Archinect - News

New Gehry-designed Children's Institute campus to officially open later this month in Watts

2022-06-09T19:15:00-04:00

The new 20,000-square-foot Children’s Institute (CII) campus in Los Angeles designed by Frank Gehry is set to open later this month. This is the non-profit’s first-ever purpose-built home in the community of Watts.

Located at Success Avenue and East 102nd Street in South Los Angeles, the $25.79 million campus functions to centralize CII’s operations in the area. It will provide space for 150 CII staff members and will house a range of therapeutic programs and free services for children and families, including toddler socialization, individual and group counseling, youth development activities, parenting workshops, workforce development/employment support, and Project Fatherhood sessions. The facility will also be home to community-based organizations Watts Gang Task Force and the LAPD Community Safety Partnership.

Children’s Institute Watts Campus, aerial view. Photo by Oltmans Construction Co. Courtesy of Children’s Institute

One of the primary goals of the project was to help stre...

Gehry breaks ground on a community resource campus in Watts

2020-01-31T13:32:00-05:00

Gehry Partners and the Children's Institute, non-profit organization that provides social services for children and families living in poverty, have broken ground on a new $20 million, 20,000-square-foot community resource complex in Los Angeles's Watts neighborhood.

Model views of the Children's Institute complex. Images courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

The building is made up of a series of low-slung, discrete rooms that surround a a pair of double-height interstitial spaces overlooked by a mezzanine. The complex will bring facilities for therapeutic programs, counseling, parenting workshops and other community facilities to the neighborhood. The complex will also house the Watts Gang Task Force, a group that "has brokered peace in the community for nearly 15 years, along with the LAPD Community Safety Partnership," while also offering "a nationally-recognized model for relationship-based policing," according to a press release for the project.

Photo from the ground-breaking cere...

House of Heroes by White Arkitekter provides space for children with long term diseases

2018-04-12T16:07:00-04:00

Hjältarnas Hus (House of Heroes) is a new facility by White Arkitekter functioning as a temporary home for families with young children suffering from long term illness. The project is a collaboration between the Sweden Västerbotten healthcare council and the organization “Hjältarnas hus”, which will run the day-to-day operations of this new facility. The firm has been involved from start to finish in creating this safe and homely haven, free from white coats and difficult treatments.

Hjältarnas Hus (House of Heroes) by White Arkitekter, located in Umeå, Sweden. Image: Åke E:son Lindman.

Five out of six geographically large hospital region of northern Swede have already had relative homes linked to the larger children's clinics. Now the final region, Norrland, will get their own equivalent located in Umeå.

Hjältarnas Hus (House of Heroes) by White Arkitekter, located in Umeå, Sweden. Image: Åke E:son Lindman.

This home away from home is located in a newly renovated building in the h...

How Frank Gehry was won over to design the Watts Children's Institute pro bono

2016-10-21T13:44:00-04:00

"We explained what the agency does and what we stand for, and he gave me a handshake right there," offering to work pro bono. [...] Of his design — a series of two-story, garden-surrounded buildings that echo the modest scale of the neighborhood, their shiny roofs the only Gehry-esque note — he says: "This building is not fancy but has all of my heart and soul in it. I worked hard to make spaces for the kids and families that would use it so that they would feel special."

Gehry's Watts involvement previously in the Archinect news:

Can a Frank Gehry design help change the dynamic of Watts?

2014-07-24T13:09:00-04:00

Gehry Partners has signed on to design a campus for the Children's Institute, Inc. (CII), a social services not-for-profit that provides youth development and education programs, as well as other family support and clinical services. For the project, the firm is collaborating with (fer) studio of Inglewood. The new campus will occupy a 2-acre lot on East 102nd Street near its intersection with Compton Avenue. It is just a half-dozen block walk to the northwest of the Watts Towers.