Brooks + Scarpa has released images of their recently-completed Rose Apartments complex, a community housing initiative for formerly homeless teenage youths transitioning into adulthood in Venice, Los Angeles.

The 20,900-square-foot, four-story design includes some 35 units of highly affordable residences for young adults who are at risk for homelessness after being separated from the state-administered system at the age of 18. 

Located nearby Venice Beach's central retail strip, the scheme takes its cues from Irving Gill’s neighboring Horatio West Court apartments and other examples of courtyard housing that predominated the city in the years prior to the Second World War.

Per the architects: “The courtyard is only one aspect of a successful design. By including affordable housing for transitional aged youths, it allowed the non-developer to take advantage of California State Assembly Bill AB763 for increased height and density, increasing the project density from an area average of 12.30/DU/A to more than 110 units/acre. This much-needed affordable housing provides poor and disadvantaged populations housing in an affluent area of town where low-wage workers are critical but unable to afford to live.”

Brooks + Scarpa made a deliberate effort to enliven its traditional cement plaster exterior using a “scalloped” facade with a sparkle grain surface finish that provides depth, texture, and a dynamic interplay between light and shadows to passersby and residents.

The new LEED Gold development joins the firm’s portfolio of Los Angeles-area housing projects, which to date includes award-winning designs for The Six, Rossmore + Weldon, 11 NOHO, along with its earlier Step Up Special Needs Housing and 430 Pico designs in Santa Monica. 

The recent AIA Gold Medal winners are also experimenting with a modular multifamily concept around Los Angeles and will look to bolster the city’s desperately-needed stock with another 323 units in the form of the proposed Flower Market redevelopment whose status has been in limbo following the results of a successful lawsuit last summer.