Los Angeles CA (South Los Angeles Neighborhood)

Client: WORKS (Women Organizing Resources and Knowledge)

A mixed-use development on two adjoining sites separated by an alley.  The development comprises 60 units in a mix of efficiency with one, two and three bedroom family units, along with two-bedroom manager's apartments on each site.  The Vermont Avenue site comprises a two-story community-services wing with public-access roof terrace and a four-story L-shaped apartment structure with courtyard.  The 88th / Menlo Street site comprises a three-story C-shaped apartment building with courtyard over semi-subterranean parking.  All apartments are reserved for very low income tenants, including  the developmentally disabled, veterans, senior citizens and very low income families.  All common spaces are wheel-chair accessible and all units are adaptable to accommodate wheelchair-bound residents.  Common spaces are provided on both sites including social services offices,  computer labs,  shared lounges with kitchenette, and laundry facilities.  Courtyard amenities include barbeque/picnic areas, shade trees and raised beds for urban farming.  Targeted for certification as a LEED Gold Project.

Bronx Borough, NYC

TWG Architects Inc as design consultant to Peter L. Woll Architect

Client: Community Access

The development comprises 126 apartments: 68 efficiency units for special needs tenants and 58 2-bedroom units for low income families.  The fourteen-story building is set back from 172nd Street at the southern end of  an irregularly-shaped through lot.   The northern end of the lot is open space and features a terrace serving first floor community spaces and, at the far end of the descending lot, extensive linear planters for urban farming.  All common spaces and site areas are wheel-chair accessible and all units are adaptable to accommodate wheelchair-bound residents.  Among the common spaces provided are a computer lab, shared lounges with a commercial kitchen,  laundry facilities and bicycle storage.  A suite of social services offices is located in the cellar; accessible from the first floor by stair and elevator.  Sustainability features of the development include stormwater capture for irrigation, rootop photovoltaic installation, and a co-generator which serves as emergency generator while using waste heat to heat building water. The building is designed to meet both NYSERDA and LEED Certification.

Los Angeles, CA (Eagle Rock Neighborhood)

TWG with Ena Dubnoff Architect and Studio FV (Fernando Vasquez)

Client: WORKS (Women Organizing Resources and Knowledge)

The development comprises 43 one-bedroom units with 2 efficiency units, along with a two-bedroom for the on-site manager.  The four-story, C-shaped apartment building with courtyard over subterranean parking accommodates very low income tenants including the developmentally disabled, veterans and senior citizens.  All common spaces are wheel-chair accessible and all units are adaptable to accommodate wheelchair-bound residents.  Among the common spaces provided are social services offices, a computer lab, shared lounges with kitchenette, and laundry facilities.  Courtyard amenities include a barbeque/picnic area, fruit trees and extensive raised beds for urban farming.  Certified as an LEED Platinum Project.Los Angeles CA (Eagle Rock neighborhood)

Client: Downtown Women’s Center

TWG in design/build with W. E. ONeal

Location: Los Angeles CA

Second renovation of an existing industrial building built in 1935. In 1985, the shell structure was converted through adaptive re-use into SRO housing for chronically homeless women. 

The recent renovation included seismic and fire safety upgrades, installing solar panels, providing new bathrooms and kitchens, new lighting and finished surfaces throughout, and making all common spaces wheelchair accessible and many units adaptable to accommodate wheelchair-bound residents. The adjacent low-rise building, renovated concurently, houses a boutique staffed by DWC clients and featuring products made by them.

TWG Architects Inc with Ena Dubnoff Architects

Client: WORKS (Women Organizing Resources and Knowledge)

Location: Los Angeles, CA

The development comprises 20 one-bedroom units, along with a two-bedroom for an on-site manager. The three-story, U-shaped apartment building with courtyard over subterranean parking accommodates transitional-age youth (ages 18-24) who are newly-emancipated and/or with special-needs. All common spaces are wheel-chair accessible and all units are adaptable to accommodate wheelchair-bound residents.

Among the common spaces provided are social services offices, a computer lab, shared lounges with kitchenette, and laundry facilities. Courtyard amenities include a barbeque/picnic area, fruit trees and raised beds for vegetable gardening. Certified as an LEED Gold Project.

TWG Architects Inc with Ena Dubnoff Architects

Client: WORKS (Women Organizing Resources and Knowledge)

Location: Los Angeles

New construction of 52 affordable family units situated between an arterial street and the Hollywood Freeway. Within walking distance of downtown, the location is easily accessible by bus. The site slopes up from street edge to freeway. Parking is at street level, underneath the rising site. The entry lobby, social services offices, computer lab and a community room with an outdoor barbeque are also at street level.

Other amenities include a laundry room and playground located in the raised courtyard. The street-edge building – with double-loaded flats – is relatively open with a two-story high entryway leading from street to courtyard (flanked by the accessible elevator entrance through the lobby). The freeway-edge building is a dense wall of stacked townhouse units set against the freeway berm and shields the courtyard from the noise of 101 South.

TWG Architects Inc with Ena Dubnoff Architects

Client: WORKS (Women Organizing Resources and Knowledge)

Location: Los Angeles CA

New construction of 24 affordable family units – stacked townhouses -- built around a raised courtyard. Also includes a laundry room, a playground and outdoor social areas. Community spaces, at street level, include a social services office, a multipurpose room and a computer lab.

TWG Architects Inc with Ena Dubnoff Architects

Client: Jovenes, Inc

Location: Los Angeles (Boyle Heights), CA

Major renovation of two existing fourplex buildings, owned and operated by a faith-based nonprofit dedicated to rehabilitating homeless, mentally-disabled and at-risk youth (ages 18-24). The fourplexes provide transitional housing for the program’s graduates – young men, seeking employment after having demonstrated responsible behavior – now ready for independent living.

Renovation doubled occupancy by converting all eight one-bedroom units into two-bedrooms. Site amenities include gym equipment and a barbeque/picnic area.

Client: Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles (for United Friends of the Children)

Location: Whittier, CA

Renovation of an apartment building moved from another site to provide transitional housing for youth (ages 18-23) newly-emancipated from foster care who are working toward attending college.

The development includes eight single-bedroom units, a two-bedroom for the resident counselor, along with a laundry room, a community room and a counseling office. The site also provides parking and a secure enclosed yard for recreation.

Location: Santa Monica, CA

Three new three-story condominium units (2 BR, 2 BA) for a hilltop site in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica.

Imperial Heights Townhouses

Los Angeles County, CA

Client: Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles

A scattered-site public housing development required as part of replacement housing for construction of the 105 Freeway in Los Angeles.  The lots were zoned for low-scale R2 development and the new construction abided by that requirement.  Typical units were modest two-story townhouses but two buildings were designed as stacked flats so that wheelchair units could be provided at the ground floors.  Typical site development clustered the houses around a shared surface parking lot with perimeter yards and plantings.  Altogether 15 new houses were provided in configurations which virtually disappeared into their neighborhood fabric.

Client: Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles

Location: Los Angeles, CA

The development required renovating an existing abandoned and fire-damaged garden apartment complex to provide affordable housing. All apartments were gut-renovated; two units were converted for full wheelchair access. The original development had been organized around two entry courts, which resulted in derelict side-yard spaces in between buildings.

The entry courts were re-landscaped and a community room, laundry facilities and play area were added in the former side yards.

Client: Long Beach Housing Development Co

Location: Long Beach, CA

Renovation of an existing masonry building near downtown Long Beach in a designated historic neighborhood. Designed to house fixed-income seniors, the renovated building provides 24 affordable units with new social decks, laundry rooms and a back garden. The building stood abandoned for a number of years and required complete gutting of the interior and rebuilding to seismically reinforce the brick shell.

The project was completed in 1992 and selected in 1993 as a finalist for the L.A. Business Council’s Urban Beautification Award. It also received a Historic Preservation Award from the Long Beach Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1994.

Location West Hollywood, CA

Criteria: 9,330 sf

Built in 2005

New construction of a single-family two-story house (3 BR, 3½ BA) in the Hollywood Hills. The Case-Study-inspired dwelling includes a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a library, two offices, a maid’s room, laundry, a 3-car garage and gallery space, all with polished concrete floors. The two upper-floor bedroom suites have balconies -- one facing west; the other, east. The hilltop site offers stunning views on all four sides (basin, mountains, valley and ocean).

Renovation (without addition) consisted of a major rework of first floor spaces: enlarging and relocating the kitchen to the back of the house — opening to the deck and relocating the entrance from the side of the house to the front — with entry porch. Second floor rework included an enlarged master bath and closet.

Location: Los Angeles CA (Echo Park neighborhood)

Size: 1,644 sf

Major renovation of an existing Spanish Mediterranean Revival two-story that was built in 1926 on a steep uphill site as a two-family house. Steps lead from the 2-car garage and street below to the front door at the top floor of the house. The living room, dining room, study and an open kitchen on the upper floor access the back patio and stairs leading to guest house. The master bedroom suite is on the lower floor and accessed via a central spiral staircase. Renovation required complete gutting of the interior. The renovated house has one bedroom and two baths.

Location: Venice, CA

Criteria: 2,753 sf

Built: 1988

A built-for-sale two-story house (3 bedrooms with 2½ baths) located near the northeast corner of the Venice canals. The open, double-height living room, dining room, and kitchen along with a powder room and a 2-car garage are on the bottom floor. The three bedrooms and two baths are above, including the master bedroom suite which features a large Jacuzzi and a deck overlooking the canal.

Location: Venice, CA

Criteria: 3,296 sf

Built: 1988

Built for a painter living on the Venice canals the two-story house (1 bedoom with 2 baths) features a double height artist’s studio. A loft overlooks the open kitchen, dining room and living room on the double-height second floor and a stairway leads to the occupied roof deck overlooking the canal. The ground floor has a 2-car garage and a master bedroom that opens to an outdoor hot tub in an enclosed yard next to the canal.

Location: Chilmark, MA

Criteria: 3,113 sf

Built: 1988

New construction of a single-family two-story house located on Tisbury Great Pond – the south shore of Martha’s Vineyard. Master bedroom and bathroom occupy the entire top floor. Below are the living room, dining room and kitchen and in a separate wing are two guest bedrooms and a bathroom. Walls and roof are cedar-shingled, using the traditional hand-trimmed method.

Location: Venice, CA

Criteria: 2,144 sf

Major renovaton of a one-story bungalow (3 BR, 3 BA), built in 1922, to add a family room to the existing downstairs and an entire new second-story with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Client: Pepperdine University

Category: Residential Educational

Location: Malibu CA

TWG was called in to provide partial re-design and complete construction phase services for a large-scale campus housing development with a design that had been mostly completed by another architectural firm. The complex includes 84 student apartments in clustered small-scale structures, 48 duplex townhouse residences for junior faculty and eight large single-family hilltop villas for distinguished professors.

All residential buildings are Type V construction; the activity/recreation building is concrete-framed and Type 1-B construction. Site is a hillside high above Pepperdine University with vistas overlooking lower campus to the Pacific.

Client: University of Southern California

Category: Educational Residential

Location: Los Angeles CA

Extensive renovation was required to convert a 1970s-era, eight-story, concrete dormitory building into a residential college. For seismic reasons, the concrete structure of traverse-bearing walls could not be altered, requiring some degree of ingenuity to carve out substantial open spaces for common rooms. The design included a Faculty Master’s apartment -- a floor-through space that opens through from the street side to a large garden behind with bedrooms located on the second floor.

An Assistant Master’s flat was also provided on the second floor. The remaining second floor was converted from dormitory rooms to study rooms, seminar rooms and activity rooms. Flexible accommodations for telephone, data and CATV were made using metal wire-molding raceways as chair rail. South of the ground floor Master’s apartment/office is a multipurpose room and the 24/7 Trojan Grounds coffeehouse, strategically-placed near the Leavey Library entrance.

Client: University of Southern California

Category: Residential Educational

Location: Los Angeles, CA

An existing 212-unit courtyard apartment building (used by USC for off-campus student housing) required extensive renovation and the addition of a multipurpose room. Renovation work included modernizing the fire alarm, fire suppression and emergency power systems, new cabling for telephone, data and CATV, and providing new bathrooms and kitchens, new lighting and finished surfaces throughout and renovation of all common spaces (lobbies, study rooms and laundry facilities).

The multipurpose room seats 50to 75 in stack chairs and opens up to the courtyard. The courtyard landscape was extensively re-worked. Abatement of hazardous materials during renovation, included removing asbestos-bearing stucco, roofing materials, floor tiles, spray-on or “popcorn” acoustic ceilings, light-fixture heat shields and drywall mud.