Lorcan O'herlihy Architects brings with Barrington 1503 together to West La

The architect Lorcan O'herlihy is a kind of point of contact when it comes to designing residential buildings in Los Angeles. In a city that is calmed down to throw constant regulatory and planning roads for housing construction projects, O'herlihy has found a way to overcome challenges and build things.

This may explain how his company Lorcan O'herlihy Architects (LOHA) was able to start the planning, design and construction of an innovative co-living approach for Barrington 1503, a new apartment block in West LA that opened this March. The 24,200 square meter four -story project consists of 18 units, either four or five bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room and between two and four bathrooms. Although Los Angeles, whose campus is only a few miles north of the location, is not connected to the University of California, the project was developed as a model for the joint revival of students in order to reduce housing costs compared to a more conventional studio or an apartment with a bedroom. All units are fully furnished.

Architecturally, O'herlihy describes the project as a number of layers and cuts. The layers are created from a central courtyard, in which stairs, balconies and spacious outer corridors dynamically frame a tree on the ground floor, all of which are surrounded by the large sliding doors of each apartment that take over the habitats to strengthen the collective sociability of the core concept of the building. The reductions-a trademark of O'Herlihys repertoire open the inner courtyard onto the street, which connect the outdoor areas of the building with the city and divide the relatively square plaque building into four volumes. Material and color selection increases the drama, whereby the metal cladding from Taylor metals ripped in black comes onto the market with simple punched windows, while the contrasting cuts and the courtyard are closed with white stucco, which was unloaded to create deep grooves that give it the appearance of the concrete.

This reserved color palette has the individual units. The living and kitchen areas are completed in two green tones with natural plywood cabinets and stainless steel devices. Corridors are completely in a dark green envelope, which O'Herlihy wanted to use for the transition from the common rooms, which circles the courtyard into the private rooms of the Perimeter bedroom and baths, which are simply completed in white. Subtile details, such as the exposed plywood edge of the kitchen cupboards or the curved corner of a wall, increase what feels like rather small rooms. O'herlihy delivered this project with a team of three, led by Brian Adolph as project manager and team member Kenji Hattori-Firworth. According to Nicholas Muraglia, the leadership of the project with LOHA, the curved walls in the kitchen of the individual units are connected to the courtyard. “These walls are an expansion of the courtyard that radiates in these program rings,” says Muraglia. “It connects the entire courtyard that we consider important.”

According to O'herlihy, the social spaces of the court size were of crucial importance in order to minimize space for living areas, which made it possible to make more bedrooms financially profitable. The courtyard reflects a range of materials that Loha used in several recent LA projects, with metal grille floors in sidewalks, open metal stairs and porcelain floor to differentiate social areas. Lacquered white metal balades ahmen the finish on the stucco walls, but also improve daylight reflection and the feeling of openness in the courtyard. The common amenities include a deck on the roof with a grill, a community kitchen and living space on the fourth floor as well as limited underground parking spaces for cars and bicycles.

“I think there is a mixture in this building that not only runs out of the students – they could imagine it for everyone,” says O'herlihy. Several units have bedrooms with EN suite bathrooms that enable a certain variety of occupancy. And the wooden frame construction for the primary structure and the partitions would enable future renovation work such as the combination of bedrooms if the market conditions shift. In a city in which the demand for an aroma of living space remains strong, especially those who are considered on the more affordable side, projects such as Barrington 1503 fill an immediate niche and ask the question of why there are no further options like this.