Trailer Parks as Models for Affordable Housing

“Trailer” is to “rural” what “McMansion” is to “suburb.” But in Santa Monica, trailers are being transformed into something decidedly urban.

A well-designed trailer park might seem an oxymoron, but the much-maligned building typology has a lot of potential for an appealing alternative to more conventional low income housing. No surprise to see this happening in the particularly enlightened City of Santa Monica—the work it has done with resource conservation should be a model for any resource-challenged city—which purchased the Mountain View Mobile Home Park to preserve it for affordable housing a decade ago. Los Angeles-based Marmol Radziner Prefab won the contract to transform the park’s aging trailers and mobile homes into stylish and sustainable homes.