A Two-Unit ADU in Los Angeles Offers Inspired Spaces for Creative Tenants
Architect Max Kuo transforms a back house and garage into a white-gabled duplex for a diverse mix of residents.
Architect Max Kuo transforms a back house and garage into a white-gabled duplex for a diverse mix of residents.
In March, one year after California’s stay-at-home order first put a pause on live events, DJ Adam Cooper moved his show to the yard he shares with a small group of renters in Los Angeles’s El Sereno neighborhood.
With a blue sky above and palms swaying in the background, he livestreamed a mix of Afro-Caribbean and amapiano tracks to his virtual audience. It was everything his landlord, architect Max Kuo, had hoped for when he transformed the rear structure of a rental property that he owns into a blank slate for future tenants’ personal and professional pursuits.
DJ Adam Cooper, educator Brianna Swan, and their dog, Chu Chu, live in the 900-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on the ground level of a renovated back house in L.A.’s El Sereno neighborhood.
Photo by Brad Torchia
Upstairs, photographer Richie Davis occupies the 700-square-foot studio.
Photo by Brad Torchia
Kuo, the cofounder of AllThatIsSolid, a practice based in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur as well as in L.A., wanted to create a well-designed setting that would accommodate a mix of households sharing a single-family lot. "The project was always concerned with the question: How do you create a living space for different tenants to come together?," he says.
Kuo transformed the original back house and attached garage using playful geometries and creative uses of space.
Photo by Brad Torchia
See the full story on Dwell.com: A Two-Unit ADU in Los Angeles Offers Inspired Spaces for Creative Tenants
