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from 2023 Portfolio

Streetlights Pretend

New modes of residential design for contemporary life

Research for “Post Covid Architecture” - Architect Magazine Project Team: Greg Verabian, Alex Briseno, Christian Behling

2020 HKS Architects

As shelter-in-place orders forced us to negotiate dining tables, kitchen counters, and sofas with computers borrowed from the o ce, my coworkers and I experienced rsthand the limitations of typical American residential design. e widespread adoption of remote work and education revealed the glaring absence of designated spaces for these tasks in the places we live.

An outdated model long before the pandemic began, the conventional urban apartment is designed around a handful of accepted activities generally limited to leisure, eating, sleeping, and bathing. Our team sought to append this list with labor and learning, but it was important to us that these additional uses not come at an extra cost to renters or developers. So, we borrowed apartment designs from in-progress projects and modi ed their layouts to create spaces for work, education, and invention without increasing the overall square footage. e resulting oor plans suggest a new living model better suited for contemporary life and were published as part of the essay “Post-Vaccine Architecture” in Architect Magazine (2021).

My role on this project included space planning of the 1-bedroom apartment model and execution of all renderings.

5600 Hollywood

Project Team: Greg Verabian, Jonathan Bensick, Kristen Fraumeni, Kristi Hsiao, Christian Behling

2019-2020 HKS Architects

At the foot of the hills beneath Gri th Park - below the Hollywood Sign and the Observatory - is a transition zone where the chaotic zig-zag of narrow switchback roads harmonizes with LA’s massive, relentless grid, and its great basin begins a slow twelve-mile descent southwest to the sea. In this neighborhood, the site of a future apartment complex containing 200 residences (40 of which are income-restricted) straddles the full depth of a city block and fronts two streets of distinctly di erent characters.

To the North, Hollywood Boulevard contains the local businesses and co ee shops of Main Street USA as well as other large apartment complexes. To the South, Carlton Way is undeniably residential with old-growth trees, low-rise buildings, and deep front yards. e massing of the project is borne of the contrasting nature of these two streets. Just as the hillside dwellings a block north tumble down into the city, a 17-story Hollywood tower transforms into a 7-story low-rise with a cascade of glass and greenery.

My role on this project included design study collaboration, apartment unit layout and design, and development of the drawings, models, and renderings contained herein unless noted otherwise.

COMMUTER (HOLLYWOODBLVD)

project envelope and massing respects the low-rise character of Carlton Way and gradually steps-up terraces study models used to communicate project massing with the client as it was developed a sample of one and two-bedroom apartment types developed for this project (ceilings shown dashed) a textured facade borrows elements from neighboring historical Art Deco buildings right: precast concrete panels