 This project illustrates how there are no throw-away spaces. It honors the city and it honors the (Wilshire) boulevard by creating a quasi-public pocket park out of what was destined to be an otherwise grandiose, people-less driveway. The simple program, a bathroom addition with planters, was opportunistically leveraged into architecture as building/landscape/urban furniture to create a new archetype - the quasi-public pocket park. The project came about when the Church leased its huge parking lot to an upscale senior housing developer for 55 years. The space between the new housing and the Church was going to be filled with a large driveway lined with planters - a significant accessibility problem. The critical urban contribution&mdash;and new Wilshire Boulevard archetype&mdash;is transforming the ubiquitous driveway into a bona fide pocket park. Every inch of marginal space was consolidated and orchestrated to create grand processional spaces, and new, found gardens. The new stairs, ramps, benches, and gardens, provide efficient, accessible circulation and the space around the Church, creating a series of discrete places to walk, sit gather, and contemplate. Always a significant architectural challenge of adding to a historic structure was compounded by the strong symmetry of the existing Sanctuary. The solution laid in creation of an &ldquo;enclosed void&rdquo; which houses program and allows for significant &ldquo;breathing room&rdquo; for the historic building. In its materials palette as well as massing that is deeply respectful of existing sanctuary, the new building relates to the old while orchestrating a new processional walk and entry into the campus. In addition to providing a striking new setting for the Church, the austere beauty of concrete poured-in-place architecture and seamlessly integrated landscape provide a wonderful amenity for the parishioners and inhabitants of the senior housing complex. 

Westwood United Methodist Church

 The San Pedro Community and Child Development Center renovation and addition aims to augment and revitalize the &ldquo;bones&rdquo; of a well-used 30 year old facility by creating new, naturally-lit indoor/outdoor spaces. The design achieves more functional clarity, allowing each of its uses to be more effective. The new Activity Room engages the front patio and creates a significant indoor/outdoor place for the facility. It also activates the street, making it livelier and safer by putting &ldquo;eyes&rdquo; on it. New classrooms with support facilities connect the existing pre-school portion of the center while blending indoor &ndash; outdoor space. Required preschool servant spaces are distinctly separate from the served (classroom) spaces. When open, large sliding doors that ordinarily separate the classrooms, allow for rooms to be used as one great gathering space. The landscape is shaped to create outdoor gathering places and extend usable indoor spaces. Taking the landscape into a vertical position a &ldquo;living fence&rdquo; is created to generate a continuous green environment along the perimeter of the building. This &ldquo;living fence&rdquo; is also intended to protect the building and act as an anti-graffiti screen. 

The design achieves more functional clarity, allowing each of its uses to be more effective. . . . . . . . .  Lehrer Architects

San Pedro Community Center

 The Project is designed to be a civic park pavilion that enhances its community-neighbors, the Park, the City, and the School District. The building responds to the landscape with large openings and transparencies seamlessly connecting the shaped topography to the interior. This frames significant views of the landscape to, through, and from the building and maximizes visual security for the building and the Park as well. 7 large glass garage doors convert the interior assembly room into covered indoor/outdoor space. 2 long, red and white curtains add major flexibility, acoustical attenuation and visual drama to the indoor and outdoor space. 

Potrero Heights Park Community Center

 The synagogue sits within a mile of the Pacific Coast on a 21,448 square meter site in Newport Beach. The design improvements have transformed the pre-existing facility from a virtually windowless, single building, into an ensemble of spaces that come together to form a spiritual campus of new and old buildings, new landscapes, and public spaces. The campus`s design employs a varied collage of emblematic and iconic places, processions, forms, and spaces to house this spiritual community. Many processional axes are explicitly defined places of architecture and landscape. The terrain is crossed by several patterns and paths, and color is used to emphasize the themes of the campus. The design reflects the Rabbi`s words and mandate to create buildings and landscapes that are grounded in this world, the horizontal realm, &ldquo;where God`s immanence is felt&rdquo;, and that engage the heavens, the vertical realm, where &ldquo;God`s transcendence is embodied.&rdquo; In the Torah Center, light is treated as the medium that binds these realms, thereby expressing the Rabbi`s belief that Light and Spirit are synonymous. 

Temple Bat Yahm

Lehrer Architects worked with the City of Burbank, its Community Development Department and the Burbank Department of Water and Power on revitalizing an entire district of the city located at Hollywood Way and 134 freeway. The site is currently occupied by an outdated power sub-station, which will be replaced with smaller, modern equipment and is surrounded by international multi-media tenants such as Warner Bros., Disney and NBC. The project came about when the City asked Lehrer Architects to re-envision the obsolete power station at Alameda Avenue into open space for the city. Lehrer Architects seized the opportunity to leverage the site`s critical location into a significant branding opportunity for the City of Burbank. Bold and low cost combination of colors, graphics and planting project will project the City`s image on the site of the former power station and across both sides of the 134 freeway, thus creating a bona-fide Media District. The project implements a number of sustainable and low impact development strategies and uses planting to heal and cleanse the soil polluted over the years with the power sub-station use. 

Burbank Media District Master Plan

 Norton Towers-on-the-Court, a six-unit condominium project, sits on a typical mid-block 15.2m x 45.7m lot in the heart of West Hollywood. It is comprised of four-story tower units over a semi-subterranean garage. Norton Court is the first prototype that successfully realizes West Hollywood`s Courtyard Standards on such a narrow lot. The design creates an urban courtyard community of townhouses that maximizes light, space and garden, nurtures individual identity, and creates a sense of grandeur, privacy, intimacy, and luxury. The linear arrangement bathes each condominium with light and air, each with its own four-story, glass tower that allows daylight to penetrate deep into each unit. The tower brings light, view, drama, and a sense of connectedness into each of the floor levels. At night, the six glass towers become illuminated lanterns. 

Norton Towers on the Court

 Lehrer Architects purchased this 50 year old, 7,400 square foot building in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles in 2005. The once dingy and crowded 5,400 square foot warehouse was transformed into a working space of light, air, and transparency. Succinct interventions &mdash; blowing out the southern wall; work surfaces of 4` x 8` white painted solid core doors; epoxy-finished, painted floors; off-the-shelf storage systems; the red line resolving the trapezoidal shape of the space; and strategic landscape design &mdash; accomplished the job for $20.00/square foot (including mechanical/electrical/data/telephone infrastructure, the garden, and the build-out of all work surfaces).An exploration of working space. 

Studio of Lehrer Architects LA

 For 20 years Michael Lehrer ran his practice out of his house, until he bought and moved into a new building in 2005. He describes how he has integrated his personal tenets of design and practice into the form and experience of his new office. 

 One of the Barnesdale Foundation's programs is the Cotsen Artist Residencies, which is an extended working creative experience with artists of great stature to inspire talented young students. These Master residencies have been hosted at Lehrer Architects LA Studio. Artists such as Tim Hawkinson, Alexis Smith, and Lita Albequerque have worked there. Michael Lehrer describes the program and what it's like to work with the artists in the same space. 

 The architecture firm continues its role in the revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles through its work on Santee Village, a 500,000-square-foot, seven-building courtyard and streetscape in the burgeoning Fashion District. Already a vibrant retail community, the Fashion District does more than $1-billion in business every year. The architect of the historic exteriors, retail component, and urban connections for this mixed-use live/work community used its ability to find hidden beauty and transform this rundown alley. Powerful color and placemaking strategies restored urban grandeur to this important streetscape and courtyard. The scope of the architect`s work was to restore the historic storefront fa&ccedil;ades to their original generous scale, re-establishing an appropriate pedestrian proportional relationship to the street as &ldquo;outdoor room.&rdquo; Where the existing condition was not characterized as &ldquo;historic,&rdquo; the storefronts were relocated in order to create a pedestrian loggia filled with outdoor vending stalls. 

Santee Village

 The Water and Life Museums are born of the construction of Diamond Valley Lake (DVL), the largest man-made water storage lake in North America. Set in the semi-arid Southern California desert near Hemet, DVL is an integral part of the state's water infrastructure. The lake provides a 6-month emergency supply of water for all of Southern California. Diamond Valley existed between 2 mountain ranges. Diamond Valley Lake was created by damming the Valley's open ends with two 300' high dams. The East Dam is 2.5 miles long. The Dam, is made from rock mined from these mountains. The Museums sit near the base of the East Dam of DVL. The construction of these dams is the largest earthwork project in American history. 

Water + Life Museum and Campus

 Michael Lehrer talks about the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, the first LEED Platinum museums in the world. He describes the ideology behind the buildings, which is evident both in their museum content and their architectural design. 

 The existing house, on a woodsy Hollywood hilltop, was in a casual eclectic Ranch style, added on to incrementally over time. The charge to the architect was to continue this tradition, to modify, remold, and add pieces to the house and garden over the years. The house represents a quintessential Los Angeles design problem: how to instill in a formless, chaotic setting a powerful new order which is is still energetic, loose, and free. Hadrian's Villa is the paradigm for such an approach: that of ordering a "found chaos." 

Belson Residence

 The James M. Wood Community Center is the first area facility designed specifically to meet the social, cultural and recreational needs of Skid Row senior citizens and persons in recovery. The two-story building is highlighted by a 12.2 meter high civic colonnade and trellis with a base planter that transforms the intersection by becoming the new eastern edge of the existing park across the street. This response to the site creates and envelops two important public spaces: the interior ground floor &ldquo;community living room&rdquo; and the exterior roof-top garden terrace and belvedere, which serves to re-center the intersection and provides a public promontory. The ground floor`s dramatic 5.5 meter high ceiling and extensive natural daylighting creates a welcoming atmosphere of openness, which respects and extends an invitation to the homeless and low-income population, so often overlooked and under-served by traditionally drab civic institutions. 

James M. Wood Community Center

 Michael Leher talks about the James M. Wood Community Center, an acclaimed community building that his practice designed in downtown LA to serve the community of Skid Row. 

 This design is driven by the owner`s passion for making. A significant sculpture studio, workshop and working vegetable garden, ground the design of this villa. Situated in a shady canyon, one mile from the beach, the project site and the client`s desire to preserve key aspects of the wooded landscape have had a considerable influence on the building design. Working with several natural site constraints, the building is fundamentally organized around two planes: the horizontal plinth of the garden patio that extends the private garden into the ground floor living spaces; and the vertical datum spine that connects and organizes the various parts of the building program. 

Canyon Residence

 Michael Lehrer talks about the design of a private home in Santa Monica Canyon, as well as the six buildings his firm completed in south LA, for an agency called "Restore Neighborhoods Los Angeles." Both the large, Modernist home and the smaller buildings are driven by "indoor / outdoor relationships" and long views. 

 The Spring Street Park is a collaboration between the Architectural Division of the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering and Lehrer Architects LA. As residential density has increased in this burgeoning area of Downtown Los Angeles, the need for additional infrastructure has become evident, and this new urban park will provide much needed outdoor public space to the neighborhood. 

Spring Street Park, Los Angeles

 Michael Lehrer describes the Spring Street Park project in Downtown LA, a public / private design collaboration between his firm and the city. The park, build on land that used to be parking lots, is designed to provide a wide variety of different social environments to serve the community. 

The UCLA La Kretz Garden Pavilion, designed by Lehrer Architects, serves as the main entrance to the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. The pavilion features a dynamic guardrail system with perforated bent aluminum planes, reflecting light and shadows while providing views in and out of the garden. The design includes accessible pathways, stepped gardens, and contemplative balconies, seamlessly blending nature and architecture. The pavilion enhances the garden's visibility, infrastructure, and accessibility, making it a focal point for visitors.

UCLA La Kretz Garden Pavillion

The Central Recreation Center Pool in South Los Angeles, designed by Lehrer Architects, was transformed to address the community's urgent need for play and exercise space. The renovated complex features a 45' x 140' main pool, 30-foot-tall shade towers, and a colorful, welcoming entrance with a shimmering shade canopy. The design includes accessible ramps, railings, and concrete benches, creating a vibrant and inviting environment for families and friends. The pool deck's striped colors and sculptural shade towers enhance the space, making it a cherished community haven.

Central Recreation Pool, South L.A.

The Chandler Tiny Home Village, designed by Lehrer Architects, is Los Angeles' first transitional housing project using prefabricated "Pallet Shelters." Located in North Hollywood, the village provides 39 one-or-two-person units on a 21,705 square-foot site. The design emphasizes human dignity and community enhancement, transforming an underused lot into a vibrant, safe space for unhoused individuals. The project was completed in just 13 weeks, showcasing efficient construction and collaborative design efforts.

Noth Hollywood Tiny homes Chandler

Chandler Boulevard Bridge Home Village

Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, founded Lehrer Architects (LA) in his native district of Los Feliz in Los Angeles as a Sole Proprietorship, in 1985. 26 years later, the business, now a California corporation, is still thriving in the award-winning office space at 2140 Hyperion Avenue. The professional staff members at LA have extensive experience in designing, managing, master planning and working with community and cultural organizations on projects throughout Los Angeles and beyond. As such, the firm, its people, and their experiences are all very much rooted in the various neighborhoods and their communities.&nbsp;Lehrer Architects' approach to design grows out of a deep love and respect for the community and unwavering focus on its improvement. Michael Lehrer has developed a unique relationship of an architect's communal role: a leader, using design to improve quality of space and quality of life. Whether the projects are commercial, residential, or institutional, public or private, LA's practice focuses on the making of home and community – from individual to family to neighborhood to city creating places that sanctify the rituals of life.

Lehrer Architects

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