A Kitchen for Community

Spring 2025
Los Angeles, CA

This project, located near Leimert Park along Crenshaw Blvd, extends the intimate act of gathering into the urban fabric by combining affordable housing with a communal kitchen. The family kitchen becomes a shared community space—a nucleus for exchange that transcends place, generations, and cultures. Just as my family kitchen fostered togetherness, this project explores cooking and creation as a social and collaborative ritual.

By diagramming the kitchen at an urban scale, the project transforms the ground floor into an expansive sequence that mirrors the process of preparing a meal: harvesting, storing, preparing, cooking, and eating. Each phase reinforces the cyclical nature of food.

Housing units are organized around a central courtyard to encourage spontaneous interaction. A network of shared outdoor spaces—ranging from larger communal courtyards to smaller, semi-private thresholds—brings openness and breathing room into a dense environment. These layered thresholds blur the line between public and private, allowing residents to engage at varying levels of intimacy.