Last week in Metropolis mag, LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne reviewed the latest project from Santa Monica-based architecture firm Koning Eizenberg Architecture (they're responsible for the Hancock Lofts, the Downtown Standard, and the recent exterior reno of the Hollywood Hills Best Western). Their Otis Booth Campus for the Children's Institute, Inc. in Echo Park was finished in March and Hawthorne thinks it belongs to a uniquely Los Angeles school: "Certainly, Koning and Eizenberg's taste for combining frugality and verve in the same project, and for juxtaposing serious architectural ideas with informality and references to Pop Art, flows directly out of a singularly L.A. tradition." Meanwhile, the firm has lots more on tap--there are five projects currently under construction, including two residential projects.
The 28th Street Apartments project is a renovation of Los Angeles Cultural Monument #851, a YMCA building originally designed by architect Paul Williams in 1926. The project will include 49 units of permanent, supportive, low-income housing, a courtyard, and a roof garden, in addition to office space for community groups and a restored gym on the ground floor. They're working with the LA Office of Historic Resources and following the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Rehabilitation. Koning Eizenberg rep Annie Danis told Curbed that the project is expected to be complete in 2013.
Koning Eizenberg worked with Moore Ruble Yudell on The Village in Santa Monica's Civic Center, which includes market-rate and affordable housing, retail, and public space improvements. The project is also expected to be complete in 2013.
Also on the way are the John Adams Middle School upgrade, which includes a "photovoltaic shade canopy" and solar chimneys, the new Pico Branch Library in the Virginia Avenue Park in Santa Monica, and Phase II of Temple Israel of Hollywood, which is will eventually build-out 94,500 sq. ft. of new buildings.
· The Right Touch [Metropolitan]
· Koning Eizenberg Archives [Curbed LA]
· The Village at Santa Monica, Part I: The Affordable Part [Curbed LA]
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