Case Study: Chandler Boulevard Tiny Home Village

Case Study: Chandler Boulevard Tiny Home Village

This is a virtual event. Zoom log-in information will be emailed to registrants 24 hours in advance from events@aialosangeles.org. If you do not receive a confirmation 24 hours prior to the event, please email events@aialosangeles.org.

CES Learning Units: 1 LU

Project Credits
Architect: Lehrer Architects LA, Inc
Builder: Ford Construction
MEP Engineer: S&K Engineers
Civil Engineer: Barbara Hall & Associates, PE
Aerial photography and video: Sky Ladder Drones Los Angeles, Steven Katz

Lehrer Architects LA believes that above and beyond transitional shelter, creating HOME for someone/anyone/everyone is an act of love that provides the requisite dignity, respect, safety, autonomy, and sense of agency for the guests/residents, staff and communities-at-large.

As part of a many-pronged City effort to remediate and alleviate homelessness, Chandler Boulevard Bridge Home Village is a design and delivery model that has captured the public imagination, enhancing and completing community by honoring its most vulnerable residents through design.
Chandler Boulevard Bridge Home Village represents a lightning-quick, highly collaborative, inventive, effective and efficient solution that contributes to ending the crisis of homelessness in Los Angeles.

Using prefabricated “Pallet Shelters”, Lehrer Architects was tasked by the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering to take their design blueprint and create a humane and welcoming environment for the homes’ residents. Design matters always, but never more than in projects like this; its uplifts residents by respectfully and joyfully completing and enhancing their neighborhoods. They do, and must, inspire pride in their local community.

Working in conjunction with multiple city agencies led directly by the Bureau of Engineering, Department of Public Works, and Ford Construction, Lehrer Architects LA designed a plan of spatial character, colorful details, and logistical efficiency to create a model community space with a level of design sensibility and beauty not often seen in these types of projects.

Designed and built in record time, just 13 weeks, this project is one of the centerpieces of the City’s emergency response to getting people into safe and healthy “bridge” shelter en route to permanent housing.

As part of Lehrer Architects’ presentation Partner-In-Charge, Nerin Kadribegovic AIA IIDA, and Founding Partner Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, will discuss the firm’s response to the challenge and project delivery.

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Thursday, 5/27 CASE STUDY: PICO BRANCH LIBRARY AND VIRGINIA AVENUE PARK

Friday, 6/11 CASE STUDY: SIDECAR DOUGHNUTS

Friday, 6/18 CASE STUDY: LIBERATION COFFEE

Presenters:

Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA – Founding Partner, LehrerArchitects LA
Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA founded LehrerArchitects LA in his native Silverlake District of Los Angeles. The work–from the intimate to the monumental–is grounded in the idea that beauty is a rudiment of human dignity. He designs for the community with a reverence for light and space. Delight is a matter of extreme gravitas in the work. The work is to elevate every day and celebrate the community.

In 2020, The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles bestowed the Gold Medal, its “highest honor” on Michael. “His devotion to fellow humans is matched by his mastery of craft,” stated 2020 AIALA President Greg Verabian, AIA. “He is an architect fully engaged in architecture as a means to contribute to society as a whole.”

Michael’s work has been widely published nationally and internationally and he is regularly called upon to comment about design matters in national and local broadcast media, print, panels, and symposia to explain the public interest from the architect’s perspective. T Michael has lectured on his work at Stanford, Berkeley, Palm Spring’s Modernism Week, University of Michigan, Woodbury University, the Dallas Architecture Forum, Dwell on Design, Governing Magazine/AARP, among many others.

Michael is Chairman Emeritus of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Alumni Council where he created a leadership manifesto, The Engagement Parti, which is now a centerpiece of GSD’s 14,000-member, multi-generational lifelong community. He has served as the GSD-appointed Director on the Harvard Alumni Association Board and is Past President of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, a Board on which he stills serves. He was Vice Chairman of School Construction Bond Oversight Committee for over 5 years, overseeing a now $27 Billion repair and construction program for the LA Unified School District. He served on the Hollywood Planning and Design Review Board for over 25 years.

He was President of the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles in 1999 and founded their annual, ongoing Legislative Day that year which has fundamentally changed the nature of the profession in LA and is in its 20th year. He initiated the AIA/LA push to make GREAT STREETS a central initiative in our city.

Nerin Kadribegovic, AIA – Partner, LehrerArchitects LA
A third-generation architect passionate about resolving complex design problems, especially where the economy is of paramount importance; he finds beauty in the rigor and discipline of dissolving obstacles; his forté is navigating extremely restrictive challenges with heightened creative thinking, strategic logic, and aesthetic to discover unconventional design solutions. He is obsessed with artfully directing natural light through the built space to create nuanced unexpected experiences.

As a partner, Nerin plays a strategic design and business leadership role. Informed by a multi-cultural background coupled with extensive global travel, in overseeing major projects he contributes unique perspectives on contemporary design agendas and social issues impacting today’s architectural process. Enduring displacement as a refugee of the war in Bosnia, his experience evokes deep empathic connection to homelessness and critical issues facing our city.

Nerin served as lead architect on the award-winning ‘Restore Neighborhoods Los Angeles design project. Featured on the cover of Dwell Magazine in 2020, the project is a key social impact design endeavor reflecting Lehrer Architect’s signature core values: strength, utility/economy, and ‘beauty as a rudiment of human dignity.

He is a founding member of the Research and Design (RaD) Studio at Lehrer Architects, where architects and designers test and prototype cutting-edge materials and ideas. An environmentalist deeply concerned for future generations, Nerin champions repurposing spaces to reuse and refurbish, wherever possible, rather than create new structures that require greater use of natural resources. Nerin collaborated closely with Michael on design and construction plans for Lehrer Architects Silverlake Studio, which materialized into an incredibly creative office space that set a distinctive, innovative tone.

Nerin brings substantive knowledge and agility to all phases of projects ranging from single and multi-family residential to commercial and institutional; from master-planning and schematic design through design development and construction documents. Prior to becoming a Lead Architect and Partner, he previously has served as Project Designer, Construction Manager, Associate Director, and Principal at the firm.

Learning Objectives:

+ Deepen an understanding of design and delivery methods used for getting projects built with extreme speed, fulfillment of design goals, and learning/implementing lessons during and after the project is completed
+ Learn about clarity of mission and strategies for achieving it
+ Navigate delivering a successful pilot/beta project with many unknowns (and their consequences)
+ Getting the community on board and strategies for changing the culture of the city