Lincoln Heights Jail

For the first studio project I completed at SCI_Arc, I teamed up with Jonathan Kadau to redevelop the Lincoln Heights jail. Our initial prompt was to adapt the existing, abandoned jail into a mix of office space, hotel rooms, and public spaces. Our inspiration came from the now-closed street food market that started a few blocks away, the Avenue 26 Night Market. We first demolished everything on the ground floor but the structure to invite the community inside, creating a porous space for events, food vendors, and community gatherings.

Our next task was to bring that porosity throughout the building, and by using the carved moulding pieces that we aligned to our irregularly regulated grid, the space could open up and flow together. This opening also allowed us to situate our regulated spaces within the existing building while carving out new spaces to allow air to flow through. As the studio is titled "Off-Grid", we propose that in a place like Los Angeles, the most sustainable thing you can do is move spaces outdoors to reduce heating loads by increasing wind speeds, as we analyzed in Forma.

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During our research phase, we were tasked with investigating the food and dining spaces in the area and understanding which restaurants were the most popular. I developed a tool to scrape the Google Maps API and create a cuisine-specific map of the highest-rated restaurants within a radius. Here is an example of that map, along with a link to the GitHub repo where you can download the tool yourself. Upon request, I can also send a compiled application for the tool.

To bring this building up to Net Zero standards, we had to integrate many infrastructural systems throughout, like solar panels, greywater treatment, and geothermal pumps. By directing these systems and letting them drive the aesthetic, it created a novel organism for living in a new, sustainable future.

Above: Chunk Model Photos.