TCA Architects

OLIVE DTLA

tcaeditor - Sep 20, 2023

OliveDTLA reflects the rapidly transforming Los Angeles South Park neighborhood. The design was inspired by the neighborhood’s shift from commercial to mixed use. At the corner plaza, intersecting architectures reflect two of the area’s existing block building typologies. The narrow facade mimics the exposed side of the neighborhood’s commercial buildings, with random patterns of various-sized windows. The long facade reflects the existing historical commercial front façade’s patterning and repetition, albeit with contemporary materials and residential detailing. Through these juxtapositions, OliveDTLA remains authentic contextual and contributes to an exciting new community. Compact unit plans reduce the price point for studios, one and two-bedrooms; reflect the nature of urban living; and have easy access to a wealth of onsite and DTLA amenities.

HANOVER SEPULVEDA

tcaeditor - Sep 17, 2023

The concept for the design of Hanover Sepulveda is inspired by the natural topography of the site, dramatic and hidden from the bustling boulevard that defines busy Los Angeles city life. The long linear site translates into a project that is simple yet challenging at the same time. Site constraints and extreme topography posed challenges of access and building configuration. Special unit designs were employed to achieve high building efficiencies. Circulation and fire access requirements demanded the need for a concise arrival sequence, complete with a guest drop-off and turnaround area to meet current trends of transportation. The narrow street frontage allowed an opportunity to focus quality design on the limited front façade. The horizontal emphasis of lines and planes in the front elevation represent notions of stepped terraces, which define individual retreats for each dwelling unit. The ultimate oasis, in the form of a unique amenity deck, is tucked to the rear of the building, reserved for discovery by the residents. Natural material finishes, such as stone veneer and wood-toned siding, help to reinforce the ideas of capturing a sense of nature within the project.

JIA APARTMENTS

TCA Architect - Sep 14, 2023

Meaning “home,” JIA is an urban six story mixed-use project with 280 apartment units and 20,000 square feet of ground level retail on the North-West corner of Broadway and Cesar Chavez. The location of the project is at the main entry into Los Angeles’ Chinatown, adjacent to the Twin Dragons Tower Gateway. The project is designed in order to respect and respond to the Twin Dragons Tower Gateway with a large public courtyard on the street corner for residents and the local community. The façade along Broadway has neighborhood serving retail along the entire ground level with articulated units above to create smaller scale elements along the street edge. The urban nature of the project reflects the future of residential and mixed use design in the Los Angeles area, with the close integration of public and private uses. The contemporary architectural reflects a forward thinking approach to the revitalization of Chinatown and elements of color with strong forms were used to make a statement at the gateway to Chinatown.

ANTON PORTOLA

TCA Architect - Sep 10, 2023

Anton Portola is an affordable community consisting of 12 three-story apartment buildings with a total of 256 apartment units in Irvine, CA. Additional buildings on the site include a leasing and recreation building, central laundry and maintenance building, carports, and trash enclosures. The site plan for Anton Portola is designed around two large open greens that are centered within the community. The first is used as the main recreational area with the communities’ pool. The second houses a large play area and a shared laundry facility. The residential homes all work around these two areas, enhancing views and helping to keep eyes on the neighborhood. The homes are two and three stories in height and are based on an early California theme. Massing steps down at the buildings edges to help break down scale. Garages are tucked into the building and hidden from view along drive courts.

VIO

TCA Architect - Sep 07, 2023

VIO is a mixed-use project within the Village Oaks master plan of the Hitachi General Development Plan, located in San Jose, California. The HighDEF project consists of 234 residential apartment units and approximately 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, distributed in two 4-story Type V buildings. Leasing center, recreation, and fitness facilities are featured in a separate 3-story building, adjacent to a pool courtyard. The project incorporates sustainability measures to achieve a LEED Silver rating. In accordance with the City’s vision of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, the architecture breaks down the perceived mass of the buildings by creating an overall rhythm to enhance the human scale, as activated by stoop entries and material articulation at the ground plane. Although the rhythm creates a certain regularity and order, the varied palettes of color in the architecture serve to create differentiation within the system, to essentially enhance the individual scale. Creative stacking solutions were required to enhance the semblance of more verticality in reference the traditional rowhouse typology as requested by the city.

TERRENA

TCA Architect - Sep 06, 2023

Located in Northridge, Terrena is the result of reclamation of a derelict retail site located along two major arterials in the San Fernando Valley. The mixed-use community is designed to ignite a previously underutilized block and provide 403 market-rate apartments with restaurant and retail space at the ground floor. Parking is in a “wrap” configuration and provides 726 parking stalls for residents and guests. The design of the overall community features edible landscaping including on site community fruit trees; various vegetable gardens and potted herbs. The property also features a salt water infused pool, spa area and outdoor movie theater. There are multiple outdoor fireplaces with seating areas; barbeques with tables to enjoy meals with friends; and an indoor/outdoor club house that features a demonstration kitchen, billiards and ping pong tables. Other indoor amenities include: a business center with Apple touch screen computers; a conference center for meetings, a sizable athletic center with state of the art fitness equipment; a pet spa to groom pets.

201 MARSHALL

TCA Architect - Aug 28, 2023

201 Marshall is an infill project within the Redwood City Downtown Precise Plan boundary and is situated adjacent to the most significant transit node in the city. A tower element anchors the corner of intersecting streets, marking the corner and creating a vertical, iconic marker that is visible from the adjacent transit station. Fundamental to the design is the connection to public transit, and locating the project’s “front door” directly on the main corner at the base of the tower element. With a double-height lobby space and main entry, a direct connection is made to the nearby transit center. The base element of the project relates to the pedestrian scale of the buildings across Marshall Street, and awnings and storefront help to reduce the scale along the street frontages.

HANOVER WARNER CENTER

tcaeditor - Aug 23, 2023

The greatest challenge of the design was to break down the large mass of the building, stretching across the length of an entire block in Los Angeles, CA. The solution was to create three languages of architecture to respond to the three frontages that define the project’s public edge. Each language is progressively differentiated in scale, reflecting the various characteristics of each street. Starting from the westerly corner, the Variel and Kittridge intersection is designated as an “Activity Node.” Hence, the architectural response creates an Urban Scale, marked by a tower element at the corner, fronting on a public plaza, which spills into an open amenity courtyard. The middle block reflects the “Active Streetfront” that defines Kittridge. The architecture creates a Neighborhood Scale, with a rhythm of stoops and landscaping along the sidewalk to encourage safe and active pedestrian experiences, reminiscent of the rowhouse typology.

ARIVA

TCA Architect - Aug 20, 2023

Ariva Apartments is Phase 2 and 3, located within the master-planned community that occupies the former site of General Dynamics-Convair’s missile plant. Ariva offers one- and two-bedroom units that feature quartz countertops, washers and dryers, private terraces, and views of the two-acre Centrum Park. The project is a four story Type V construction over two levels of Type I parking garage and brings 253 units to the San Diego Spectrum Center. The two buildings are located east of the yet-to-be-built Ariva Way and south of Lightwave Avenue in the city of San Diego.

REATA

TCA Architect - Aug 15, 2023

Located in Laguna Hills, Reata is designed in a “Spanish Revival” style, taking influence from Southern California’s historical architecture. The project is the centerpiece of the city’s Urban Village Specific Plan and fundamental to the design is the connection of pedestrian access to the neighboring Oakbrook Village Shopping Center. The project includes a 10,000 square-foot space called the Village Green; aiming to provide a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented atmosphere. The retail awnings and storefronts along the ground level are designed to help reduce the scale of the building along the pedestrian frontages, while allowing for views into public areas of the building. The tower elements anchor key corners and cantilevered balconies provide relief and texture, working to further break down the scale of the massing. The project has 289 dwelling units consisting of 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units; each featuring private balconies and decks looking outward over the densely landscaped site or over one of the four courtyards.