the city’s Bureau of Engineering — now the firm's fourth collaboration.

Image courtesy Lehrer Architects

Lehrer’s Chandler Tiny Homes Village in North Hollywood won an AIALA Design Award this year with a village that became a beta design for the agency. Its polychromatic format has been repeated in a new development called Whitsett West.

Image courtesy Lehrer Architects

Los Angeles is facing rising numbers of homelessness in a year that saw citywide efforts to rehouse a record number of people. The city currently is looking to build no less than 255,000 units of affordable housing by the year 2029 and may look to bridge the serv...

Lehrer Architects converts vacant lot into colorful tiny home village for the homeless in North Hollywood

2021-02-11T11:56:00-05:00

The Chandler Boulevard Bridge Home Village, designed by Lehrer Architects and the Bureau of Engineering (Engineering) for the City of Los Angeles, has recently opened to its first residents in North Hollywood. Working in collaboration with various city agencies, Lehrer Architects converted an abandoned and overlooked infill lot into a colorful Tiny Home village of 40 individual shelters.

Built in a mere 13 weeks, the new project serves as a beta for the City, and provides an efficient provision of "bridge" shelter for people on their way to permanent housing.

"...the Bureau of Engineering was able to use our extensive experience to make the new, tiny home concept a reality," said Gary Lee Moore, City Engineer and General Manger of the Bureau of Engineering. "We were able to overcome numerous challenges in this first-of-its-kind facility, coordinate with numerous other departments and deliver the facility in record time. We are extremely proud of our work on the Chandler Tiny Home Vi...

Lehrer Architects-designed Aetna St. Bridge Home opens in Los Angeles

2020-08-13T12:56:00-04:00

Lehrer Architects' latest project, the Aetna Bridge Home was opened this week by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as part of the city's A Bridge Home initiative. The design team converted an under-utilized quarter-acre parking lot into a vibrant 70+ bed facility for homeless Angelenos. With a tight timeline, the complex was designed in a mere three weeks and built in only four months.

"For us, projects like this are exhilarating," said Michael Lehrer, FAIA, Founding Partner of Lehrer Architects in a statement. "Political, time, and cost constraints were severe—demanding extreme design discipline and chops. Our focus was to honor, nurture, and restore a modicum of wholeness and delight to our fellow our citizens without homes."

Lehrer and the team worked closely with multiple city agencies led by the Bureau of Engineering and the Department of Public Works. One of the most intense constraints for the project was the mandated use of pre-fabricated trailers, a stipulation that forced th...