Login
Registered users
In 2018, the City of Los Angeles made available some of their over 1,700 city-owned parcels to affordable housing developers. Many of these sites are difficult, lying along heavy traffic corridors or next to freeways, or are made up of composite parcels that have been left untouched for decades. The 35,000 square foot, 54-unit housing project and adjacent pase, known as the Isla Intersections is situated on a 19,814 SF triangular site uniting a traffic island and a former railroad right of way. Situated in close proximity to one of the world’s busiest freeway interchanges, the meeting of the 110 and 105 freeways, the design makes a challenging location more livable.
The voting session is closed
Isla Intersections is urban infill project that repurposes a previously unusable triangular sliver of land sited near the intersection of two freeways. The project includes retail incubator space alongside its slow paseo as part of the developer’s focus on small business resiliency. The commercial space act as a gateway between Isla’s residents and the greater community and are earmarked to be leased to small businesses catering to neighborhood needs. The paseo and its landscaping were designed to filter noise and air pollution from the nearby highways, and the community rooftop gardens address the neighborhood's status as a food desert. Isla is sited near a Metro station, which allowed for reduced allotment of parking area to promote low-carbon modes of transit.
The most important facet of Isla's utilization of space is that it is an urban infill project that repurposes a previously unusable triangular sliver of land in the middle of an intersection. Greywater is recycled to irrigate landscape. Isla Intersections is projected to recycle 278k gallons of water annually. Isla Intersections provides a rooftop edible garden to residents, and the slow paseo along the West is landscaped with local flora to filter air of pollution and particulate.
Isla Intersections is a 35,000 square foot, 54-unit housing project and adjacent paseo situated on a 19,814 square-foot triangular site. Located within close proximity to one of the world’s busiest freeway interchanges, the meeting of the 110 and 105 freeways, the design makes a challenging location more livable. Isla Intersections is organized as a series of sixteen staggered boxes each unit assembled out of three 20-foot-long by 8-foot-wide modular containers made with recycled steel and welded together to form a single 480 square foot dwelling. Each is compact and efficient, an open plan with an ADA kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom. The units are stacked and arranged into towers that are connected by a series of walkways to create a single unified building. These towers surround a communal outdoor space within the heart of the complex. This paseo serves as a “living lung” to filter particulates and air pollutants. The landscaping is site-specific, with trees and shrubs chosen for their ability to clean the air and offer a respite from the concrete enclosing the site. The courtyard, edible garden, and paseo landscaping are irrigated by a graywater system. The ground level provides storefront spaces for retail, job training, support services, and administrative offices.
We are living in a time where the City is willing to embrace these kinds of forgotten spaces and the ideas that they give birth to. And at a time when the city is desperate for answers to the housing crisis, we as architects can have a say in how things play out over the next decade.
Founded in 1994 by Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA] is an internationally renowned architecture and urban design with offices in Los Angeles and Detroit. LOHA has built a robust portfolio of work rooted in embracing architecture’s role as a catalyst for change. Enacting a powerful alliance of inventive designs with vigorous social ideals, the work at LOHA prospers whether it is supportive affordable housing in South Los Angeles, creative offices, or designing cultural institutions like Chapman University Dance School.
Since 1994, LOHA has built over 100 projects across three continents. LOHA has been published in over 20 countries and recognized with over 100 awards, including the Architect Magazine’s ARCHITECT 50 #1 Design Firm Award, AIA California Council Distinguished Practice Award, and AIA Los Angeles Firm of the Year Award. In 2025, LOHA was recognized as #1 in Architecture on Fast Company’s list of World’s Most Innovative Companies.
