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The architect Lorcan O’Herlihy is something of a go-to when it comes to designing apartment buildings in Los Angeles. In a city notorious for throwing constant regulatory and planning roadblocks at housing projects, O’Herlihy has a found a way to overcome challenges and get things built.

Photo © Eric Staudenmaier

This may explain, in part, how his firm, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA) was able to conceive and realize—starting in the depths of 2020—the planning, design and construction of an innovative co-living approach for Barrington 1503, a new apartment block in West L.A. that opened this March. Located along the city’s border with Santa Monica, and around the corner from two other recent O’Herlihy-designed apartment buildings, the 24,200-square-foot, four-story project consists of 18 units, with either four or five bedrooms, a kitchen and living space, and between two and four bathrooms. Although not affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, whose campus is a few miles north of the site, the project was developed as a model for student co-living to reduce housing costs compared to a more conventional studio or one-bedroom apartment. All units come completely furnished.

Photo © Eric Staudenmaier

Architecturally, O’Herlihy describes the project as a series of layers and cuts. The layers emerge from a central courtyard, where stairs, balconies, and generous exterior corridors dynamically frame a tree on the ground floor, all surrounded by each apartment’s large sliding doors that reveal the living spaces to reinforce the collective sociability of the building’s core concept. The cuts—a hallmark of O’Herlihy’s repertoire—open the courtyard to the street, connecting the building’s outdoor spaces to the city, and divide the relatively square-plan building into four volumes. Material and color choices heighten the drama, with the street-facing elevations finished in black ribbed metal siding from Taylor Metals, set off with simple punched windows, while the contrasting cuts and courtyard are finished with white stucco that has been trowelled to create deep grooves that give it the appearance of formed concrete.

Photos © Eric Staudenmaier

This restrained color palette carries into the individual units. The living and kitchen areas are finished in two shades of green, with natural plywood cabinetry and stainless-steel appliances. Corridors are completely enveloped in dark green, which O’Herlihy wanted to use to transition from the shared spaces encircling the courtyard to the private spaces of the perimeter bedrooms and bathrooms that are simply finished in white. Subtle details, like the exposed plywood edge of the kitchen cabinets or the curving corner of a wall, elevate what can feel like rather small spaces. O’Herlihy delivered this project with a team of three, led by Brian Adolph as project director and team member Kenji Hattori-Forth. Nicholas Muraglia, the project’s lead with LOHA, says the curved walls in each unit’s kitchen connect across the courtyard in plan. “These walls are an extension of the courtyard that radiates out into these rings of program,” Muraglia says. “It unites the whole courtyard, which we felt was important.”

Photo © Eric Staudenmaier

O’Herlihy says the courtyard’s generously sized social spaces were key to minimizing the space given to living areas, which allowed for more bedrooms to make the project financially viable. The courtyard reflects a material palette LOHA has used on several recent L.A. projects, with metal grating floors in walkways, open-tread metal stairs and porcelain floor panels to delineate social areas. Painted white metal balustrades mimic the finish on the stucco walls, but also enhance daylight reflectivity and the sense of openness in the courtyard. Shared amenities include a rooftop deck with a barbecue, a communal kitchen and living space on the fourth floor, and limited subterranean parking for cars and bicycles.

Photo © Eric Staudenmaier

“I think there is a mix in this building that is not just catering to students—you could imagine it for anyone,” O’Herlihy says. Several units have bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, which allows for some diversity in occupancy. And the wood-frame construction for the primary structure and partitions would enable future renovations, such as combining bedrooms, if market conditions shift. In a city where demand for any flavor of housing remains strong, especially those considered on the more affordable side, projects like Barrington 1503 fill an immediate niche and beg the question of why there aren’t more options like this.