Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis

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Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis

Information

  • Project Name: Up the Street
  • Student Name: Elizabeth Dharmaputra
  • Softwares/Plugins: Rhinoceros 3D , V-Ray , Adobe Photoshop , Adobe Illustrator
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Excerpt: ‘Up the Street’ is an architecture thesis by Elizabeth Dharmaputra from the ‘Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).’ The project explores how Los Angeles can accommodate more housing without losing the spatial qualities of single-family living. It reimagines the street as a vertical framework, reorganizing homes, lots, driveways, yards, and individual addresses in three dimensions to create denser collective housing while preserving domestic autonomy and neighborhood identity.

Introduction: Up the Street questions how Los Angeles can accommodate more housing without abandoning the spatial qualities associated with single-family living. Rather than replacing the individual house with standardized apartment units, the project explores how familiar domestic conditions such as the street, lot, driveway, yard, and individual address can be reorganized within a vertical housing model.

The project begins with the street itself, extending it upward and transforming it into an architectural framework for living. Individual homes and lots are distributed along this three-dimensional network, allowing the organization of a familiar Los Angeles neighborhood to expand beyond a conventional ground plane.

By translating the relationship between house, lot, car, and street into section, Up the Street proposes an alternative way of thinking about collective housing in Los Angeles, one that preserves individuality and domestic autonomy while accommodating substantially more homes within the same urban footprint.

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Site Context

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Site Location

The project occupies an approximately 9,300 sqm site in Los Angeles’ Fashion District, adjacent to Santee Alley and surrounded by a network of wholesale, retail, manufacturing, and commercial activity. The area functions as an important economic destination, drawing workers, vendors, shoppers, and visitors from across Los Angeles. Despite this constant activity, its residential presence remains limited, creating a neighborhood that many people travel to for work and commerce but relatively few call home.

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Site Elevation

The project responds to this imbalance by introducing a substantial residential program into an already active part of the city. Housing becomes an extension of the Fashion District’s existing ecosystem rather than a replacement for it, bringing everyday domestic life into closer proximity with employment, commerce, and public activity. The program is primarily residential, supported by vehicular and pedestrian circulation, parking, private and communal outdoor spaces, and shared neighborhood amenities.

Design Process

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Early studies examining the spatial logic of the single-family lot and its translation into a vertical housing system.

The design process began with studies of parking structure typologies, examining ramps, circulation loops, structural grids, and the relationship between vehicles and occupied space. Rather than treating parking as a secondary function, these studies became a way to reconsider the street as an architectural system that could extend beyond the ground plane.

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Study of continuous ramping and street circulation, exploring how the street moves vertically throughout the building and connects its multiple levels.

In parallel, the project examined the spatial logic of the Los Angeles single-family lot. The house itself was only one component; the front yard, backyard, driveway, garage, property boundaries, and direct relationship to the street were identified as equally important to the idea of single-family living. These elements establish privacy, ownership, access, and separation between neighbors.

The design developed by translating these relationships into three dimensions. Parking infrastructure provided the organizational framework, while variations in lot size, orientation, elevation, and adjacency allowed individual residential conditions to emerge throughout the larger structure.

Final Outcome

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Mega Plan
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Completed Residential System
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Third Floor Plan
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Fourth Floor Plan

The final proposal operates across multiple scales, from a continuous infrastructural and landscape system to the individual construction of each home. Houses can be assembled using 3.05 × 3.05 m modules for bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and other domestic spaces.

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Mega Section
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Fifth Floor Plan
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Sixth Floor Plan
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Lot Sample 1 _ First Floor | Lot Sample 1 _ Second Floor

Inspired by the composition of the idyllic suburban neighborhood, these modules act not as a fixed rule, but as a design tool, allowing rooms to be arranged, combined, and adapted differently across each lot while maintaining a shared architectural language.

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Lot Sample 2 | Lot Sample 3
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Lot Sample 4 _ First Floor | Lot Sample 4 _ Second Floor
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Neighborhood parks typical of suburban communities are reimagined as elevated shared landscapes within the high-rise.
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
A look into the street view from within the structure

This individuality extends into the landscape. Each lot is defined by its own “anchor”, such as a pool, garden, aperture, step-down, or change in ground level. Cut-outs introduce light and air throughout the building while creating distinct spatial conditions for the homes around them, and sloped surfaces form a drainage system that redirects water to planting across multiple levels.

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Model House Pic
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
A chunk model highlighting different conditions that exist throughout the different lots.
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
The infrastructural framework establishes a continuous elevated street system, creating the groundwork for a new residential neighborhood within the existing city.

Conclusion: Ultimately, Up the Street transforms the single-family neighborhood from a two-dimensional pattern of repeated parcels into a three-dimensional urban system, preserving the individuality, landscape, and domestic character of the house while fundamentally reimagining how those qualities can exist collectively in Los Angeles.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]

Site Context

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis

Design Process

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis

Final Outcome

Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis
Up the Street: Reimagining Los Angeles Housing Through Vertical Neighborhoods | Architecture Thesis

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