Whether you rent or own in Los Angeles, the cost of living adds up. The median price of a home in Los Angeles has risen to $470,900 (to put into perspective, San Antonio registers a $122,500 median home value, while San Franciscan's somehow survive in a market where the average home is $656,700). Los Angeles and Orange counties are the most expensive western rental markets, with an average monthly cost of $1,546.
The term "affordable housing" in Los Angeles is a bit of a misnomer. Advocating housing availability for household incomes of $33,000 or less is both dire and mostly an ignored issue, even with the highest concentration of low-income households in the nation.
So, it comes as a welcome surprise to see the current issue of Dwell focuses on the efforts of a few modern Los Angeles architects that are attempting to bring affordable housing, at affordable costs, with innovative features to the countless of Angelenos who would normally never even consider the issue of "architecture" in their housing choices. Four current and proposed developments are highlighted: the Kanner Architects' Metro Hollywood Transit Village, Fung + Blatt Architects' CityHoodHome, Killefer Flammanh Architects' Havenhurt Apartments, Pugh + Scarpa Architects' Colorado Court, and the Koning Eizenberg Architecture designed Abbey Apartments (a housing proposal that will house 115 formerly homeless citizens of Skid Row). A good start, a good read, and an important topic worth discussion.
I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics of the Metro Hollywood Transit Village, but am glad that there will be some low-income housing in this area since many social services are readily accessible from this location. But I am a huge fan of the Havenhurst Apartments, because the buildings blend so nicely with the existing architecture of the West Hollywood neighborhood. You'd never know that low income housing exists in the midst of desirable residential real estate. Curious to see the Abbey Apartments; I may actually have to pick up this issue of Dwell...
i am actually from los angeles, and this housing complex is in a part of los angeles that desperately needed to be revitalized. kudos for everyone who was a part of this effort!
The one thing that really concerns me is how truely _horrible_ much of the new housing being built looks. (Please note that I am speaking of new construction, NOT adaptive re-use.) Take a drive along Alameda near SCI-ARC. To the east side of the street, the recently constructed condos? lofts? apartments? building is so ugly. And how about the apartment building going up to the north end of either Figureoa or Beaudry at Sunset Blvd? I want to say it's the Orsini (a "match" to the Medici apartment complex near the 110 S and 10 W interchange at the south end of downtown LA). Are we still living in the 80's?! Really, what is up with these developers who are building horrific interpretations of Italienate architecture? In view of many options recently constructed, I have to say that the Metro Hollywood Transit Village is not so bad. There are so few new residential buildings going up which represent current architectural aesthetics and/or use of current materials. There are a few select good examples downtown, such as the Met Lofts at 1050 S Flower St, developed by Forest City. Of course this project really is not affordable housing, but I find this a ggod place to start for creative and applicable inspiration. The Killefer Flammanh Architects' Havenhurt Apartments look great, but another of their the affordable housing projects, Crescent Arms/Crescent Village, built in their interpretation of a "...traditional Los Angeles courtyard housing plan" is aesthetically painful.