LowRiseLA Competition

Low-Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles is a $100,000 design challenge asking architects and landscape architects to help us imagine appealing and sustainable new models of low-rise, multi-unit housing.

Our proposal examined themes of cultural appropriation. This project critiques the Hollyhock house by Frank Loyd Wright; a house which exemplifies design colonialism at its finest. The Hollyhock house is classified Mayan revival however we speculate that this hyper-stylized, and sensationalized “Mayan style” has little true relationships to Mayan culture beyond aesthetics. We wanted to then contrast that with our proposal using hyper stylization as a less superficial design exploration. Our ornamentation and stylization are derived from LA urban culture, we used various icon graphics such as bandana prints to create a type of positive projection of appropriation.

The HollyHUD proposal was selected by the jurors for its “strength of narrative critiquing of colonialism in Los Angeles architecture and its ideas for advancing “the development of a Black aesthetic in architecture” by remaking the Hollyhock House without a shred of nostalgia”.