Arch Tour Fest 2:15PM: Gramercy Place Apartments

Photo Credit: Joshua White

Arch Tour Fest: Gramercy Place Apartments | 2:15PM

This is an in-person tour. Attendees will be required to show proof of vaccination. Please read and check the agreement and safety boxes in the registration. Additional information regarding the tour and check-in process will be emailed directed to registrants 24 hours before the event. Tickets are non-transferable.

View the list of all Arch Tour Fest LA tours

Arch Tour Fest is presented by LG | Business Solutions

CES Learning Units: 1 LU

One of the first developments to utilize city-sponsored Supportive Housing (Prop HHH) funds, this project provides much-needed housing options to low-income and homeless seniors in one of America’s most expensive housing markets.

Constructed on a block-length lot formerly owned by the City of LA and used as a towing yard, the 70,000SF mixed-use, high-density project includes 64 new apartments for senior (55+) residents making less than 50% of the area’s median income levels (with half designated for those who were formerly homeless), a commercial café, community spaces, and public plaza on the entry level.

Extensive public outreach informed the development process. The project is designed as six discrete buildings, reflecting the scale of the surrounding single-family residences. Constructed in a narrow lot bordered by busy Washington Boulevard on the west and craftsman homes to the east, the complex will appear as a linear array of six separate structures connected by an exterior walkway system finished with an organic, loose trellis intentionally contrasted with the rationalized blocks with projecting window hoods to protect from southern exposure.

Architects: Kevin Daly Architects, Labib Funk + Associates
Landscape Architect: Plac-e Landscape
General Contractor: Walton Construction
Civil Engineer: KPFF Civil

Tour Led By:

Kevin Daly, FAIA, Principal, Kevin Daly Architects

Kevin Daly is the founder of Kevin Daly Architects. For over twenty years he has pursued an architecture that delves into the paradoxes of the urban condition and the consequences of intervention. Projects by Kevin Daly express his belief in an architecture that is performative on every level: environmentally, structurally, economically, and aesthetically. Bolstered by abundant research, he has demonstrated the benefits of advanced, unconventional building technology in works that are consistently recognized in publications and awards, and range from public schools, custom residences, and university buildings to affordable housing. He is on the design faculty at UCLA and has served on juries or lectured at institutions internationally, including Stanford University, Cornell University, Rice University, SCI arc, the Architectural League of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, and RISD.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will learn how the project developed to allow the option of a variety of modular solutions as a series of nearly identical blocks. One of the challenges of affordable housing is producing a high level of repeatability for economical construction while avoiding monolithic projects that fill the site.
2. Participants will learn how the project site is typical of infill boulevard conditions of much of Los Angeles: frontage on a noisy transit arterial on one side, and small scale residential on the other. The site plan uses the massing of the buildings to create privacy and shield the units from the noise of the street.
4. Participants will learn how the massing the building into a series of elements contributes to simpler, clearer wayfinding, important for an elderly demographic.
5. Participants will learn about openness vs security: by directing the common circulation to the interior, greater opportunities for open doors and windows is provided, encouraging social interaction between residents
6. Participants will learn about “single-loaded” circulation facilitates narrower units, allowing more units on the limited façade surface available.