A new supportive housing project in Los Angeles for developer Holos Communities completed this month by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) that will serve as a tool in the city's uphill climb on the homeless crisis has opened amidst a wave of proactive movement on the issue meant to restore the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in search of dignity and a place to call home. 

The design for Isla Intersections Supportive Housing and Paseo reused shipping containers to create 54 new units of housing integrated into the area’s transportation networks and replete with a healthy amount of greenery, greywater irrigation, and gardening amenities that establish it as a “living lung” in the middle of a heavily-trafficked neighborhood known widely for having an industrial character and the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness in the city.  

The Isla was developed on a triangular lot adjacent to the 110 and 105 freeways in South LA and resolved the rather difficult site dynamics but distributing residences within the Annenberg Paseo, resulting in 35,000 square feet of space on what used to be publically owned land used principally as a traffic median. 

The work backs up LOHA's recent win of the AIA California's 2023 Maybeck Award, which was conferred in part for their founder's repeated abilities to engender a "new expression of architecture that addresses context.”

Each unit is made by conjoining three 20-foot-by-8-foot modular containers to form a 480-square-foot unit. The units include an open plan with an ADA-compliant kitchen space for their residents. By using the containers, which were then stacked into staggered volumes, the project's construction timeline was reduced by a year. 

"Our aim was to create something that was compartmental but solid, strong enough to withstand the demands of the project’s location but porous enough to engage the residents on a human scale with outdoor activities and places to work and socialize." the firm says finally.

A look at five of LOHA's most superlative multifamily projects around Los Angeles from a recent Your Next Employer profile can also be found here.