Design
In Los Angeles, Density That Doesn't Overwhelm
With their new housing project, Blackbirds, an architect and developer strive for a sensitive way to build up a low-slung city.
When it comes to multifamily housing, Los Angeles offers up plenty of ugly, from ubiquitous mid-century dingbats (boxy stucco buildings with apartments perched over ground-level parking bays) to the widely reviled, city-block-hogging, ersatz villas of developer Geoff Palmer, one of which recently burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances during construction.
But if L.A.-based developer LocalConstruct has its way, the city well known for innovations in single-family homes would build denser housing to be more design-savvy and sensitive to city neighborhoods.