Knowlton Faculty are winners in LA's Small Lots, Big Impacts competition

The competition, organized by UCLA’s cityLAB in collaboration with the LA Mayor’s office and Department of Housing, is intended to address the city’s affordable housing and home ownership crisis by identifying development opportunities on small parcels of public land.

Outpost Office won in the competition’s “Gentle Density” category, whose goal was to design multiple units that would appear as simply a single structure from the street, thereby maximizing the capacity of the city’s existing infill sites. Bigham and Herrmann’s entry, Growing Together, consists of a multi-family structure that uses color to mediate between the scale of the overall development and its four individual housing units. Their design was singled out in the competition for its formal clarity and buildability, as well as for the way it balances the needs of individual privacy with those of communal living. Throughout the design process, the Outpost Office team paid particular attention not only to form and color but also to what they refer to as “timefulness.” “We’re interested in how buildings evolve over time—from construction through use and eventual transformation,” Herrmann said. “This project let us explore a fabric of architecture that can expand or contract with shifting needs—ideal for multigenerational living and chosen families.” 

In the past Bigham and Herrmann have typically avoided competitions, but they were especially attracted by the premise of Small Lots, Big Impacts. Its emphasis on real, feasible solutions, and its concentration on “gentle density” in residential areas resonated with similar housing challenges they see in neighborhoods throughout Columbus, including those near Ohio State’s main campus. 

As the team advances to Phase II of the competition, their focus will necessarily shift to a broader group of stakeholders, including city officials and developers. The winning designs in this next phase are meant to serve as templates, pre-approved by the city and available for any developer to use. As part of the initiative, Los Angeles also intends to sell of a number of small, city-owned lots to builders eager to demonstrate the feasibility of the plans—and then to use the proceeds from those sales to provide down payment assistance for people who would like to purchase one of the new units. 

“We are excited about the future stages of the project,” Bigham says.  “It has already generated many innovative approaches to the housing crisis—a problem which affects lots of cities, including Columbus.”