Following last week’s visit to New York City-based Field Operations, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series to Los Angeles this week, where we meet Office Of. 

Founded in 2021, the non-profit works nationally with a focus on supporting the Los Angeles region with public realm improvement projects, storefront remodels, and affordable housing projects. The team of six holds backgrounds in planning, policy, advocacy, architecture, and design, which in their words, "allows us to flexibly and thoughtfully collaborate with our partners (and each other) on projects, programs, and initiatives."

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring for an Operations Associate. For candidates interested in applying for a position, or anybody interested in learning more about life at an architecture studio, we spoke with the Office Of: team and its founder Elizabeth Timme for a behind-the-scenes look at the firm.

How did Office Of: get started?

Office Of: Office is a minority and women-led urban planning and architecture organization that designs policies, projects, and programs for equitable city growth. A bit of context on our organization's history, in 2012 Elizabeth Timme founded LA Más as an urban design non-profit organization. The mission of our organization was to design and build initiatives that promote neighborhood resilience and elevate the agency of working class communities of color. Over the span of nearly 10 years we led numerous programs - most notably the Backyard Homes project, a Section 8 Affordable ADU Program. 

In 2020, and with the beginning of the pandemic, the organization began to focus on mutual aid efforts. Putting a pause on expanding our Section 8 ADU program, we completed the Backyard Homes in the process (overseeing everything from permitting and construction to tenant matching during quarantine) and switched to delivering food and cash assistance to over 300 families. 

As the organization became increasingly community-led, LA Más was restructured (2021) into two separate organizations - Office Of: Office & NELA LA Más. NELA LA Más has gone on to work on community organizing specifically in the geographic boundary of Northeast LA. Office Of: Office is working on supporting local housing initiatives and cities throughout the nation to build affordable housing programs, rewrite progressive housing policy, and create a housing legalization program.

How big is your team?

We are a team of six, representing the broad, cross-disciplinary approach to our work. Our team has backgrounds in planning, policy, advocacy, architecture, and design which allows us to flexibly and thoughtfully collaborate with our partners (and each other) on projects, programs, and initiatives.

Describe the area of Los Angeles your office is located in.

We work remotely but take turns co-working and visiting different parts of the city together to brainstorm and discuss anything that is very collaborative or somewhat open-ended. So far that’s meant meeting up in Glendale, Silverlake, Hollywood, and Echo Park...but we welcome changes in locale and definitely see a west-side co-working day in our future!

What is your favorite thing about working in Los Angeles?

Well, since LA is more of a geography than a city we all love very different things about having LA be our homebase. Our eastside dwellers love being near the LA River, Griffith Park, Echo Park, and numerous parts of the city where street vending and small businesses thrive. For those of us on the westside, we like having so much natural light, seeing the mountains in the background of Century City, and being a quick drive to Sawtelle and the beach.

As a virtual office that meets periodically to brainstorm and hang out, our office schedule is pretty fluid. All of us are highly self-directed and personally accountable for getting things done. So far, this flexibility has worked well for us, and we have lots of check-ins and communication throughout the day. We make sure our expectations of each other are clear (and we can also flag when someone’s expectations of themselves and their workload don’t completely make sense!)

Is your office open-plan, or subdivided?

Wow, Archinect, you really want us to be existing in the physical! If we do ever settle down with the right space, it will probably be something that supports collaboration while also allowing us to focus and take time to ourselves.

What is one book (architectural or non-architectural) that you would recommend to our audience?

There’s so many! All the books! Color of Law is a good place to start. It has come to our attention that some of us architects may not know about the history of redlining in America, this book will help you with that. Also, The City & The City is a great read for sci-fi individuals out there where two cities overlap but are not allowed to see or notice each other. Potentially a good spooky Halloween read!

If you organized an office trip to one U.S. building, which would it be?

We would counter that if we took an office trip it would be to have a discussion about a design approach to buildings. And with the annual Association for Community Design conference coming up we just might do that! Held this year in Chicago, the conference will explore the ways we are engaging and supporting the communities we serve through design. (Thus the title ‘Ways’) Also, Chicago!

Chatty is not a great word and can strike fear into the hearts of all us introverts. That being said, we are deeply collaborative, communicative, and supportive of each other. We are also silly which seems to be a core value. Whatever the sound of laughter and people murmuring in agreement ‘mhm’ is? Everyone has their own style of working and our office structure and attitude accommodate that!

Where is the most popular lunch spot in or around the office?

This may sound cheesy, but it’s true: we take turns cooking or bringing food for each other when we co-work. Many of us have different cultural backgrounds and all have different ‘one pot meals’ that are dishes we’ve grown up eating and want to share with the office!

What is the most popular design tool in the office?

Generally, our ‘design’ process is focused on collaborative processes through speaking, reading, writing, discussion, etc. This way when doing the typical ‘architecting’ of architecture we aren’t using an individualist-based approach (drawing, modeling, rendering) as the basis and first step of exploring the conceptual frameworks for projects and impact.

Granulary, what does this mean and look like? Well, we use a lot of Miro! We use this to help support our cross-disciplinary team of designers, planners, architects, capacity-builders, and fellow collaborators to communicate and unpack dense information into actionable projects. Slack is a close second, not to scare anyone but we are constantly posting updates that can be referenced after the fact and investing in being transparent and accessible in our communication with each other. Oh! And all things Google, constantly commenting back and forth on documents, for example - revising presentation slides or providing notes on meeting minutes. (and yes, rhino, illustrator, etc are great, and we use those daily as well!)

Tell us about a project you are proud of, whether completed or in progress.

We have partnered with the City of South Gate to design a Plan & Permit Program that will offer South Gate property owners design and technical assistance to obtain new building permits for ADUs along with support in legalizing unpermitted garage conversions. Participating homeowners receive reduced pre-development costs, a streamlined design and permitting process, and incentives to participate in affordable housing creation.

We are also leading an ADU Education Initiative that will engage residents with clear and accessible educational documents that explain the process of designing, permitting, and building an ADU. Our goal is to develop an ADU program that supports the needs of the majority of South Gate residents, focusing on garage conversion legalizations, as well as providing neighbors with funding for developing ADUs as future rental housing for Section 8 tenants. To be able to implement this program we are also developing a set of ADU Designs and Prototypes that address the broad topics of incremental growth, multigenerational housing, and anti-displacement strategies.

What position(s) are you currently hiring for?

The role we are currently hiring for is for an Operations Associate - this person will help us shape the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the organization and is ideal for someone who has an affinity for design, but not probably whose primary desire in life is to be a ‘designer.’ That’s not to say design thinking and creative, emergent strategy work isn’t going to be involved!

A perk of the role is that you will gain practical experience in nonprofit systems, community development, and design. This job will provide an in-depth view of our work from cross-sector collaborations, meeting with local and national organizations in the housing justice space, and intensive practice in nonprofit management.

What project(s) are the new team members likely to be working on?

Convening community-based organizations, non-profits, and local government partners, our team is focused on developing policies, projects, and programs that foster cross-sector collaboration to address complex issues affecting communities of color in the built environment. To be somewhat non-succinct, our work invests in existing community resilience models and proposes methods for resident-led neighborhood-scale development!

Our projects range from alternative forms of affordable housing, supporting small businesses through storefront remodels, and promoting pedestrian safety through public realm improvements. We also work on policy, planning, procedure, and zoning projects for cities across the US interested in removing barriers to creating housing!

In three words, how would you sum up your firm’s ethos?

Neighborhood Scale Design

Meet Your Next Employer is one of a number of ongoing weekly series showcasing the opportunities available on our industry-leading job board. Our Job Highlights series looks at intriguing and topical employment opportunities currently available on Archinect Jobs, while our weekly roundups curate job opportunities by location, career level, and job description.