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A nature-centric LEED Gold apartment building that engages the site's 90-year-old sycamore and animates the street in West LA.

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Hide-and-Seek Apartments

At 1946 Overland Avenue in West LA, the four-story new apartment building (June 2022) deepens a sense of place and nurtures the street with its garden loggias carved into the facade. The structure allows one to work down the hall from one's apartment or gather with others in the indoor/outdoor spaces designed for a post-Covid world. While addressing new modalities of hybrid living, the building also aims to elevate the street life. It replaces a dilapidated two story building and adds a playful dimension across from a charter school and in an area of growing density. Landscape design by VSA incorporates low-water palm trees on all levels, furthering the ecology of place. LEED Gold. Team: Valerie Schweitzer AIA (lead); Hacken Lang LI; Charles Georgie PE

Status: Built
Location: 1946 Overland Avenue
Firm Role: Architect and Landscape designer
Additional Credits: Dejban Structural Engineering; Seamus Kennedy Construction

The garden work halls are filled with low
-water dest palm trees and succulents; they allow residents to work down the hall from their units, or gather, in a post-covid age.

High performance Solarban insulated glazing protects against heat gain in the units and the steel members--loosely resembling palm tree trunks--turns orange over time like
ripening fruit.

Salvaged cedar and redwood at each garden hall.

View as one leaves one's apartment and exits toward the west.

The design fulfills the developers request to maximize heights; but it also aims to nurture the entire street in a tree-like embrace, with low-water palm trees on every floor.