Given the nation wide trend of providing new housing solution for an aging society, the objective of this assignment is the creation of design concept presentation for a building project, providing housing for an extended family and possible care givers, on the West side of Los Angeles. The proposed building site is a large flat site in the Mar Vista district of West Los Angeles.
The imaginary client is a private developer, requesting that the house is mainly constructed of steel to deal with the perils of construction and environment in Southern California, such as fire, seismic and open space design. The client further asked for a speedy process of design and realization, in order to avoid lengthy regulatory slow downs and variances; you are asked to fit your project within the boundaries of the site and consider the special surroundings of the site and its context; further you are to comply with the current code and zoning regulations. Further the client requests that significant areas of the site could be used as food and therapeutic resource, in providing an alternative to store- bought produce and manual therapy.
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The client is also an admirer of the California Case Study Houses, Eichler Homes and Modernism in general. As a developer he / she would like to make a similar contribution to the culture of Architecture only in more contemporary setting and infused with concerns of today, such as durability of construction, sustainability and the design of a prototypical project for multigenerational living. The client is also interested in the idea of prefabrication and off site manufacturing of parts or sections of the house and in the possibility to use the design on other sites, such requiring a more generic use of space and amenities.

It is also in the interest of the client to find new solutions for living in a time where personal space needs to reevaluated, the recent increase of residences sizes was an outgrow of a housing speculation activity which has come to pass. A typical SFR in the 1970 was just over 1500 sf, since it has grown to about 2700 sf in 2008 only to tip to a current level of about 2500sf through the recessional activities in the housing market.
See attached article on housing sizes
The limited budget of the client requires an optimized solution in terms of space and construction efficiency, also special concerns should be given to sustainable, technological, constructional, prefabricated and programmatic innovations as they pertain to single family construction.
In order to make this a project which will be financially sustainable it is necessary to think about possibilities of creating income producing elements in the project, such as workspaces, rental or additional units; fit within the allowable parameters of the specific zoning regulations on the specific site.
The client also wants large multi-usable spaces with high volumes and vertical spatial orientation, which will require a large spans and moment frames of structural steel as part of the construction.

This project forsees the demand for flexibly designed homes in a less gentrified (near)future neighborhood in Mar Vista, California. Disgned as a prototype concept that can be duplicated and modified on the site, dividing it into three separate properties- just North of Grand View and Venice Boulivard. At the time of development, Grand View was visioned to be a landmark view filled route, thus it’s wider than most neighborhood streets. Despite this factor, which allows for greater volume of traffic, the neighborhood has remained mostly single-family homes (SFH) on large half-acre lots.
The developed prototype gradients from public to private space: creating possibities to configure the structure as a live/work, live/rent, or live+extended family senarios. By allowing the ground level to flow into the front yard, a large diversely programable space approaches the street scape; creating a possiblity for small business to interface with the large volume of traffic. This space can be blocked off (near the stairs) with it’s own entrance and restroom to create extra source of income. This same level is elderly friendly, with ground access to the garden; or separate-but-comfortable for renesting a recent graduate.

415. Steel House Studio, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design; Professor Barton MYERS, MACK / PREDOCK / REFUERZO

Critics: Brian MacKay-Lyons,