the towering sower

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA | FALL 2016 | Third Year First Semester

PROFESSOR VICTORIA COALOA

This project was developed as the final design exercise within a housing studio focused on high-density residential strategies in Los Angeles. A series of earlier studies explored unit efficiency, stacking, core placement, and circulation, all of which informed the final proposal.

The site sits at a street corner where two distinct Los Angeles planning systems intersect: the earlier Spanish street grid and the later orthogonal American grid. The clash between these two urban logics was used as a generative tool, allowing the building’s geometry and organization to emerge directly from the site rather than being applied independently of it.

The proposal takes the form of a compact residential tower responding to two of Los Angeles’s most pressing needs: housing density and access to green space. By minimizing the building footprint, the design preserves ground-level area for raised garden beds and shared agricultural spaces inspired by the city’s network of urban cooperative farms. Vegetation is further integrated into the building itself, extending landscape vertically and making greenery an active part of daily living.