Brooks & Scarpa | DENSE-CITY: Housing for Quality of Life and Social Capital

Brooks + Scarpa | DENSE-CITY: Housing for Quality of Life and Social Capital
Closing Reception & Conversation | January 18, 2020 | 4-7 pm
Airport Gallery | 3026 Airport Avenue
18th Street Arts Center is pleased to present a closing event for the exhibition DENSE-CITY: Housing for Quality of Life and Social Capital on January 18, 2019 from 4-7 pm. For this event, we will be inviting 12 conversants who are deeply involved in architecture, affordability, artist and workforce housing, policy, and grassroots anti-gentrification work in LA to engage in informal conversations with visitors and each other around urban development and cultural equity. The work of LA-based architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa represented throughout the exhibition will serve as conversation pieces in this informal networking and celebratory event.
Conversants include: Artist and facilitator Sara Daleiden, architect Julie Eizenberg of KonigEizenberg, architect Thom Mayne, Housing Innovation Director Jen Kim with the Mayor’s Office, Lauren Pizer Mains from Senator Ben Allen’s office, architect Theresa Hwang, policy analyst in urban planning Joan Ling, and USC Dean of Architecture Milton Curry. (List to be updated).
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
DENSE-CITY: Housing for Quality of Life and Social Capital is an exhibition of projects by Los Angeles architecture studio Brooks + Scarpa exploring urban development, cultural equity, and access to public space. Housing supply has been slow to meet the demands of the market or respond to the needs of increasingly varied living conditions. The exhibition features models, plans, visualizations, and drawings from two decades of projects addressing sustainable compact housing development and creation of affordable, vibrant, healthy communities through advocacy, innovation and building.
The effects of increased housing costs continue to cripple urban areas throughout the country, with the supply of new, affordable housing failing to keep up with demand. In Los Angeles, new housing models are needed to create livable, dense communities addressing the region’s need for affordable housing. Understanding density and its relationship to the city will begin to inform these new housing models in a manner that is sensitive to the need to house increasing populations without displacing existing communities. Only by making connections between disparate elements and working towards designing cities as a comprehensive whole can sustainable approaches to affordable housing be created.