Design and Architecture

LA’s small lot ordinance was created to add density to residential neighborhoods and to expand home ownership. It's had a big impact, but a mixed one. And is Santa Monica about to kill e-scooters, or turn them into good citizens? Hear from the city’s mobility manager about choosing a roadworthy partner.

There’s an old service station in Silver Lake, just a couple blocks south of the reservoir. You might not even notice it if you walk by. And yet this dilapidated old building has become the latest flash point in the debate over whether to preserve buildings that may have historic value, or allow new housing developments to take their place.

The LA Phil's Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (or YOLA) is getting a new home in an old bank, designed by architect Frank Gehry. What does it mean for Inglewood? And, how about living 90 seconds from Whole Foods? DnA visits Runway at Playa Vista, a "vertical mixed-use" development, and a loft above a business on Pico Boulevard, and learns about LA’s version of living over the store.

Santa Monica lawmakers are weighing a proposal that might result in taking e-scooter sharing companies Bird and Lime off the streets. The companies are fighting back and rallying their supporters.

Los Angeles is following a trend set in other high cost cities for micro-units, at market-rate rents. Could this be the solution to a housing problem? Or could it validate living spaces that might just be too small? And you may have stayed at a hostel while traveling, but some LA residents are using Podshare as a long-term housing solution, sleeping in bunks with a roomful of strangers for months at a time.

Downtown Los Angeles has been experiencing a renaissance. It was known for decades as a place to work, but not live. That’s changing, as the area is seeing a boom in high-rise construction. One new megaproject, Metropolis, is a harbinger of things to come.

Is high-rise living the future of housing in downtown LA? DnA visits the Gensler-designed Metropolis tower complex to learn how the architects turned a freeway-adjacent site into sky-high luxury condos, and how its Chinese developer Greenland and Beverly Hills realtor The Agency are selling the new “downtown dream” to prospective buyers.