asap (Adam Sokol Architecture Practice) has completed over a year’s work reconsidering housing and homelessness in Los Angeles and has released their project redesign of Skid Row.
SKID GROW takes a radically different direction, asking how to reconsider our land-use policies to make the best possible use of LA’s vast urban areas to the most significant benefit of all Angelenos, including the unhoused and those needing more support.
Their premise is that tremendous value is inherent in the area currently known as Skid Row.
By seeking to unlock that value, they can create significant market-rate and affordable housing while also directing unprecedented resources to the benefit of the unhoused.
Their vision for SKID GROW includes 16,500 units of market-rate housing, 2,100 units of affordable housing, 8,000 units of supportive housing, and 6,500 shelter beds.
For perspective, that would allow a little over half the area for affordable housing, meaning those with lower-paying jobs, yet still able to pay rent, vs. supportive, meaning those who earn government assistance and require onsite social services including shelter beds, and the remaining half, paying full suggested rental prices for their units.
To further the development, asap Skid Grow would be complemented public amenities, including new schools, a public food market, a sports center, an outdoor performance venue centered on a pedestrian-focused street grid that would be a model for sustainable development.
Surmounting the whole area would be an extensive publicly accessible park, which at 115 acres would be among the city’s largest.
asap/ is a multi-disciplinary design practice founded in 2011 and based in downtown Los Angeles with a second office in New York. Active throughout the US and Asia, their work is focused on urbanism, single and multi-family construction, and residential and commercial interiors. asap/ is led by Adam Sokol, AIA, and takes a particular interest in bringing a wide-ranging historical and cultural approach to contemporary design and urban challenges.
