architecture blog

We have recently added a few pages of dedicated Small Lot Subdivision Information to our site.

Small Lot Subdivision is an ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that allows you to subdivide lots into small residential parcels (as small as 600 sq. ft.) for the purposes of devloping fee simple housing (meaning you own the land your home sits on verses a condo where it is tied into a home owners association.)

The new Small Lot Subdivision section also shows the small lot projects our office is working on.

If you have any questions about Small Lot Subdivision, please don't hesitate to contact Modative. The code is a bit tricky and we feel that we have learned a lot about its intricacies by going through the process on a few projects.

One of the interesting things about being an architect is that it is not only our responsibility to design beautiful and functional buildings, but we have to make sure these structures can be built. This involves coordination of many expert consultants: structural engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. It is critical that all these different systems work together in the building. Unfortunately, there are often conflicts between these systems that are not discovered until actual construction where they are costly to fix. An example would be a mechanical duct (for heating) running into a structural beam.

In an effort to reduce the number of construction conflicts, we utilize our architectural software (we use ArchiCAD) to model these various systems in the virtual building. This three dimensional analysis allows us to see these conflicts during the construction document phase, where they are easy, and much cheaper to solve.

Below is an example of this process. This is an in-progress virtual model of the Venice Boulevard Urban Dwellings project showing some of the primary structural members (columns and beams) as designed by our structural engineer, John Labib, S.E.

Last month I had the pleasure of seeing Dov Seidman give a lecture related to his new book, "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in Life)". Dov's primary stance is that our current society has become so hyper-connected and transparent that HOW we do what we do has become more important than WHAT we do. In essence, business ethics matter.

One of his more interesting points was how true innovation comes about. When people think of how to innovate, they imagine a group of people getting together in a room to brainstorm. Innovation, however, is really only possible when you have trust and risk. You need a team that trusts each-other and is willing to take risks. I completely agree.

For more info on Dov, here is his company website.