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 The site is currently occupied by an outdated power sub-station, which will be replaced with smaller, modern equipment and is surrounded by international multi-media tenants such as Warner Bros., Disney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

 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 Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923 and was built in 1924. Following La Miniatura in Pasadena, and the Storer and Freeman Houses in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, the structure is the fourth and largest of Wright's textile block designs, constructed primarily of interlocking pre-cast concrete blocks, in the northern Los Angeles area. The design is based on ancient Mayan temples, and along with other buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, such as the A. D. German Warehouse in Wisconsin and Aline Barnsdall Hollyhock House in Hollywood, the Ennis House is sometimes referred to as an example of the Mayan Revival architecture. Its prominent detail is the relief ornamentation on its textile blocks, inspired by the symmetrical reliefs of Mayan buildings in Uxmal. 

Ennis House

 Michael Lehrer talks about growing up in the Hollywood Hills and the "Cosmic Trifecta" of Modern Architecture set up by the Lovell House, Ennis House and the Schindler House during the 1920's. As Lehrer suggests, these houses might have set up a precedent for Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House and his residential concrete architecture. 

 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 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. 

 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. 

<p>Barnsdall Art Park is a city park located in the East Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.</p><p>Aline Barnsdall donated Barnsdall Park to the City of Los Angeles for arts and recreational purposes, including the preservation of the historic architecture and landscape features. Located at the crest of Olive Hill, Barnsdall Art Park overlooks the city of Los Angeles, and the Hollywood Hills, including Griffith Park. The park is centered on Barnsdall's Hollyhock House designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. </p>

Barnsdall Art Park

 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. 

 Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA founded his practice, LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA, in Los Angeles in 1985. He is also the Design Partner of LAWRL Design, a deeply interdisciplinary national practice. His work is grounded in the idea that beauty is a rudiment of human dignity. He designs for community with a reverence for light and space. Delight is a matter of extreme gravitas in the work. The firm&rsquo;s work consists of institutional, commercial, industrial, residential and urban design projects. Regarding sustainability, the work aspires to embody the beauty of performance and the performance of beauty. He was President of the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles and has been an adjunct member of the faculty at the University of Southern California since 1986. Prior to 1985, Mr. Lehrer worked at Frank O. Gehry and Associates and other design offices. Licensed in California in 1981, Michael was educated at Berkeley and Harvard after attending LAUSD public schools. 

Michael Lehrer

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