Imperial Highway, Los Angeles, California

If anything materializes the motto “small is cool” are projects like the Imperial Highway residences.  Designed to fit under the fairly recently enacted “small lot subdivision” ordinance of the city of Los Angeles, these houses offer a more practical alternative to the co-owned residential building.

The “small lot ordinance” was put in effect in the last couple of years in Los Angeles to address the issue of practical, fee-single urban housing.  On this particular project Tayo Design was retained by a developer of affordable housing to design a 2-house project to fit into a subdivided small lot.

The main focus of the project was practicality of construction, so the structures were conceived with the goal of keeping building costs at a minimum while simultaneously providing a pleasant, clean and contemporary aesthetic.

These two identical but mirrored houses have an open-floor layout for kitchen and living space on the first floor and three bedrooms on the second floor.  Bathrooms on the top floor align with water-supplied facilities (like kitchen) on the ground floor, making plumbing lines easy to install and maintain.  Slightly pitched roof allow for high ceilings that provide additional sense of amplitude.  Modest materials are applied in a creative way, giving the dwellings a special design touch within a very constraint budget.

Indeed, small can not only be cool, it is cool.  And clever.  And smart.