EMBEDDED LAB The new Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) building designed by Culver City-based Studio Pali Fekete Architects (SPF:a), is unlike the red brick edifices that grace most of the University of California, Los Angeles campus. Surrounded on all sides by 1960s buildings and occupying a formerly neglected courtyard, the glass and steel structure is like a diamond in the rough. — Published 2007.0117
	PREFAB PLATINUM On a cloudy day in April 2006, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered on a hillside street in Santa Monica, California, to watch the installation of the first LivingHomes prefabricated house. Over the course of eight hours, 11 modules were hoisted by crane onto a concrete slab in a dramatic departure from traditional residential construction. — Published 2006.1206
	LA COLOR SCHOOL From her desk, Dena Primary Center principal Patricia Romero can watch children playing in the central courtyard. She also uses the vantage point to admire this new campus that is nestled in a densely populated neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Rachlin Architects have designed an elliptical amphitheater-style courtyard bordered by an administrative complex and two multipurpose buildings. — Published 2006.1018
	HOLLYWOOD BOWLING The Hollywood Bowl amphitheater became a site for world-class performances over 80 years ago. It was the backdrop for romantic memories and a reflection of the growth of the Los Angeles metropolis. And while the sentimental attachment of Angelinos to this hillside entertainment venue in Bolton Canyon has remained strong, the theater itself has actually changed character many times in the intervening decades. — Published 2004.1020
	GEHRY'S DISNEY CONCERT HALL Crowning Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles, the stainless steel curves of the Walt Disney Concert Hall (WDCH) by Frank Gehry shine in the Southern California sun. They shine in quick flashes glimpsed through nondescript high-rises, throwing fortuitous reflections among the shadows. The taller forms stretch up and out toward the city, while the lower forms bend down toward passersby. — Published 2003.1217
	SANTA MONICA ELECTRIC In light of rising energy costs and potentially disastrous environmental policies, timing couldn't be better for the opening of Colorado Court, one of the first 100-percent energy-neutral housing developments in the United States. Located on a busy, urban street corner in Santa Monica, California, the award-winning five-story, "green" building is designed not only to reduce energy consumption but to return unused power back to the city's electrical grid. — Published 2003.0212
	LEVIN AND LOS ANGELES In the early 1980s, Brenda Levin was one of the chief engineers of a collective epiphany that the city of the perennial future had a past. Fresh from Harvard's Graduate School of Design, she was the right architect in the right spot at the right moment to restore a succession of historic buildings in Los Angeles. — Published 2003.0108
	CASE STUDY: THE EAMES HOUSE In the mid-1940s, as the United States faced the postwar challenge of housing three million returning soldiers, a few architects in Southern California rejected the idea of identical houses in suburban developments. The "Case Study House Program" initiated in 1945 by Arts and Architecture magazine, enlisted the talents of eight architects including Richard Neutra and Eero Saarinen. — Published 2002.0424
	DOWNTOWN DROP-IN CENTER Several blocks along San Julian Street in downtown Los Angeles are home to many of the city's homeless. One would expect a sense of hopelessness to pervade that stretch of road, but instead it is vibrant and lively. This is due to the presence of the Downtown Drop-In Center, a facility designed by Michael Lehrer, AIA of Lehrer Architects and operated by Volunteers of America, an offshoot of the Salvation Army. — Published 2001.0411

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