Slow Rise

OpenScope took on the Low Rise LA design competition, which was created by the Mayor’s office to promote housing affordability and paths to ownership with an emphasis on sustainable architecture.

We entered in the “Corners” category, the brief was:

Assuming neighboring homeowners who choose to combine their lots, at least one of which occupies a corner, submit a design for 6-10 units across these two newly connected lots, including a so-called Accessory Retail Unit, which is to say a reimagined corner store.

Our design took the pairing of a single-family home and attached carport and re envisioned it as a module that could stack and accrete in various configurations as a basis to create an initial set of structures. The open zones, that were originally allotted to vehicles, storage and auxiliary uses, become a kind of spatial reserve that can be built out and filled in to accommodate expanding families and further needs of the community as it develops over time.