“Watts Works” Residential Complex

LA-based Studio One Eleven declares its architectural colors up front with its very own office: instead of a workplace in a high rise, it has opted for large empty street-level spaces in an abandoned block in Downtown Long Beach, preferring to be a hands-on part of that vibrant, disorderly, unorthodox, non-hierarchical, open and cooperative city. The office aptly speaks to the firm’s architectural philosophy: to make a real contribution to the transformation of parts of the city, restoring a sense of community and meaning. Regardless of its size, each project is seen as an opportunity to revitalize the streets of the surrounding neighborhood.

The Watts Works residential project is a concentrate of Studio One Eleven’s principles. Together with the contractor and a
non-profit developer, the designers found a lot in the Los Angeles district of Watts feasible for transformation into a collective residence for unhoused individuals. The area once occupied by a single-family home in a low-density area of similar single-units now houses 24 apartments, a one-bedroom manager unit, a communal laundry, two small offices for service providers, and a bicycle parking area.

The extraordinary density achieved at Watts Works was possible by fitting together 58 modular shipping containers suitably modified to Studio One Eleven specifications. Already employed by the firm in many other commercial and recreational projects, turning containers once used to transport goods into dwelling units provided an effective technological and construction solution to this brief’s stringent requirements of low cost, swift assembly, sustainability, and scalability.

Realizing a volume made up of modular components fabricated elsewhere but assembled on site required painstaking planning right from the start. It did mean, however, that the different project phases could be carried forward in parallel. Each micro-unit is the result of combining...

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