An inventive new library, in a park with a greenmarket, aims to be a beacon for a challenged community. The Pico Branch Library, a recent work by Koning Eizenberg (KE), is the first new public library branch in Santa Monica, California, in nearly 60 years.

HOK's Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) launches the automobile-centric Southern California city into a new age of public transporation. When the City of Anaheim launched a design competition in 2009 for a new transit hub, city leaders wanted an iconic structure.

Located near a major freeway, a school becomes an unexpectedly protected and inviting enclave for learning.

For years, Philip Johnson's glass-skinned Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California'completed in 1981 for televangelist Robert Schuller and his Reformed Church in America'operated as a broadcasting venue as well as a house of worship.

A new campus museum quietly serves up a visual banquet. It’s tempting for designers to try to turn art museums into works of art themselves. But what if the client’s directive is just the opposite? A new campus museum in the Bay Area by the New York–based firm Ennead Architects may disappoint those hoping for a bigger architectural statement.

A sympathetic design raises the bar for affordable housing in a not-so-affordable city. Affordable housing in Santa Monica sounds like an oxymoron. In 2013, the city's average monthly rent of $2,328 was the priciest in Los Angeles County. Adding insult to injury are local homeowners who fear that buildings for lower-earning households will be eyesores that drive down property values.