Brooks + Scarpa Wins Los Angeles Housing Innovation Challenge

Nest, a proposal by Los Angeles–based Brooks + Scarpa in collaboration with the nonprofit Community Corporation of Santa Monica and Rialto, Calif.–based manufacturer Plant Prefab, has won funding from the Los Angeles County Housing Innovation Challenge, which sought new, scalable housing projects to address the homelessness situation in the county. Grants at the $500,000 level and the $1 million level have been awarded to four other organizations.

Nest is a prefabricated “kit-of-parts” that is scalable and adaptable to accommodate varying lot sizes and housing types, according to the full Nest proposal. It aims to provide rapidly constructable and self-sustaining housing equipped with off-grid energy, water, and sewer systems. Each 2,200-square-foot structure consists of seven modules that can be situated in different ways with a five-story maximum. Brooks + Scarpa also developed an accompanying “Design Toolkit” for use by developers in other neighborhoods. “Our team is interested in a long-term solution and not a ‘one-off,’ ” the firm wrote in the proposal.

Watch Brooks + Scarpa principal Angela Brooks, FAIA, give a project statement for Nest.

Other winning proposals are those from FlyawayHomes, a Los Angeles–based organization dedicated to fighting homelessness; LifeArk, a project from the social innovation research and development arm of the South Pasadena, Calif., architecture firm GDS Architects; Restore Neighborhoods Los Angeles, contractors dedicated to investing in sustainable neighborhoods; and United Dwelling, a Los Angeles–based developer that invests in affordable housing.

This article has been updated with images of the winning project by Brooks + Scarpa.