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SANTA
MONICA
VERMONT
TOD
Los Angeles, CA
Client: Little Tokyo Service Center
Proving social housing can be vibrant, welcoming, and affordable, Santa Monica and Vermont Apartments provide a neighborly and spirited environment for low-income residents of East Hollywood. A network of terraced open spaces provides an armature of community life for 187 units of affordable and supportive housing: a transit plaza wrapped with retail and seating, a ground floor ‘resi-alley’ complete with kitchen and community gardens, and children’s play and look out terraces on the upper levels. The organization fosters a sense of neighborliness, elevates transit experience and ridership, and increases safety.
The Realization of Alliance and Vision
A partnership between nonprofit developer Little Tokyo Service Center and LA Metro transformed a neglected, barren transit plaza into a vital community hub. Recognizing that transit access and stable housing are inseparable for low-income residents, the project designates half its units as permanent supportive housing, integrating fresh design into daily urban life.
DISTINCTLY SOCAL
Working closely with the architect’s playful yet modest palette—CMU block, cast-in place concrete, and corrugated metal screens—the landscape softens the living experience with sculptural plantings evoking an authentic sense of place set within a Southern California urban setting: utility, vibrancy, and open air.
