Project Profile – 950 Third East Street, Los Angeles

Located a short distance from downtown is the Arts District of Los Angeles, an artist enclave in what was formerly the industrial center of the City. The 5.6 acre site stretches from E 3rd Street in the North to Traction Avenue in the South, and is directly adjacent to Sci-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture. The 472 live/work development is broken into five distinct buildings over an underground parking structure.

The design is intentionally varied in expression from one end of the site to the other. On 3rd Street the building is reminiscent of the neighboring warehouses with the notable exception of traditional brick being replaced with corrugated corten metal. Facing Sci-Arc on the East, the facade is more sculptural in nature with windows carved into deep recesses of varying dimensions. At the Southern end of the project where the site narrows the project is book-ended with a small guitar-pick shaped building wrapped in zinc shingles. Like the neighborhood itself, the project is intended to be diverse and multi- faced, defying categorization.

Project team:

Architect: Kava Massih Architects 
General Contractor: Milender White Construction CO.
Structural Engineer: Van Dorpe Chou Associates
Landscape Design: Gillespie Moody Patterson Inc. 
Photography: Cesar Rubio
Completion: June 2019