Inclusivity on 43rd, After School at 4298

This project is centered around demographic research and focused on providing resources determined to be most valuable to the people of Leimert Park in an affordable, co-op style housing typology. The co-op as a whole focuses on three categories: Food Security, Education, and Shared Resources, that are integrated into my project in the form of accessible free food refrigerators and shared community gardens, on site day care and after school programs for the youth, and access to study spaces and tutoring sessions. Intentionally designing for single parent households and parents with younger children, the project fits the needs of families by providing an inclusive, courtyard housing typology in which each unit’s public living spaces face inward toward the collective structure, but maintain privacy through the separation of private spaces that border the exterior. The units are offset in plan to provide shaded outdoor spaces on the ground floor that remain accessible to all, as well as provide more privatized exterior gathering spaces above the courtyard as a result of these shifts. Steel framing wraps and supports the light wood frame structure of the units, thus allowing the exterior garden spaces to be elevated on the street side of the building with shading screens of vegetation separating the family unit balconies from the public garden. The units are individualized by family, but organized as a collective in that they enable a community of parents who have access to on site child care and children who can find a community of friends in their residency.