Wednesday, 26 April 2006 | Levent OZLER

Small Lots, Smart Designs Winner Will Be Used

to Build Needed Affordable Housing in Los Angeles

USC & Cal Poly Pomona Architecture Students, California Professionals Produced Innovative, Green Designs for Enterprise, L.A. Planning Dept. Competition That Could Be Built on Thousands of Available Small Lots Citywide

The best of the innovative designs created by professional and student architects for the Small Lots, Smart Designs competition will be built in Los Angeles to help fuel the re- development of thousands of vacant and underutilized lots into affordable, green homes in the City of Los Angeles, including the San Fernando Valley. The winners of the design competition - a partnership between the L.A. City Planning Department and Enterprise Community Partners - include students from USC and Cal Poly Pomona as well as professional architects in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The competition's 1st Place winner - Solar Forest - belongs to Kevin Skiles of Urban Building Workshop in San Francisco. This will mark their first LA project. Design team member Marguerite Lonergan, who characterizes their design style as "new urbanist," noted that they learned of the competition through Architects & Designers for Social Responsibility. Previous projects include affordable, non-profit-affiliated townhomes and entry-level houses in the North Bay/Santa Rosa area.

The winning design will be built on a small lot as an example of what can be built for any developers interested in building affordable, green homes on available small lots. Since they will have a design that already meets city standards, developers will be able to keep costs lower and pass that savings on to potential homeowners.

"Small Lots, Smart Designs coincides with record-breaking area home prices and a renewed interest in creative alternatives to the traditional suburban single-family home. It has the potential to turn many renters into homeowners through fresh, innovative, and cost-effective means in the coming years," said Bill Jones, who runs Enterprise Community Partners' affordable homeownership program in Los Angeles. "The professional designs were progressive and the student designs were equally refreshing. In fact, our judges named the three top student designs in co-1st place."

Included in the student category winners is third-year Cal Poly Pomona School of Environmental Design student Sergio Marquez, a San Bernardino native who comfortably takes on minimalism while taking advantage of pre-fab materials that proved cost effective, allowing him to use higher grade residential materials in his design Seamless Housing. Marquez's university advisor was Axel Schmitzz Berger.

At USC, senior-year School of Architecture students Shinju Shimizu and Jun Tanaka set out to capture elements common to the urban landscape in their native Japan in their design The Cube. "We wanted to improve urban quality of life standards and create exciting outdoor spaces by removing the traditional courtyard and replacing it with private outdoor spaces on the homes' second level," noted Tanaka. Also from USC, Jesse Ottinger and Dinh Huynh, submitted Urban Living, for which Sara Loe advised.

Judging criteria in the student and professional categories included innovative physical design, potential for replicability, responsiveness to neighborhood context, and environmental sensitivity. Entrants were given an actual lot in South L.A., on which they designed single-family workforce housing. Enterprise will break ground on the 1st place professional design later this year.

Small Lots, Smart Designs was born out of the L.A. Planning Department's Small Lot Ordinance (#176354) that now allows for the transformation into affordable housing of 1,650 vacant land parcels and 850 substandard multi- family buildings throughout the City of LA, including the San Fernando Valley, and a large number of vacant or under-utilized lots in commercial corridors of Central Los Angeles. The local architects and design firm winners are:

Mayor's Choice Award - City Hood
Fung + Blatt Architects, Los Angeles
The Highland Park boutique design firm specializing in multi-family units in L.A. and the surrounding areas learned about the competition through a seminar on the L.A. Small Lot Ordinance. Notes firm partner Michael Blatt, "we wanted our design to be an anchor for the neighborhood and the living space to be experiential for its occupants. It is always our hope to design projects like this to improve the community."

Green Award - Slot Housing
Tierra Sol Y Mar, Inc/Meconi & Braden Design Grp, Venice
This environmentally friendly design is a collaboration between Tierra Sol Y Mar's Ian McIlvaine & Victoria Yust and Alex Meconi & Michael Braden. Notes Yust, whose other residential projects include a Venice four-unit residential dwelling and a 2nd Street Santa Monica commercial building, "we tried to create as much private outdoor space where children can play safely." She credits Michael Braden for the slot house design.

Honorable Mention (1st Place Runner-up) - Densification
David Balian, Los Angeles
USC Architecture school grad Balian has 10 residential remodels to his credit plus high-rise builds in Los Angeles and San Diego. "My objective was to create space where you are able to differentiate your house from another and maintain a good indoor-outdoor feel for the homeowner."

Entries were screened by the Ad Hoc committee which included Jane Blumenfeld, Citywide Planning Division Manager, LA City Department of Planning; Jenna Gulager, Assistant Project Manager, LA City Community Redevelopment Agency; Bill Jones, Director, Enterprise Home Ownership Partners; Krista Kline, Housing and Economic Development, LA City Mayor's Office; Paul Dolansky, Finance Officer, Los Angeles Housing Department; Christi Van Clive, Principal, Roshen Van Cleve, Architects; and Sia Poursabahian, LA City Department of Building and Safety.

Final judging panel consisted of City Council members Eric Garcetti (District 13) and Ed Reyes (District 1); Deborah Weintraub, Assistant City Engineer and City Architect, City of Los Angeles; Richard Bruckner, Director of Planning and Development, City of Pasadena; Keith Coleman, Member, Community Redevelopment Agency CD 9 Project Community Advisory Committee; Wade Killefer, Principal, Killefer, Flamming Architects; Sandra Kulli, Urban Land Institute; Allyne Winderman, Director of Housing and Redevelopment Department, City of West Hollywood; and Steven Ehrlich, Principal, Steven Ehrlich Architects.

Winning and select finalist renderings will be on display at the City Hall ceremony, at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 24. In October, all 54 contest submissions received for Small Lots, Smart Designs will be displayed at the 2006 Enterprise Network Conference to be held at the Renaissance Hollywood. Design renderings also will appear in a forthcoming brochure produced by Enterprise in Los Angeles. For information on the brochure, please contact Annette Orozco at 213.833.0053.

Enterprise Community Partners is a leading provider of the development capital and expertise it takes to create decent, affordable homes and rebuild communities. For more than two decades, Enterprise has pioneered neighborhood solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and others that share our vision. Enterprise has raised and invested $7 billion in equity, grants and loans and is currently investing in communities at a rate of $1 billion a year. Visit http://www.enterprisecommunity.org to learn more about Enterprise's efforts to build communities and opportunity, and to meet some of the half a million people we have helped.