Above/Between:
Urban Housing in a City of Voids
Everardo Lopez
A thesis
submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Architecture
University of Washington
2018
Committee:
David Miller
Gundula Proksch
Program authorized to offer degree:
Architecture
©Copyright 2018
Everardo Lopez
PB
University of Washington
Abstract
Above/Between: Urban Housing in a City of Voids
Everardo Lopez
Chairs of the Supervisory Committee:
David Miller
Department of Architecture
Gundula Proksch
Department of Architecture
The contemporary megacity is shaped by transportation infrastructure and characterized by continuous 
outward expansion, a pattern of development that has left behind spatial voids within more central urban 
areas.  New architectural forms that adapt to these voids by rethinking the potential of residual urban 
space can be a catalyst for density as an alternative to replacing older buildings or continuing to expand 
the urban fringe.  Using Los Angeles as a testing ground, this thesis proposes new housing typologies 
to program underused spaces and accommodate future increases in population.  This thesis proposes a 
series of interventions throughout the city while keeping the existing urban fabric intact.  The designs 
proposed take the form of dense infill housing units, addressing the issues of increased population, 
decreased land availability, and planning for the reduction of automobile usage in an increasingly 
multimodal future.
PB
above/between
urban housing in a city of voids
Everardo Lopez
Committee:
David Miller
Gundula Proksch
007006
  preface    010
one   welcome to los angeles 015
two   framework   019
three  city of voids   045
four   typologies   053 
five   conclusion   099 
  etc.    104
011010
place it truly is.  In the few years of living elsewhere and only periodically visiting Southern California, 
the changes each time around have been astounding—both for the better and for the worse.  New 
skyscrapers punctuate an expanding downtown.  Traffic continues to worsen.  Wildfires erupt during 
increasingly balmy winter months.  Nondescript neighborhoods suddenly become popular enclaves with 
skyrocketing rents.  Homeless encampments take over more and more sidewalks on the outskirts of the 
city’s growing core.  It is in this multifarious context that this thesis is situated.  The underlying goal is to 
keep all of these gears in motion as they are, undisturbed, with interventions that address the potential of 
the space above and between the everyday monuments of an evolving city.
 I realize now that the organism that is Los Angeles has always been a “city” with or without 
my acknowledgement, but what continues to make it so unique is precisely this lack of immediate 
categorization.   With a newfound appreciation for this place, calling it just a “city” is almost diminutive.  
More than that, it is home.
 Having lived in Los Angeles for the first two decades of my life, it was the only place I ever knew 
intimately.  Although I was always interested in the city as an idea, I never really considered Los Angeles 
to be one because its form was so contrary to the indelible urbanity of other places.  For me, the city was 
always elsewhere—San Francisco, New York, Tokyo.  Places that were cities because they could not be 
mistaken for anything else.
 Contrary to the largely true stereotype of the car-obsessed metropolis, I walked and used 
public transportation much of the time while living in Los Angeles, finding the urbanity in this vast 
agglomeration of freeways and houses.  This first arose out of necessity, and later because I realized the 
power of choice in shaping the places we call home.  I was also able to see a side of Los Angeles that I 
otherwise might not have.  While it was certainly an inconvenience to be carless in a city with more 
vehicles than people, it ultimately inculcated a desire to improve this spatial imbalance, thus setting the 
course for an exploration of built space beginning at the scale of the city.
 I never found Los Angeles to be especially interesting until I left it and realized what a peculiar 
preface
fig. 01 Palm tree, Venice, 2017 (cover).
fig. 02 Elizabeth Iannone, I-110 & I-105 Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles (abstract). 
fig. 03    Sean Lipowski, View from Koreatown, Los Angeles, 2009 (prologue).
fig. 04 City of Voids. Includes work by David Hockney, Vincent Lamoroux (photograph by Jeroen Verrecht), Ed  
 Ruscha, and Kerry Tribe (photograph by Gerard Smulevich) (above).
015014
But then I often think, you know, why did I go to California all that 
time ago in the first place?  At the time, I always said I’d gone 
because it was sexy, it was sunny.  But Los Angeles is also the 
most spacey city in the world.  You feel the most space.01
—David Hockney
 Los Angeles is a city of voids.  Shaped by the infrastructure and patterns of development that 
have enabled its outward growth, the vastness of the city is expressed in the spaces within it that remain 
unfilled.  This perceptual emptiness has become part of its image, informing a collective understanding 
of the city as a sprawling, low-density mega-region.  These voids within the existing urban fabric remain 
largely unexplored as sites for accommodating future growth.  This thesis argues that the architecture of 
one
welcome to los angeles
fig. 05 Dennis Hopper, Double Standard, 1961 (detail).
017016
density in such a metropolis must be understood as mediating between the expansive scale of city and the 
contraction of scale in the individual buildings that comprise it.
 While all cities necessarily have automobile infrastructure in place, the extent to which it has 
crafted the image of Los Angeles is remarkable.  If Tokyo is typified by its transit lines, Copenhagen by its 
bicycle network, and Venice by its canals, then Los Angeles is a place for cars.  There is certainly a litany 
of renowned architecture in the city, yet the most pronounced typology of urban form in Los Angeles 
may be its transportation network—a complex web of freeways, streets, and parking lots linked together 
through the ebb and flow of traffic.  As the city has grown over time, it has moved outward, further 
expanding the urban fringe and leaving vast, empty spaces within its boundaries.  Given that Los Angeles’ 
dominant mode of transportation is motorized and private, distance is less crucial than time in moving 
from place to place.  Commutes with time measured in hours rather than minutes are not uncommon.  
As the city is not often traversed on foot, residual spaces are further overlooked.  Zooming by at sixty 
miles per hour or even at the crawl of rush hour traffic, little thought is given to these plots of land.  Space 
in the modern city is frequently taken for granted as a byproduct of contemporary life.
 Los Angeles is both renowned and derided for its expansive, low-slung form, yet this outward 
growth has begun to reach its limits.  As frequently as the city’s legendary traffic is bemoaned, the 
openness of the metropolis is exalted.  While the urban fringe could theoretically continue to expand 
into undeveloped desert to the north and east, the efficacy of existing infrastructure in handling a further 
onslaught of exurban commuters is of increasing concern (fig. 09).  Instead, this thesis proposes to 
fig. 06 Bryan Allo, Downtown Los Angeles in context.
evaluate the potential of residual urban spaces, repurposing voids in the city as land for housing.  As the 
city continues to grow, this thesis suggests ways in which density and saturation can increase in existing 
neighborhoods without removing any of the city’s building stock or radically changing the contemporary 
Angeleno’s way of life.
 This thesis proposes new, more efficient housing forms and the use of unconventional sites.  By 
accommodating a new typology of buildings with smaller building footprints and taller forms, vacant 
or underutilized spaces would be grounds for the next layer of growth in a city largely defined by its 
dispersed form.  The following research and design exploration explores ways in which cities can become 
more dense by using existing spatial voids while maintaining the structures and qualities that make them 
unique.  Not every city needs to be New York or Tokyo, but taking elements from ultra-dense cities such 
as these and incorporating them into the radically different context of a city like Los Angeles is part of the 
basis for this thesis exploration. 
 Essential to this investigation is an understanding of the idiosyncratic form and current state of 
Los Angeles, a city at a turning point between maintaining its inherent qualities while also undergoing 
a huge population influx expected to last through the next several decades.  Using Los Angeles as an 
urban testing ground, this thesis proposes a series of interventions which can be duplicated throughout 
the region while keeping the existing urban fabric intact.  The designs proposed take the form of infill 
housing units, addressing the issues of population increase and decreased housing stock and land in Los 
Angeles.
019018
In Los Angeles you get the sense sometimes that there’s a 
mysterious patrol at night: when the streets are empty and 
everyone’s asleep, they go erasing the past.02
—Carlos Ruiz Zafón
 Los Angeles challenges the prototypical definition of the city.  As seen from above, the organizing 
grid of the metropolis extends infinitely in every direction, its only true boundary the ocean to the west.  
Navigating the city by car, this sense of infinity is expressed through the windshield, with the quality and 
amount of space between buildings most apparent when viewed from the ground.  Architects Luciano 
Basauri and Francesca Insulza assert that “the most striking aspect of LA’s sprawl is the large amount of 
space within the underlying grid structure that seems unfilled—the blind facades and empty parking lots 
waiting suggestively to be used.”03 (fig. 07)  Although infrastructural space defined by the automobile is 
fig. 07 Vincent Lamoroux, Projection, 2015 (installation view).
two
framework
021020
typical in cities developed with driving as a primary mode of transportation, Los Angeles takes this form 
to its extreme.  Here, these voids form “an urban typology within the city; they are part of the image of 
LA.”04  Like all voids, these are inherently impermanent, suggesting that they may someday be filled or 
reconfigured.
 For a city the size of Los Angeles that continues to grow both in population and size, the value 
of these voids is becoming increasingly apparent.  Commercially, this value is expressed as a dollar 
amount, with developers eager to demolish older, less expensive homes in desirable areas and replace 
them with multiple, smaller homes sold at higher prices.  Culturally, the voids contribute to the uniquely 
identifiable image of the city—what artist David Hockney calls “the most spacey city in the world.”05  As 
distinguished from other cities with similar populations, much of Los Angeles lacks the more typical 
hallmarks of urbanity: “if the city lacks an architectural skyline—not a single downtown skyscraper has 
managed to burn itself into the collective subconscious—its rows of palm trees substitute.”06 (fig. 08)  
Outside of a few anomalously dense neighborhoods and corridors, the perceptual image of Los Angeles 
is informed most by open expanses punctuated by tall palm trees and with lawns, freeways, and parking 
lots defining much of the landscape—all elements which suggest a spacious, open city with typically 
suburban qualities.
 The relationship between transportation and the urban context contributes to shaping the way 
Los Angeles is perceived.  In a city scaled to the automobile, the prominence of unbuilt space devoted 
to transportation is treated as an indispensable commodity.  Architectural critic and historian Reyner 
Banham identifies the freeway system, which defines some of the largest, most visible perceptual voids 
within the city, as “a single comprehensible place, a coherent state of mind, a complete way of life, the 
fourth ecology of the Angeleno.”07 (fig. 02)
 While the freeways are indispensable in connecting the city, other voids are similarly important 
in defining the shape and form of the Los Angeles experience.  Basauri and Insulza write that because of 
the many leftover spaces that undermine the rigor of the city’s plan, “the city is perceived not as a grid, 
but as a series of strips.  And along these strips, the generic condition of the void becomes apparent.”08   
Like the ribbons of freeways that unrelentingly meander through and above the city’s neighborhoods, 
fig. 08   VideoBlocks, Los Angeles skyline.
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fig. 09 Los Angeles Metropolitan Statistical Area Population. US Census (1890-2010) + Global Cities Insitute (2025-2100).  Satellite view of a portion of Greater Los Angeles (NASA).
025024
fig. 10 Jason Arnold, Wilshire Boulevard, 2007.
the city, too, is perceived as a horizontal series of strips.  The character of voids at ground level, as 
experienced while driving or walking along the city’s streets, is prominent enough to undermine the 
understanding of the city as a simple grid.  Despite its rigorous overall form, the resulting experiential 
quality of occupying and moving through space in Los Angeles is non-urban in character.
 Unlike Manhattan where the visibly dense grid is consistently reinforced by buildings, the high 
density of Los Angeles is concealed by the fact that the city is so homogeneous in form.  Although New 
York City has a denser center and is often seen as the antithesis to west coast sprawl, Los Angeles as 
a region has a higher overall density when the entire metropolis is taken into account.09  In Sprawl: A 
Compact History, architectural historian Robert Bruegmann observes that “from the air, virtually the 
entire Los Angeles basin appears as a dense carpet of buildings, with most houses packed together on 
lots that are considerably smaller than their counterparts in eastern cities.”10  Banham writes that even 
the city’s downtown is almost inconsequential in the grand scheme of the city, functioning as one of 
innumerable nodes in the city rather than as a true center.11 (fig. 06)
 The main areas of high density in the city proper—and even many of its primary cultural 
institutions—are instead arranged along primary vehicular strips with dense corridors bounding 
thoroughfares like Wilshire Boulevard, which Banham argues functions as a “prototype linear 
downtown.”12 (fig. 10)  Rather than being perceived as part of a larger grid, the experience of driving 
along this denser thoroughfare is defined by the strip condition and thus is considered separate from 
the rest of the urban fabric.  As Basauri and Insulza note, voids are apparent along these strips especially 
when experienced from an automobile, with speed influencing the perception of the street border and the 
condition of void space.13  Moving at the speed limit, the void is perceived as a continuous element.  In 
heavy traffic or at the rate of a pedestrian, these voids are magnified by the time taken to bypass them and 
are recognizable as discrete elements rather than as a continuous sense of unbuilt void space.14
 Rather than a single city in the traditional sense, Los Angeles is instead an massive conurbation 
that now spans over a hundred miles across five counties.  Although each neighborhood within each 
of these municipalities is experienced independently, the region is continuously urbanized (fig. 09).  
Multiple nodes and corridors of commercial activity define the region.  This dispersal of the city has 
027026
fig. 11   Michael Light, from Los Angeles 2016, 2016.
resulted in a particular form of urbanism which defies easy categorization.  Although the region may 
continue to expand into still undeveloped desert to the north and east, the lack of infrastructure needed 
to link these outlying areas presents a challenge.15
______________________________________
representing the voids
It was a soft, warm summer July night, and the absurd pleasure of floating over the 
largest agglomeration of twinkling human triumph and calamity ever witnessed took 
over.16
—Michael Light
 As depicted by visual artists primarily throughout the twentieth century, the character of Los 
Angeles is perhaps best expressed through this expansive, void sense of space.  The paintings of David 
Hockney, for instance, express the horizontality of Southern California architecture and its relationship 
to its context.  Hockney’s 1967 painting “A Bigger Splash,” depicting a single house and its surrounding 
landscape, communicates the extent to which architecture in the contemporary urban landscape of Los 
Angeles acts as little more than a folly mediating water, ground, and sky. (fig. 16)  In Banham’s reading 
of the depiction of the Angeleno house in media, he asserts that “Los Angeles cradles and embodies the 
most potent current version of the great bourgeois vision of the good life in a tamed countryside.”17  In 
this vein, the composition of Hockney’s painting adeptly represents the scale of architecture within a 
majority of Southern California’s built landscape.
 Dennis Hopper’s “Double Standard” similarly captures the contemporary experience of the Los 
Angeles boulevard, replete with billboards, gas stations, and cars defining the urban landscape.18 (fig. 05) 
The photograph depicts the type of generic void discussed at length by Basauri and Insulza19—a type 
of space that has become an iconic visual characteristic.  The use of photography to capture this vacant 
space is particularly effective in the serial depiction of the Los Angeles street in Ed Ruscha’s “Pacific Coast 
029028
Highway” (fig. 12) and “Every Building on the Sunset Strip.”20 (fig. 13)  Ruscha’s photographs depict not 
only the buildings  along these corridors, but also the prominent voids between them.  Although the city 
is expansive, the diminutive scale of the architecture allows for sky, space, and road to fill one’s field of 
vision, with buildings typically taking up a proportionately small amount of space.  As land is becoming 
more scarce and Los Angeles seeks to find ways to accommodate growth, the potential of this space—
both in plan and, perhaps more significantly, in perspective—has become more salient.
 The city has grown significantly since Ruscha’s work was produced, yet there still remains this 
spatial quality.  Michael Light’s more recent series Los Angeles 2016 captures views of the metropolis from 
above at night, conveying the extent to which urban space and the natural topography of the city have 
formed an indelible relationship.21 (fig. 11)  The images serve as pared-down abstractions of light and 
dark, conveying in a visual sense the complex relationship between built form and void space.
______________________________________
filling the voids
Suddenly we realize that we are in an urban environment after all, and we are going 
to have to deal with our neighbors.  Densification will have a different effect in Los 
Angeles, perhaps more psychological than anything.22
—Geoff Manaugh
 Situated on the edge of the continent, Los Angeles is in some ways the apotheosis of the 
American Dream.23  Defined by the geographic limit of westward expansion, the urban form of the region 
aptly reflects the ethos of individualism and self-sufficiency.  As urban planner Sam Hall Kaplan argues, 
“the sustaining dream of most Southern Californians is to not live in, or even near, a city.”24  This denial 
of traditional urban form and embrace of an independent pattern of land use and transportation has 
contributed to the predominant image of the city as a spacious, low-density form of urban sprawl.  The 
city is defined by this lack of conventional planning and the proliferation of what Banham calls the “non-
fig. 12 Ed Ruscha, Pacific Coast Highway, 1974 (detail).
031030
fig. 13 Ed Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1971 (detail).
plan”25 which contributes to the qualities of Los Angeles as a city of voids.  At the same time, the issue of 
accommodating future growth has become increasingly pressing, calling for a new model of growth.
 Like the proliferation of billboards on the city’s streets, the void is one of the most frequently 
criticized spatial aspects of Los Angeles.  Yet, Banham’s defense of the proliferation of billboards in the 
city could be used to advocate for these voids as well: “to deprive the city of them would be like depriving 
San Gimignano of its towers or the City of London of its Wren steeples.”26  Accordingly, this thesis does 
not seek to fill every available parking space and vacant lot with buildings. Rather, the aim is to make use 
of these void spaces selectively to relate to the urban context at a variety of scales.  The voids created by 
low-slung development are the most visible monuments to Los Angeles’ precipitous outward expansion. 
Rather than attempting to redefine Los Angeles, the goal of this proposal is to make use of the potential 
of the open spaces throughout the city while also preserving as much of the city’s character as possible by 
maintaining all existing building stock.
 Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan writes that “now the bounding perimeter of 
the city has been hit, [the] perceptual, psychological, and physical limits of what it means to be in Los 
Angeles have arrived.”27  Yet, the boundary of the mega-region continues to expand in exurban desert 
developments.  The city itself, bounded by water on one side and loosely bounded by mountain terrain 
on other sides, must find ways to accommodate an influx of population growth over the next several 
decades.  Along with the logistical problems of housing millions more in a city running out of space on 
which to build, a change in the way Angelenos live is becoming more essential.
 How can this new layer of growth be integrated into the existing urban fabric?  To what extent 
can the unique spatial character of the city be expressed in an architecture of density?  Urban historian 
and theorist Kazys Varnelis argues that part of the solution may be to continue intensifying development 
along corridors that are already dense, leaving a majority of the urban fabric intact.  He notes that 
“increasing the population density within the city is the only logical response to sprawl.  Wilshire 
Boulevard—a direct link between the beach and downtown and possessing a history of its own as a 
cultural and commercial corridor—is already a dense linear city, making it the ideal location for more 
density and growth.”28  The case for increasing density along this thoroughfare is particularly strong 
given that the city’s subway system is currently constructing an extension to the route beneath Wilshire 
Boulevard, expected to be completed by 2035.29  For the most part, the buildings along this heavily 
urban corridor have been office, commercial, and cultural, but more recently, residential buildings have 
033032
fig. 14 Development potential under traditional lot planning versus small lot subdivision ordinance.
average lot citywide 5,500 ft²
average house size 1,800 ft²
average cost of required
parking included in rent price
average 1br rent
17% of rent 650ft²
$1,730
small lot minimum 600 ft²
average house size 1,800 ft²
two parking space
minimum per unit
begun to frame its edges.  While the character of the boulevard varies tremendously over its sixteen-mile 
stretch, the single-story buildings and parking lots that line portions of Wilshire feel increasingly out of 
scale amid more recent development.
 This growth is only one example of how civic officials in Los Angeles proper have been actively 
encouraging higher-density development within its boundaries.  These interventions are intended along 
heavily trafficked corridors like Wilshire as well as in established single-family neighborhoods.  In 2005, 
the city passed a small-lot ordinance allowing developers to break up lots zoned for multi-family into 
small single-family plots, reducing the minimum width of a lot to 16 feet.30  The minimum suggested 
size of a lot was drastically cut from 5,000 square feet to just 600, allowing for nearly nine single-family 
homes to be built within the same area.  The ordinance also reduced the 20-foot minimum setback for 
these lots which typically take the form of a front lawn of typical single-family houses, and amended 
parking rules to allow for the two required parking spots per unit to be accommodated on a separate 
lot.31  Yet, the amount of space required for the two parking spots for each unit—650 square feet—now 
exceeds the minimum amount of land for living. (fig. 14)  Rather than making use of existing land for 
housing, this encourages the razing of existing buildings and only relocates parking elsewhere rather 
than addressing the underlying issues of managing the city’s growth.  While this thesis does not attempt 
to address the issue of affordable housing per se, it does propose separating these requirements from the 
units themselves, allowing for the costs of parking to be paid by those using them, and deincentivizing 
car ownership, particularly in neighborhoods with strong transit connections.  From an urbanistic 
standpoint, the required inclusion of parking in all developments built in Los Angeles means that a city 
with an current excess of parking only becomes more overparked as density increases.
 Small lot development is largely driven by real estate interests and is incredibly lucrative for 
developers, with each new individual house selling for an amount comparable to an older house on a 
larger lot.  This has encouraged the demolition of older single-family homes in residential areas in order 
to be replaced by skinnier, more densely packed small-lot houses.32  While this method does effectively 
create more units and the higher densities advocated by this thesis, it puts at risk the existing character 
of neighborhoods.  As an alternative to this increasingly common scenario, the use of existing lots would 
035034
allow for new development to be interwoven into the existing fabric of the city.  This would, of course, 
require reducing or doing away with minimum parking requirements in order to make use of smaller 
leftover sites.
______________________________________
adaptations of density
 Methods for investigating this new form of urban development for Los Angeles include looking 
at the patterns of growth and understanding of space in ultra-dense cities like Tokyo.  On the surface, 
the two cities appear as though they could not be more different: the expansiveness of Los Angeles is the 
antithesis to the density of Tokyo.  Yet, their urbanized area is comparable.  Using existing space more 
judiciously is becoming increasingly important as the level of the growth in Los Angeles increases.  The 
sense of compact space in Tokyo is characterized by both high density and saturation.  In Tokyo Totem: 
A Guide to Tokyo, Christiaan Fruneaux and Edwin Gardner write that “in an urban context [saturation] 
would refer to the maximum amount of buildings one could fit into a certain area of land. Or, in other 
words: what is the smallest plot you can still build a house on?”33  This question is increasingly relevant 
even outside of Tokyo, particularly in light of legislation like the small lot subdivision ordinance in Los 
Angeles.
 The question of lot size also poses a possible solution to increasing housing stock while 
avoiding the demolition of existing buildings.  Increasing land prices in Tokyo have already established 
the practice of subdividing plots into minuscule sizes, resulting in an organically fragmented urban 
framework.34  The lot sizes of typical buildings in Tokyo is similar in size to the nascent typology of small-
lot housing in Los Angeles, a city in which the predominant housing typology depends on a significant 
buffer of exterior open space. (fig. 16)  The relationship of exterior to interior space creates an apt 
comparison between the two cities’ use of urban space, and allows for the possibility of adapting dense 
urban sensibilities within Los Angeles.
 A primary difference underlying Japanese and American attitudes toward property is 
fig. 15 Pierre Koenig, Stahl House, Los Angeles, 1959.  Photograph by Julius Shulman.
037036
fig. 16 David Hockney, A Bigger Splash,1967.
underscored by their views on the impermanence of buildings.  The average lifespan of a residential 
building in Tokyo, for instance, is 26 years, enabling more audacious architectural experimentation and 
a high degree of specificity toward the people dwelling in a particular house.35  In the United States, 
where the average age of a dwelling is 36 years, buildings are not typically seen with the same degree 
of impermanence, and housing tends to be less specific to the occupants.  Given Japan’s tax structure, 
the concept of the ‘fixer-upper’ is less prevalent than new construction, as building from scratch tends 
to be cheaper than repairing an older dwelling.36  As proposals for housing in Los Angeles, the designs 
proposed in this project strive toward forms which are efficient spatially but also allow for some level of 
adaptation for a range of residents as new ones move in later in the building’s lifespan.
 Just as in urban Japan, architectural theorist Geoff Manaugh asserts that the increased 
densification of Los Angeles has brought about a psychological change in the residents of the city.  As 
the city becomes denser the resulting loss of its void space will have an impact on the way individuals 
perceive it.37  Although Los Angeles is quantitatively the densest urban region in the country, it is often 
perceived to be one of the least dense.  As urban researcher Vicky Cheng argues, the perception of density 
in relation between the individual and their environment is often more important than actual density.38  
This may explain why, in a city like Los Angeles, any perceptible increase in visual density is subject to 
strong backlash from residents.  The city has long been known for its sprawling urban form, one defined 
by the individual single-family house.  Architect Sylvia Lavin writes that “particularly in the United States 
and more particularly in Southern California, the single-family house is a machine which is leaving 
tracks of tremendous consequence” and its prevalence “attests to the persistent quest for individualized 
and isolated interiority.”39 (fig. 15)  It is this quest for individuality that has created the particular 
fragmented urbanism of the city, and which highlights the importance of adapting higher-density urban 
growth in a form specific to Los Angeles, rather than directly importing the strategies used in other cities.
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case studies
 The analysis of case studies for this thesis investigation begins with the ubiquitous single family 
house on an individual lot.  A goal of this thesis, however, is to adapt this archetype and suggest how it 
may change in the city’s future.  Only one of the precedents analyzed for this thesis project is located in 
Los Angeles, and it is unique within the city as it is a local adaptation of a Japanese urban building type.  
The density of Japanese cities like Tokyo in contrast with the horizontality of the Southern California 
conurbation represent two extremes of urban form.  Yet, as cities like Los Angeles continue to increase 
in population, adapting architectural solutions from denser cities is a potential solution for continual 
growth in increasingly limited space.  The precedents discussed below represent two very different scales 
of architecture—the single-family home and the residential tower—but each represents quite radical 
positions toward the use of urban space.
____________________
atelier bow wow, tower machiya, tokyo, 2010
 Tower Machiya is a four-story house in Tokyo, only slightly wider than a single car garage.  (fig. 
17)  Surrounded by buildings on three sides, much of the daylight in the house comes from the front 
facade as well as lightwells in the roof.  Due to its compact size, spaces within the house are arranged 
in a continuous sequence, with the staircase weaving directly through the levels without any additional 
circulation space.    A highly visible part of the building, the staircase is also used to shape and express 
the adjacent spaces, while the structure is expressed along the edges of the house to keep as much of the 
interior space open.  The progression through the building ends on the top level with a tea room acting 
as the most important social space within the home.  The spare use of materials—white steel and light-
colored wood—adds to the feeling of spaciousness in the house and allows for light to reflect off of its 
interior surfaces.  Despite the lack of space in the narrow house, which measures only 15 feet across, each 
fig. 17 Atelier Bow Wow, Tower Machiya, Tokyo, 2010.
fig. 18 Anonymous Architects, Eels Nest, Los Angeles, 2012.
041040
fig. 19 OMA, Nexus World Housing, Fukuoka, 1991.
floor has a balcony measuring roughly 1.5 feet, allowing for plants to become part of the facade between 
the steel outer structure of the house and the front wall.  Tower Machiya is notable as a contemporary 
vertical adaptation of a traditionally horizontal building form.
____________________
anonymous architects, eels nest, los angeles, 2012
 Situated on a fifteen-foot-wide lot, this compact live-work house in Los Angeles takes its name 
from the narrow lots common in Japan’s cities.40 (fig. 18)  The lot measures 780 square feet, while the the 
total area of the house is 960 square feet.  Located on residential street in the Echo Park neighborhood, 
the house is arranged over three stories, the addition of the top story permitted through a zoning 
exemption.41  Unlike many of Tokyo’s narrow houses, Eels Nest does not have buildings immediately 
surrounding it (Fig. 13).  Nevertheless, its two side walls are solid in anticipation of future development, 
so its primary sources of natural light are from its front and rear façades.   The ground level of the house 
includes only a single-car garage and a staircase up to the main house.  Inside, the staircase is comprised 
of floating treads between the main levels of the house, allowing the space to serve as a lightwell.  
Extending only a story higher than surrounding homes, the stacked vertical form allows for a panorama 
view not typically available in low-rise housing.  The shift in perspective from the typical ground level 
lawn to elevated garden is a positive aspect that vertical housing can bring to Los Angeles residents at a 
more widespread scale as vertical dwellings become more common throughout the region.
____________________
oma, nexus world housing, fukuoka, 1991
 This Japanese housing project is conceived as twenty-four individual houses, located immediately 
next to each other and separated by party walls. (fig. 19)  Each unit is three stories high, with a central 
private courtyard that provides the entire unit with daylight.42  The outdoor space for each unit, despite 
being located adjacent to other units, is completely private.  The interior of each unit flows out seamlessly 
043042
into this exterior space.  The building is an experiment in providing privacy amid density.  “Each house 
offers a variety of spatial conditions and tectonic contrasts: enclosed vs. exploding, intimate vs. open, 
public vs. private, high vs. low, dark vs. light, concrete vs. abstract.”43
____________________
herzog & de meuron, beirut terraces, beirut, 2016
 Located along the same latitude as Los Angeles—34°N—Beirut Terraces in Lebanon is notable 
for providing an indoor-outdoor lifestyle within a tower typology. (fig. 20)  The building has 132 units 
across 26 floors, and each unit has direct access to large outdoor terraces.44  The use of glass walls around 
the units emphasizes this relationship between indoor and outdoor.  Although each floor plate varies in 
dimension and shape, the structural grid is consistent and expressed across the shifting floor plates on 
the exterior.45  The scale of Beirut Terraces would be noticeably out of context within much of the Los 
Angeles cityscape.  However, the way the building responds to its particular climate and to the needs of 
its residents is applicable as adapted to the context of Southern California.
fig. 20 Herzog & de Meuron, Beirut Terraces, 2016.
045044
What is the new identity for a city whose entire life has been 
marked by its ability and desire to endlessly expand?46
—Michael Maltzan
 While arguing for the use of the voids in LA, this thesis also seeks to maintain this quality of 
space that makes the city unique.  These two goals may seem contradictory; however the intensifying 
growth of the city means changes in its character are inevitable.  This study takes the position that role 
of architecture lies in finding a way to mediate between the two directions of densifications – in the 
horizontal and the vertical dimensions.  Central to this intention is taking advantage of the potential of 
underused spatial voids in the city by transforming them into usable inhabitable spaces.
 The initial site for this thesis is quite broad—the entire city of Los Angeles itself. so the first step 
fig. 21 View from Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, 2016.
three
city of voids
047046
fig. 22 Vacant lots, parking lots, and roads in Los Angeles county.  City of Los Angeles highlighted.
049048
in analysis required narrowing the field down to a particular neighborhood.  In terms of neighborhood 
selection, nearly any part of the city could have been chosen for closer analysis, as a variety of void 
space conditions exist throughout the somewhat homogeneously organized city. (fig. 24)  The objective 
was to identify not one site, but rather several site types throughout Los Angeles, so that these designs 
could then be adapted as appropriate .  The site types identified in this thesis are concentrated along 
the transportation infrastructure that strongly informs the experience of Los Angeles.  These bands of 
development offer a more flexible and varied context for interspersed housing, particularly as compared 
to introducing a new building form into a single family residential neighborhood.  Placing residential 
buildings in these areas presents the additional challenge of insulating the private residence from its 
surroundings.  Historically in horizontal cities like Los Angeles, this has been done through zoning, 
situating housing away from all other uses.  Yet, as Lavin asserts, “even if physically and psychically 
removed from other human beings and their shelters, the interiority of a private retreat inevitably reaches 
a point where it confronts the public realm.”47  In a typical Los Angeles neighborhood, the side, front, 
and backyards at the ground level act as buffers surrounding and protecting the privacy of the house’s 
residents.  In a more vertical arrangement, this thesis explores how buildings can maintain this individual 
sense of privacy.
______________________________________
site types
 In defining the void as it exists in Los Angeles, three primary functional categories emerged: the 
vacant lot, the parking lot, and the road network itself. (fig. 22)  All are defined by their relationship with 
their immediate surroundings, predominantly the street from which the expanse of the city is typically 
experienced.  (fig. 23)  The proposed architectural interventions thus respond directly to the surrounding 
context of each site.  Each site typology results in a particular building type, replicable throughout the 
city, county, and perhaps beyond.  For the purposes of this design project, height and zoning limits are 
not primary factors in the design.  Instead, the buildings are intended to stand out as markers of a new 
fig. 23 Infrastructural void typologies.
housing typology and a new layer of growth.  This thesis assumes a future Los Angeles in which the city’s 
transit network, under current development, and parking minimums have been lifted.
 The goal of this thesis is not necessarily to maximize quantitative housing density, but rather to 
make more efficient use of land and thereby potentially increase the perception of density in a growing 
metropolis.  Given that the expanse of Los Angeles bears a relatively homogenous distribution, this thesis 
proposal similarly calls for the dispersal of new housing forms throughout the city in existing lots.  This is 
in contrast with more traditional urban form which concentrates new growth along particular nodes and 
corridors.  In this thesis proposal, growth would be dispersed throughout virtually all parts of the region 
where space allows.
051050
City of Los Angeles
8,283 people/sq mi
7,000 people/sq mi
Greater Los Angeles
1 3 5 10 mi
fig. 24 Density sampling, Greater Los Angeles.
053052
While the city may become hyper-vertical like Manhattan, how can the transformation of 
Los Angeles occur on its own terms?49
—Kazys Varnelis
 The void is a generic spatial quality.  Given the dispersed character of Los Angeles, the three 
sites studied in the design exploration are separated by nearly twenty miles. (fig. 26)  The interventions 
take three distinct neighborhoods and analyze their urban form, identifying voids with potential for 
incorporating dense forms of housing.   The three selected for analysis are Venice, Koreatown, and 
Downtown, chosen for their diversity of density and form, representative of other areas in the city. (fig. 
27)  Although each typology is transferable to similar voids in other areas, for simplicity of comparison 
each is specific to each neighborhood in this analysis. The intent of these designs as typologies lends each 
specific site adaptability, so that each will not necessarily have the same layout, materials, or character.  
fig. 25   Concept design of unit interior.
four
typologies
055054
fig. 26   Study neighborhoods, from west to east: Venice, Koreatown, and Downtown.
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venice
fig. 27 Study neighborhoods with voids and sites, one square mile each.
koreatown downtown
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venice
fig. 28 Three void sites.
koreatown downtown
061060
______________________________________
venice
void: the road
 Founded as a beachside resort town, Venice is walkable compared with much of the city.  Four of 
its most well-known strips are dominated by pedestrians: the beachside boardwalk, retail corridor Abbot 
Kinney, the eponymous canal streets, and pedestrian-only walk streets.  These set it apart in some ways 
from the city, but like the rest of Los Angeles, the car is still dominant.   Across the county, millions of 
miles are driven daily on roads that take up a combined 140 square miles.50   Specifically within Venice, 
there has been a rapid influx in housing prices that has made longtime residents subject to displacement.  
The neighborhood has undergone drastic gentrification to become one of the most desirable areas in 
the city.51  As of 2016, Venice had the highest median rents in the city, with a two-bedroom apartment 
costing $5,200 per month on average.52  This increase has come as the result of several forces in recent 
years.  Tech companies Google and Snap Inc. have opened offices in the neighborhood, leasing much of 
the available space since 2011.53  The sharing economy has also had a major impact on available housing 
stock, with the highest concentration of Airbnb units in the city found in Venice.54
 The urban layout of Venice, situated along the western edge of the city, responds to multiple 
street grids, resulting in a complex network of roads crisscrossing to form a fragmented, triangular 
neighborhood. (fig. 27)  The grain of the neighborhood is small, yet the dominance of the car remains 
apparent in the width and character of the streets themselves. (fig. 30)  Within these roads, there exists 
the potential for building forms with minimal building footprints, added unobtrusively without altering 
transportation flow.  Focusing specifically on places where two conflicting street grids come together and 
the resulting residual spaces within the intersection, the buildings proposed are islands in the road on 
their own blocks. (fig. 29)  Inspired in part by the character of dense, small-footprint housing in more 
saturated cities like Tokyo, these interventions adapted for Los Angeles are distinct in that rather than 
fig. 29 Building typology overview, Venice.
063062
fig. 30 Venice site along Abbot Kinney Boulevard.
being squeezed in between buildings, they stand out visually as markers of density.
 The particular site chosen as a test for this typology is located within the intersection of Abbot 
Kinney Boulevard and Washington Way.  It is currently defined by a series of painted lines marking the 
separation between the two roads leaving a triangular void that measuring 2200 square feet (fig. 28).  
Rather than extrude the full volume of the lot to maximize square footage, the building gains some relief 
from its context through the addition of sidewalks along each face of the building, further reducing the 
footprint to just 680 square feet.  While this is only slightly larger than the minimum lot size defined by 
the city, the lot is a reinterpretation of a non-site rather than the typical redistribution of the lot.  As the 
street currently lacks any defined ways of crossing, the addition of a building not only adds to the amount 
of housing in the neighborhood, but strongly contributes to defining the streetscape.
 The site lies at the nexus of a busy commercial and light industrial corridor and a typically dense 
residential street.  At seven stories, the height of the building is intentionally taller than its surroundings, 
allowing it to act as a marker of place in an otherwise undefined urban landscape relatively homogenous 
in form. (fig. 32)  Ultimately, the height of the building is less important than the dimensions and 
placement of the space in plan—a one- or two-story building that more precisely “fits” into its context 
might address the void just as well, however for the purposes of this exploration the element of height 
beyond that allowed is a reflection of future density and its relationship to the growing city.
 At the ground level, an entry is carved out of the center, allowing for parking on one side and 
storage on the other. (fig. 31)  Although parking within the assumptions of this thesis is not critical, 
its inclusion highlights the scale of the lot on the ground plan.  The sharp corner of the building is 
chamfered at ground level, with the edge overhanging above. 
 Programmatically, the building’s section shows its seven levels divided between three two-
story loft units, with a ground floor storage and entry and an accessible rooftop. (fig. 35)  Making each 
unit multi-story enables the activation of the challenging acute corner on the building’s eastern end.  
Internally, this space is the stair landing for each unit’s vertical circulation. (fig. 34)  Circulation within 
the building is minimized to a single compact bar which includes an elevator, stairwell, and hallway.
 Within each unit, building opens up entirely to a generous west-facing patio, blurring the 
boundary between inside and outside when desired.  Given the compact site, this glazed wall lets in a 
substantial amount of light to the entire unit, while also being shaded by the patio of the unit above.  
The other faces of the building are more opaque, with only narrow apertures.  As the north side of the 
building is alongside a busy arterial, Abbot Kinney Boulevard, the building is somewhat shielded from 
noise by placing the building circulation along this side.  The building’s sharpest point is also made up of 
windows, lessening the severity of the architectural expression and allowing for a cross-breeze. (fig. 33)
 Given the untapped value of these tiny scraps of land, it is easy to imagine how much potential 
lies spaces such as these.  While these sorts of sites are limited to neighborhoods with a particular shift in 
grids, the impact of questioning the amount of land devoted to transportation infrastructure is perhaps 
of even greater importance.  How much more usable public space or how much housing could be 
accommodated if parts of the street began to be taken over by other uses?
065064
Abbot Kinney Bl
Vi
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Mildred Ave
fig. 31 Site plan, Venice.
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fig. 32 Exterior perspective, Venice.
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fig. 33   Interior perspective, Venice. fig. 34 Typical plans, Venice.
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fig. 35 Section, Venice.
073072
______________________________________
koreatown
void: the parking lot
 With 42,611 people per square mile—over four times the city’s average—Koreatown is the 
densest neighborhood in Los Angeles.55  The neighborhood is atypical in terms of the city’s overall 
urban form.  Unlike vast expanses of Southern California, much of the density in the neighborhood is 
accommodated by multi-unit apartment buildings rather than single-family homes.  Visually, the area 
conveys this density, with tall buildings framing Wilshire Boulevard as it cuts through the neighborhood.  
By some accounts, this thoroughfare is the most conventionally urban portion of the city.56  With an 
average building height of 80 feet, dwarfing the average of 18 feet citywide,57 the peculiarity of this strip 
is visible from vantage points across the expanse of the city.   Experientially, the neighborhood is abuzz at 
all hours, with a high concentration of restaurants, entertainment venues, and other commercial uses.
 Yet, despite all these singularities, the neighborhood is conventional in at least one regard with its 
treatment of parking.  Despite being well-served by transit—with 100% coverage in the neighborhood—
and sited along the city’s only subterranean transit line,  parking minimums along the strip which 
includes Koreatown are in line with the rest of the city.  Each housing unit requires two parking spots on 
average,58 the same as any further outlying portion of the city.  While much of this is located underground 
or in podiums in places like Koreatown, a substantial portion is in surface lots.  This is the paradox of 
density and urban form: the denser the area, the more density of parking is required, keeping even the 
urban core of Los Angeles from feeling built out.
 While many cities have some parking minimums in place, the amount required by Los Angeles 
is more in line with that of American edge cities.59  If the city is to continue to grow in population while 
also encouraging alternative transportation as its rail networks expand, there should be an associated 
reduction in parking minimums across the city in order to encourage their use.  The expectation of easily 
fig. 36 Building typology overview, Koreatown.
075074
fig. 37 Koreatown site along South Harvard Boulevard.
finding convenient free parking has already diminished in many of urban neighborhoods, which has led 
to the success of ride sharing services.  The possibility of transportation automation in the future suggests 
that less space will be needed for parking.  The city is currently considering the impact of technology on 
existing transportation infrastructure and requirements.60
 For the sites identified in Koreatown, the voids selected are focused on surface parking lots, and 
more specifically on individual strips of parking. (fig. 27)  This thesis makes the case that the character 
of the city should be maintained insofar as possible while still allowing for growth.  This character will 
always include significant automobile infrastructure.  Rather than replacing most or all parking with infill 
units, then, the buildings added are specific points of urban acupuncture, leaving most of the parking 
intact.  This proposal extrudes the full volume of the selected void as tall towers to display the potential of 
each remaining row of parking.
 The design proposal for Koreatown, in addressing the issues of excess parking and adding 
additional density to an already-dense neighborhood, is to replace single strips of parking within surface 
lots with narrow, tall buildings. (fig. 36)  While there are plenty of parking lots that potentially could 
allow development, the interventions in this thesis proposal are focused on narrower lots, leaving larger 
ones for other kinds of development or remaining as parking as necessary.  The site plan highlights the 
proliferation of parking on the block which is typical for the area. (fig. 38)
 The specific site is a single strip of parking in a private lot on South Harvard Boulevard between 
West Sixth and Fifth Streets. (fig. 28)  The site leaves the adjacent strip of parking and the rest of the 
lot intact, emphasizing the narrowness of the site.  It measures 18’ wide, exactly the length of a typical 
parking space.
 The narrow towers proposed add a visual point of reference for this new layer of density. (fig. 
39)  The neighborhood currently has a broad mix of building forms, ranging from boxy office towers 
to smaller apartment buildings.  The introduction of a new, narrow typology stands in stark formal 
contrast with both of these.  Like in the road typology, the height of the building is less important than 
its width.  Rather, the overall form of the typology highlights the maximum potential of the site’s modest 
dimensions.
 Given the compression of the site, the ground level is relatively sparse and adaptable to other 
buildings with similar contexts. (fig. 38)  It includes a small covered entry with a lobby and storage.  The 
main purpose of this level is as an access point to the center of the building, where vertical circulation in 
the form of an unconditioned stairwell and elevators carved into one of the unit stacks provide access to 
the tower.  The building is conceptualized as a series of stacked houses. Each unit is two stories and a shift 
in the center of the building allows for each level to have access to only one unit. (fig. 41)  On the first 
level of each unit, a combined living room and kitchen space opens up entirely to an outdoor area by way 
of doors that swivel to one side, opening up to panoramic views of the horizontal city that are otherwise 
inaccessible.  In the distance, other similar buildings of the same typology on former parking strips are 
visible. (fig. 40)  As space in the city becomes increasingly scarce and valuable, towers piercing the sky 
become commonplace buildings: another ordinary part of the complex urban fabric.
077076
S
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B
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fig. 38 Site plan, Koreatown.
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fig. 39 Exterior perspective, Koreatown.
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fig. 40 Interior perspective, Koreatown. fig. 41 Typical plans, Koreatown.
083082
fig. 42 Section, Koreatown (detail).
085084
______________________________________
downtown
void: the vacant lot
 Perhaps more than any other built form, the freeway stands as a monument of Los Angeles.  
Serving both as a connector and separator of neighborhoods, the massiveness of highway infrastructure 
crisscrossing the urban core is a reminder of the city’s expansiveness.  Banham asserts that “the fact that 
these parking lots, freeways, drive-ins, and other facilities have not wrecked the city-form is due chiefly 
to the fact that Los Angeles has no urban form at all in the commonly accepted sense.61  Abutting nearly 
all 527 miles of highway in Los Angeles62 are vacant lots that serve as transitional spaces between the 
freeway and the street.  For this design exploration, the focus in on these leftover infrastructural pieces of 
land.
 Although Los Angeles has a downtown, it is atypical in the sense that its density is actually quite 
low, at just over half of the city’s overall average.63  Given the city’s scale, it also represents a miniscule 
portion of the overall population and physical size rather than a true center: “its relationship to the other 
parts of the metropolis never carried the sense of moral and municipal hegemony that normally exists 
between a central city and its satellite suburbs.”64  Despite this, it still functions as a significant job center: 
the neighborhood’s daytime population increases from approximately 30,000 residents to over 200,00065 
office workers present from 9 to 5.  Just as the neighborhood of Koreatown is typified by residential 
parking minimums, these requirements apply to offices as well,66 which in Downtown heavily skew the 
availability of parking upward.  
 For the purposes of this design exploration, the site avoids the physically denser urban core of the 
neighborhood typically considered to be the extent of the neighborhood, focusing instead on the more 
industrial area immediately east of the Downtown core (fig. 27).  The area is highway-dominated and 
characterized by large parking and vacant lots.  The site lies north of an expansive warehouse area that 
fig. 43 Building typology overview, Downtown.
087086
fig. 44 Downtown site along Commercial Street.
has become increasingly occupied by artists and commercial spaces known as the Arts District.
 The site in particular is irregularly shaped and bounded on the north by a US-101 offramp and 
on the south by Commercial Street, with variable dimensions and measuring roughly 100 feet by 650 feet. 
(fig. 45)  The scale of the site is expansive.  The highway itself is slightly sunken relative to the location of 
the site, creating the experience of an urban canyon looking across to the other side.  Across the highway 
lies Union Station, the city’s central train depot.  To the immediate northwest of the site, a rail overpass 
separates the site from a steeper embankment down to the highway level. (fig. 44)  Given the extreme 
conditions of the site, particularly to the north, the building itself forms a wall to the highway on one 
side, with units opening up onto the street.  The design is conceived as a horizontal module of five units 
and a circulation core, repeating as allowed by the dimensions of the site.  In this case, five modules are 
allowed by the site dimensions.  Repeating the dimensions set by the parking lot typology, each structural 
bay within the module for each unit measures 18’ wide.
 On both sides of the building, the architecture creates a set linear rhythm as one moves along 
either the highway or the street. (fig. 46)  The lower level of the highway reduces noise for the site, as does 
turning the building away from this side.  As in the previous two typologies, the first level of each unit 
opens up completely to the exterior. (fig. 48)  Defined by the rigor of the structure, fin walls defining each 
bay form the external spaces of the units.  These delineate the units and provide privacy from adjacent 
neighbors. (fig. 47)  At the ground level, live-work units mediate between the industrial and commercial 
context, lifting the residential units off the ground plane and forming an extended pedestrian corridor of 
shops and studio spaces along the street.
 While the road and parking lot typologies are defined by a vertical rigor extruded from an 
impossibly small, narrow site, the vacant lots abutting the highway in this typology are long and 
amorphous.  Taking this into consideration, the sizes of the units vary within each bay, creating a rhythm 
along the façade as one zooms past on the street side.  Expressing the nascent verticality of the rest of the 
city, the units range from single-story studios to larger two- and three-story units, some with additional 
ground floor work spaces. Unlike the previous two typologies in which the site directly dictates the shape 
and form of the building, this typology is less fixed.  It instead asks for a closer look at these throwaway, 
transitional spaces.  How can these impossible sites, dominated by massive infrastructure, become sites 
for home?  On another level, this site, the harshest of the three explored within these typologies, serves to 
strengthen the previous two.  Is there a need to house people on such inhospitable sites when there is so 
much remnant void space elsewhere?
______________________________________
 Taken together, the three buildings in Venice, Koreatown, and Downtown are singular 
adaptations of a citywide proposal for a the city’s future, offering adaptable, repeatable typologies for 
increasing density in leftover spaces, in these discrete neighborhoods and beyond. (fig. 50)  Each is 
intended as a module to be sited selectively where the void exists.
089088
US 101
Metro
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Line
Commercial St
US 101 
N
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fig. 45 Site plan, Downtown.
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fig. 46 Exterior perspective, Downtown.
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fig. 47 Interior perspective, Downtown. fig. 48 Typical plans, Downtown (detail).
095094
fig. 49 Section, Downtown.
097096
fig. 50 Series of typology interventions in Venice, Koreatown, and Downtown.
099098
What is the new identity for a city whose entire life has been marked by its ability and 
desire to endlessly expand?67
—Michael Maltzan
 The next level of urbanization of Los Angeles depends, in large part, on a change in the ethos of 
the city.  At the municipal level, these changes are already occurring.  Small lot housing is increasingly 
encouraged; the city’s rail lines are rapidly expanding; a new wave of development is revitalizing 
neighborhoods throughout the city, in many cases replacing older buildings.  While these are all signs 
of any vibrant, growing city, this thesis responds to the context of Los Angeles in a more localized way, 
exploring how architecture can respond with new typologies that add to and respond specifically to their 
context without replacing it.  How can denser typologies be incorporated within the urban fabric in a way 
fig. 51 I-105/I-110 Interchange, Los Angeles, 2014.
five
conclusion
101100
that respects and even amplifies the unique spatial character of the city?
 The framework for this thesis largely focused on the qualitative aspects of space in the 
contemporary megacity.  Quantitatively, the fact that the Los Angeles area is the densest in the country,68 
but is not perceived as such, is one of the experiential aspects of density that allows it to often go 
unnoticed.  Yet, cities like Los Angeles are strongly influenced by residents who oppose new construction, 
attesting to the fact that increased levels of density deviating from what is considered ‘normal’ is not 
widely favored.  This thesis proposes that architecture can play a role in making density acceptable and 
perhaps even desirable by hiding it in plain sight along major corridors and on overlooked vacant lots 
that would otherwise have little positive impact on the overall experience of the city.
 The enormous scale of Los Angeles is both a challenge and an opportunity.  As architect Michael 
Maltzan observes, “threatening to render any individual gesture meaningless in the overall scheme of 
things, the scale of LA can overwhelm us into inaction and apathy.”69  The interventions proposed in this 
thesis, even if replicated throughout the city, would likely do little to undermine the popular image of 
Los Angeles as a city of voids, built for and around the car.  Precisely for these reasons—the immensity 
of the city and the relatively small scale of the interventions—the city can act as an incubator for urban 
experimentation, accommodating growth while also maintaining the status quo.  With so much space 
that is still unfilled, Los Angeles has the potential to be a testing ground for all kinds of urban growth, just 
as it has been a vibrant testing ground for idiosyncratic architectural expression.  Looking into the future 
as the city continues to expand its transit network and ride sharing and automation become increasingly 
prevalent, the possibility of valuable urban space becoming available for other uses—housing or parks, 
for instance—becomes stronger.
 Although the framework for this thesis suggests a radical shift in the way people live in the city, 
it is beyond the purview of an architectural thesis to completely reshape an entire population’s way of 
life.  The scope of this thesis is ultimately far more internalized, representing a fundamental rethinking 
of space in what artist David Hockney believed is “the most spacey city in the world.”70  The proposed 
housing projects represent just one solution to the growth predicted for the city’s future, but each 
individual home with its own internalized space has an immense collective impact on the way the city is 
perceived.  The intent is to respect the condition of voids within Los Angeles, and to acknowledge that 
growth will continue.  This quality of space aptly defined by Hockney is arguably what makes the city 
unique, setting it apart from the more compact, walkable cities more typically revered by designers of 
the built environment.  While improving mobility and increasing the efficiency of the city can be a valid 
approach in the design of the traditional centric city, the growth of Los Angeles calls for a more organic, 
flexible approach.
 Although this thesis focused foremost on one particular city, the underlying goal of this thesis is 
a fundamental rethinking of urban space in general and calls for a greater appreciation of its significance.  
Keeping as much existing context as possible while rediscovering, reinterpreting, and reimagining 
forgotten and unused spaces is the ultimate goal of this exploration.
103102
fig. 52 Infrastructure, Home, and the Void.
105104
etc.
______________________________________
figures
All images by author unless otherwise noted.
fig. 01 Palm tree, Venice, 2017 (cover).
fig. 02 Elizabeth Iannone, I-110 & I-105 Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles (abstract). 
fig. 03    Sean Lipowski, View from Koreatown, Los Angeles, 2009 (preface).
fig. 04 City of Voids. Includes work by David Hockney, Vincent Lamoroux (photograph by Jeroen   
 Verrecht), Ed Ruscha, and Kerry Tribe (photograph by Gerard Smulevich).
one welcome to los angeles
fig. 05 Dennis Hopper, Double Standard, 1961 (detail).
fig. 06 Bryan Allo, Downtown Los Angeles in context.
two framework
fig. 07 Vincent Lamoroux, Projection, 2015 (installation view).
fig. 08   VideoBlocks, Los Angeles skyline.
fig. 09 Los Angeles Metropolitan Statistical Area Population. US Census (1890-2010) + Global Cities  
  Insitute (2025-2100).  Satellite view of a portion of Greater Los Angeles (NASA).
fig. 10 Jason Arnold, Wilshire Boulevard, 2007.
fig. 11   Michael Light, from Los Angeles 2016, 2016.
fig. 12 Ed Ruscha, Pacific Coast Highway, 1974 (detail).
fig. 13 Ed Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1971 (detail).
fig. 14 Development potential under traditional lot planning versus small lot subdivision ordinance.
fig. 15 Pierre Koenig, Stahl House, Los Angeles, 1959.  Photograph by Julius Shulman.
fig. 16 David Hockney, A Bigger Splash,1967.
fig. 17 Atelier Bow Wow, Tower Machiya, Tokyo, 2010.
fig. 18 Anonymous Architects, Eels Nest, Los Angeles, 2012.
fig. 19 OMA, Nexus World Housing, Fukuoka, 1991.
fig. 20 Herzog & de Meuron, Beirut Terraces, 2016.
three city of voids
fig. 21 View from Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, 2016.
fig. 22 Vacant lots, parking lots, and roads in Los Angeles county.  City of Los Angeles highlighted.
fig. 23 Infrastructural void typologies.
fig. 24 Density sampling, Greater Los Angeles.
four typologies
fig. 25   Concept design of unit interior.
fig. 26   Study neighborhoods, from west to east: Venice, Koreatown, and Downtown.
fig. 27 Study neighborhoods with voids and sites, one square mile each.
fig. 28 Three void sites.
fig. 29 Building typology overview, Venice.
fig. 30 Venice site along Abbot Kinney Boulevard.
fig. 31 Site plan, Venice.
fig. 32 Exterior perspective, Venice.
fig. 33   Interior perspective, Venice.
fig. 34 Typical plans, Venice.
fig. 35 Section, Venice.
fig. 36 Building typology overview, Koreatown.
fig. 37 Koreatown site along South Harvard Boulevard.
fig. 38 Site plan, Koreatown.
fig. 39 Exterior perspective, Koreatown.
fig. 40 Interior perspective, Koreatown.
fig. 41 Typical plans, Koreatown.
fig. 42 Section, Koreatown (detail).
fig. 43 Building typology overview, Downtown.
fig. 44 Downtown site along Commercial Street.
fig. 45 Site plan, Downtown.
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fig. 46 Exterior perspective, Downtown.
fig. 47 Interior perspective, Downtown.
fig. 48 Typical plans, Downtown (detail).
fig. 49 Section, Downtown.
fig. 50 Series of typology interventions in Venice, Koreatown, and Downtown.
five conclusion
fig. 51 I-105/I-110 Interchange, Los Angeles, 2014.
fig. 52 Infrastructure, Home, and the Void. ______________________________________
endnotes
one welcome to los angeles
01. David Hockney, in conversation with Lawrence Weschler. David Hockney: Looking at Landscape/  
 Being in Landscape. Los Angeles: LA Louver, 1998. 10.
two framework
02. House, Christian. “Carlos Ruiz Zafón: ‘I’m Haunted by the History of My City’.” The Independent, 
 23 June 2012. Web. 14 December 2017.
03. Luciano Basauri and Francisca Insulza. “Wanting Spaces: A Study of LA’s Unplanned Voids.”   
 Hunch: The Berlage Institute Report. Vol. 1. 1999. 24.
04. Ibid.
05. David Hockney. David Hockney: Looking at Landscape/Being in Landscape. Los Angeles: LA   
 Louver, 1998. 10.
06. Kazys Varnelis. The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles. Barcelona: Actar,  
 2009. 132.
07. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 213.
08. Luciano Basauri and Francisca Insulza. “Wanting Spaces: A Study of LA’s Unplanned Voids.”   
 Hunch: The Berlage Institute Report. Vol. 1. 1999. 24.
09. Robert Bruegmann. Sprawl: A Compact History. Chicago; London: U of Chicago, 2006. 65.
10. Ibid.
11. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 201.
12. Ibid., 141.
109108
13. Luciano Basauri and Francisca Insulza. “Wanting Spaces: A Study of LA’s Unplanned Voids.”   
 Hunch: The Berlage Institute Report. Vol. 1. 1999. 25.
14. Ibid.
15. Roger Sherman, ed. Re: American Dream: Six Urban Housing Prototypes from Los Angeles.   
 Princeton: Princeton Architectural, 1995. 26.
16. Weschler, Lawrence. “Michael Light in Conversation with Lawrence Weschler.” The Believer, 1   
 November 2010. Web. 14 December 2017.
17. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 238.
18. Pacific Standard Time. “Double Standard, Dennis Hopper.” Getty. n.d. Web. 14 December 2017.
19. Luciano Basauri and Francisca Insulza. “Wanting Spaces: A Study of LA’s Unplanned Voids.”   
 Hunch: The Berlage Institute Report. Vol. 1. 1999. 24.
20. Ken D. Allan. “Ed Ruscha, Pop Art, and Spectatorship in 1960s Los Angeles.” The Art Bulletin,   
 92:3. 2010. 231.
21. Weschler, Lawrence. “Michael Light in Conversation with Lawrence Weschler.” The Believer, 1   
 November 2010. Web. 14 December 2017.
22. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los   
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 111.
23. Roger Sherman, ed. Re: American Dream: Six Urban Housing Prototypes from Los Angeles.   
 Princeton: Princeton Architectural, 1995. 26.
24. Sam Hall Kaplan. L.A. Follies: Design and Other Diversions in a Fractured Metropolis. Santa   
 Monica: Cityscape, 1989. 35.
25. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 138.
26. Ibid.,139.
27. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los   
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 43.
28. Kazys Varnelis. The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles. Barcelona: Actar,   
 2009. 161-2.
29. Los Angeles Metro. “Purple Line Extension.” n.d. Web. 10 April 2017.
30. City of Los Angeles.  “Small Lot Design Guidelines.”  January 2014.
31. Andrew Khouri. Los Angeles Times. “In urban L.A., developers are building trendy homes on   
 tiny lots.” 13 July 2013. Web. 1 May 2017.
32. Alice Walton. Los Angeles Times. “This L.A. artist is taking a stand against small-lot    
 development, one bunch of balloons at a time.” 25 March 2016. Web. 1 May 2017.
33. Christiaan Fruneaux and Edwin Gardner. Tokyo Totem: A Guide to Tokyo. Tokyo: Flick Studio,   
 2015. 205.
34. Ibid., 206.
35. Catheljine Nuijsink. How to Make a Japanese House. Rotterdam: nai010 publishers, 2015. 26.
36. Ibid.
37. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los   
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 111-112.
38. Vicky Cheng. “Understanding Density and High Density.” Designing High-density Cities for   
 Social and Environmental Sustainability. Edward Ng, ed. Earthscan 2009. 12.
39. Sylvia Lavin. “Order in the House.” Roger Sherman, ed. Re: American Dream: Six Urban Housing   
 Prototypes from Los Angeles. Princeton: Princeton Architectural, 1995.  11.
40. Anonymous Architects. “Eels Nest.” n.d., Web. 2 May 2017.
41. Ibid.
42. OMA, Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau. S, M, L, XL. New York: Monacelli Press, 1995. 113.
43. Ibid.
44. Herzog & de Meuron. “Beirut Terraces.” n.d., Web. 2 May 2017.
45. Ibid.
three city of voids
46. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los   
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 43.
47. Sylvia Lavin. “Order in the House.” Roger Sherman, ed. Re: American Dream: Six Urban Housing   
 Prototypes from Los Angeles. Princeton: Princeton Architectural, 1995. 11.
48. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 141.
four typologies
49. Kazys Varnelis. The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles. Barcelona: Actar,  
 2009.
50. Mikhail Chester, et al. “Parking Infrastructure: A Constraint on or Opportunity for Urban  
 Redevelopment?” Journal of the American Planning Association. 81.4. 2015. 274.
51. Aron Hillel. “How Venice Became the Most Expensive Neighborhood in Los Angeles.” LA  
 Weekly. 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 18 May 2017.
52. Dennis Romero. “Los Angeles Has a New High Rent Champion.” LA Weekly. 6 Sept. 2016. Web.  
 6 May 2017.
53. Aron Hillel. “How Venice Became the Most Expensive Neighborhood in Los Angeles.” LA  
 Weekly. 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 18 May 2017.
111110
54. Ibid.
55. “Population Density.” Los Angeles Times. n.d., Web. 14 December 2017.
56. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 87.
57. NOW Institute. Thom Mayne, ed. “99% Preservation, 1% Densification: A case for 2050 through  
 a denser, more connected Los Angeles” 2016. 
58. City of Los Angeles. “Summary of Parking Regulations.” September 2002. Web. 1 May 2017.
59. Sightline Institute “Living Space vs. Parking Space.” n.d. Web. 2 May 2017.
60. Ashley Hand. “Urban Mobility in a Digital Age: A Transportation Technology Strategy for Los  
 Angeles. City of Los Angeles.  August 2016. Web. 22 May 2017. iii.
61. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 75.
62. Nathan Masters. “They Moved Mountains (And People) To Build L.A.’s Freeways.” Gizmodo. 17  
 March 2014. Web. 14 December 2017.
63. “Population Density.” Los Angeles Times. n.d., Web. 14 December 2017.
64. Reyner Banham. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. London: Penguin, 1990. 203.
65. “Population Density.” Los Angeles Times. n.d., Web. 14 December 2017.
66. City of Los Angeles. “Summary of Parking Regulations.” September 2002. Web. 1 May 2017.
five conclusion
67. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los  
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 43.
68. Robert Bruegmann. Sprawl: A Compact History. Chicago; London: U of Chicago, 2006. 65.
69. Michael Maltzan, Jessica Varner ed. No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los  
 Angeles and Beyond. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011. 43.
70. David Hockney, in conversation with Lawrence Weschler. David Hockney: Looking at Landscape/ 
  Being in Landscape. Los Angeles: LA Louver, 1998. 10.
______________________________________
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PB