Some days in studio are more productive than others. I’m still researching housing density on a national scale, but finding examples that are close to our program is complicated. One, our program is really unbuildable, financially. It generally takes 5-6 stories of residential to support ground level retail (or so I’ve been told) and our program only calls for three. Two, in order to compare their project to ours architecturally, you need architectural drawings; site plans, floor plans, sections, etc. and these aren’t normally posted on either architects, developers, or marketing webpages.
I’ve got two examples now, one of which is a (very) low income, 100% energy independent building in Santa Monica called Colorado Court. The units are small (375 sq. foot max), but rent is cheap by California standards – under $550 a month, with no utilities to pay. The ‘lucky’ 44 residents were pulled off the Community Coroporation’s waiting list, which currently numbers around a thousand.
Low cost housing in the US is still politically and architecturally marginalized, and there is a pressing need for devent, affordable accommodations, especially in downtown areas. In an increasingly power-starved California, the potential impact of such an innovation is particularily strong. The architects, Pugh+Scarpa Architecture, have been quoted as saying that they hope their building will provide an inspiration for green, low-income housing elsewhere.
Honestly, I think it sounds exciting, but my research pulled up another point:
It’s great that the org’s and the city could pull together $5.8 million to build high-tech, green, low-income housing. But, experimenting on the poor for their demonstration project? Is this the flip side of environmental racism? Get some low-income tenants to live inside your the unproven technology? No air conditioning in Southern California? An experimental powerplant in the basement? Evangelical indeed.
Santa Monica Mirror, December 6-12, 2000.
