Los Angeles Department of City Planning
Ken Bernstein is the manager of the Office of Historic Resources and the principal city planner at the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.
PROFILE
Ken Bernstein
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FROM Ken Bernstein
Design and Architecture
"5 over 2": Rethinking the box In the boom years of the last century, Los Angeles developed homes that were specific to the region, the culture and the economy. These include revival-style homes, bungalow courts, garden apartments and dingbats. Now we are in the midst of another LA building boom. But are we producing homes that are distinctively Angeleno? Yes, say some and it might take the form of cool, multifamily apartment buildings that creatively tweak a generic building type. Author and historian DJ Waldie posed this question to DnA: “what is that characteristic form for Los Angeles today? We have accessory dwelling units. We have tiny houses. We have fantastical mega mansions. But among all those forms that are being built now, what is the characteristic Los Angeles house?” Historian and USC librarian Ruth Wallach says there is a contemporary archetype and you can find it in 5 to 7 story blocks of residential over parking and commercial on or near major streets across the Southland. She describes it as “that Bauhausian type of modernism of plain facades and ribbons of windows. They're rectilinear. There are plain facades. Sometimes there is color to kind of provide a variety. And then there is a lot of glass.” Mariposa 1038 in Koreatown. Photo credit: Paul Vu. These buildings seem similar and often bland because they are all built of a construction type nicknamed “5-over-2.” In the fifth episode of our series “This is Home in LA: From the Tent to the Gigamansion (and everything in between),” DnA looks at this this typology and finds that some designers are making it special, so special that for some residents it’s a preferred alternative to the LA dream of a single family home. “It's two levels maximum of type 1 construction, which is concrete, so formed in place. And then up to five levels of Type 3 construction, which is a fire-rated or fire-treated wood system,” said Scott Parker with the architecture and urban planning firm Studio One Eleven. This form, he says, “gives you a not-high-rise construction and it gets you to seven stories, which sort of maxes out the economic return on investment. And you can do it very efficiently and cost effectively.” Parker cites a building by his firm, Domain in West Hollywood. Its six stories of market-rate, one-, two- and three-bedroom units over ground level stores and offices, with swimming pool and roof deck, featuring International style rectilinearity and splashes of color. But, they added a twist. “Formosa Cafe is literally across the street. You could sit at the Formosa Cafe and look at the Hollywood sign. This building would block that. So what we did… is actually carved a hole in the architecture itself and framed the Hollywood sign so you can still sit, have your coffee or lunch and look up and see the Hollywood sign,” Parker said. The “5-over-2” is the architectural equivalent of the 1960s-era dingbat apartments, says Alan Pullman of Studio One Eleven. “It's denser than what we did before. But like the dingbat, it's a kind of archetype. And the building code dictates so much of this building that it leaves the designer with just tweaking the edges. Eighty five percent is already done based on the… International Building Code,” Pullman said, adding,“people really complain about it as this generic kind of architecture. I've heard it called ‘fast casual’ architecture.” A classic dingbat apartment building in Los Angeles. This generic kind of building is one that LA’s new Chief Design Officer, Christopher Hawthorne, says he’s thinking about. “I'm really interested in looking at that formula, that collection of recipes that come out of various city requirements and thinking about how it can be tweaked to promote better architecture, because that's really what shapes the architecture of most of what is being produced by private development,” Hawthorne told DnA. While the city works on tweaks, some private developers are already tweaking the formula. You can find an example in Koreatown, at an apartment building called Mariposa 1038. DnA recently joined a group of residents for drinks on the roof. “I've always thought of roofs as being the most active space conceptually, because it allows opportunities for people to come and sit and hang out and communicate,” said Lorcan O’Herlihy, the architect of the building. Taj Stansberry, Sophia Chang, Jonathan Schkolnick and Jonathan Chia are among a group of designers, filmmakers and photographers who were drawn to the building and now call it home. They appreciate the communality of the design layout, the open balconies and shared roof garden, as well as the thoughtful sourcing of light. “What Mariposa 1038 really offers is architecture. And even today this morning when I woke up in the bedroom and we have a certain type of lighting that hits the room. I was like, ‘I'm so happy to be here,’” Chang said. “It is my home. Yeah. You want to come back here,” said Stansberry. “It's a great place to create, and you don't feel like a hermit here. You just feel like you're at home.” O’Herlihy has garnered a reputation for distinctive-looking condo and rental apartment buildings that maximize liveable interior space and shared open areas, like rooftops. “I'm always intrigued about having an opportunity to meet people who are living in the buildings I do, because this is why I do it. It's about the people who are living here and I'm always thinking about, through the design process, how to create an environment that's uplifting, that's inspired, that in a sense gives you a place of not only a home but also a place where you look forward to coming back to, and also helps to inspire you,” he said. A view of the rooftop of Mariposa 1038. Photo credit: Paul Vu. The architect also played with the four sides of the Mariposa 1038 block. He pushed in each to make curving walls. Then he added overhangs for shading, balconies and sharp black and white detailing. All of these special features added construction costs and lengthy waits at the planning department for approvals. The market-rate apartments range from $2600 to $3600 for one or two bedrooms. And the building is currently full. Sitting on the roof of Mariposa 1038, drinking rose with a group of dynamic Angelenos, enjoying the spectacular view, you get a taste of the new architecture that’s emerging to house the new Los Angeles lifestyle. It’s “fast casual” but when it’s done thoughtfully it can be a new version of the LA dream. The one in which you don’t actually own a home but you have a home that still embraces the outdoors and the big LA sky, and that is still modern in spirit. “We know that in the early years the patrons of architects were people living on hillsides and hiring architects to design these individual houses. Whereas I'm convinced that the new patrons... are intrigued about building multifamily or larger housing complexes in urban environments, infill projects which is all throughout Los Angeles. So this building represents that new culture of Los Angeles,” said O’Herlihy. Mariposa 1038, an apartment building in Koreatown designed by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects. Photo by Paul Vu.
Design and Architecture
ADUs: your home can have a baby Los Angeles needs to build more housing. Many Angelenos need help paying the mortgage. Is the solution to both in our backyards? “Your house can have a baby. You can make the baby work,” said Diahanne Payne, a longtime building contractor and founder of “Illegal Additions Made Legal.” In the second show in our series “This is Home in LA: From the tent to the gigamansion, (and everything in between),” DnA explores ADUs, or Accessory Dwelling Units -- and asks if they might help solve the housing crisis while adding equity to costly single-family homes. DnA talks with planners and elected officials who have fought to legalize backyard homes, both existing unpermitted units -- of which there are thousands in LA, commonly known as granny flats -- and new structures. We meet a Highland Park couple who agreed to build an ADU as a test-case, in collaboration with Councilman Gil Cedillo’s office, the City of LA and the mayor’s innovation team as well as several nonprofits: designers LA Más, builders Habitat for Humanity, and financiers Genesis LA. “The purpose of the entire project was to push policy, and it was to reexamine the current policies and how they reflect how people are actually living in LA these days,” says homeowner Grace Lee. She and her husband Trent Wolpe found that building an ADU is complex, costly and full of surprises, such as finding the sloping site need deep caissons and that they needed to conform, at a price, to the design demands of the local HPOZ (Historic Preservation Overlay Zone). In response to lessons learned, Ken Bernstein of the City Planning department’s Office of Historic Resources, says HPOZs can no longer impose design specifics on ADUs, only height and width limits. The legalization of ADUs represents a mini-building boom and has builders, consultants and designers coming out of the woodwork, some of who see ADU’s as a vehicle for design experimentation. DnA talks to the CEO of a firm that promises to streamline the mass-production of ADUs through deploying computational design and software. One of its investors was an early investor in AirBnB and SnapChat. Meanwhile, some designers have more fanciful ideas in mind, such as Jimenez Lai and his firm Bureau Spectacular, which was shortlisted in a recent Yes to ADUs! design competition. His solution: idiosyncratic structures full of character, “somewhat pleasantly human like or animal like with arms and legs and hats.” He also that a street of ADUs should combine to form a shared piece of local infrastructure. “If they generate electricity; if they process water; if they help with a kind of community fermentation station, then there's some agricultural or other productive use meant for the block, not for the property.” Concepts like Lai’s may be a little far off in the future. Right now, the goal is to get going with building some ADUS, and have people’s homes become both income generators and participants in solving the region’s housing needs. A rendering for Trent Wolbe and Grace Lee's ADU in Highland Park. Image courtesy LA Más.
Design and Architecture
Remembering John Portman, architect of Bonaventure Hotel John Portman, the architect and developer of gleaming hotels and office buildings that defined the future back in the 1960s and 70s, died this past Friday at age 93. Angelenos will best know him as the architect of the iconic Westin Bonaventure Hotel, completed in 1976. The hotel was part of the wholesale redevelopment of Bunker Hill, and its design -- four cylinders of shiny brown glass and flying see-through elevators -- was in the spirit of the car-based planning of the area with elevated pedways and entrances via underground parking structures. Initially heralded for helping revitalize downtowns, Portman’s buildings came to be criticized by a new generation of planners for their lack of connection to the streets around them. But the futurism of the Bonaventure Hotel made it a constant source of inspiration for movie-makers. DnA talks to the LA Conservancy’s Cindy Olnick, who grew up in Georgia and recalls the thrill of his Peachtree Center district. Ken Bernstein, manager of the City of LA’s Office of Historic Resources and Principal City Planner, reflects on the Bonaventure’s impact on his appreciation of Los Angeles architecture. Craig Hodgetts, architect and keen student of futurism, talks about how Portman channeled the popular science and culture of the time -- and why he had to become a developer to create his visionary buildings.
Which Way, L.A.?
Governor Brown Signs Off on High Speed Rail at Union Station At Union Station today in downtown Los Angeles, Governor Brown signed the bill authorizing construction for the nation's first high speed rail to link LA and San Francisco. The bill barely passed the state senate, and the project faces years of delay from lawsuits, not to mention a lack of money to build more than the first 100 miles. Metro has plans to make Union Station a hub for high speed rail and other transit systems, but its plans go well beyond Union Station itself. Two architectural firms have been hired to draw plans for 38 acres around the building.
Design and Architecture
Does Creative Architecture Inspire Creativity? Central Los Angeles High School #9 (High School for the Visual and Performing Arts) Interior view Instant Landmark If you've driven anywhere near downtown Los Angeles, you've certainly spotted Central Los Angeles Area New High School #9 , also known as the School of Visual and Performing Arts, reaching over the 101 freeway. Austrian architects at Coop Himmelblau designed the school, which opened to students this month. Frances speaks to Rex Patton, executive director of the school, as well as some students about some of its unique features. Two writers for the Los Angeles Times give background on the school's troubled path to completion. Mitchell Landsberg describes the exorbitant and controversial costs required to finish the building, which he contrasts to a new charter school in South L.A. renting space in a church, as he covered in a recent article . And architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne joins the conversation as well, after giving the school a "pass/fail" grade in a recent review . Architect Wolf Prix chimes in to explain the dramatic design and why it's important for the city. The school is located at 405 N. Grand near the Bunker Hill neighborhood and although it is not open to the public, the school plans to begin inviting small groups in for tours. The Real (M)ad Men Filmmaker Doug Pray is best known for turning his camera on subcultures like he did in Surfwise and Hype. But his new film, Art & Copy , focuses on a very mainstream world, the advertising industry. Legends of advertising like Dan Wieden, Hal Riney, George Lois, Mary Wells and local ad agency Chiat Day's Lee Clow are among the creatives profiled. Art & Copy is screening in several theaters in the Los Angeles area as well as in Orange County, check the site's screening calendar for more information. A Citywide Survey Ken Bernstein is the leader of architectural preservationist team sponsored by the Getty Foundation and the Office of Historic Resources at the Department of City Planning that hopes to record each of the 880,000 properties in the 466 square mile city of Los Angeles. He talks to Frances about exactly how they plan to do this, and how long he thinks it might take. A three-part film that launched the initiative recently won a local Emmy award (the first segment is above, the rest are viewable here ). You can learn more about the process, and see the group's findings at Survey LA .
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