3223 Wilshire Boulevard serves as a gateway to Santa Monica and sits along a significant East-West route which connects Los Angeles to the Shoreline while gliding past the base of the hills whose ridges run transverse to the Boulevard. The proposed project’s design expresses the balance and juxtaposition between land & ocean, stillness & movement, solidity & fluidity.

The natural environment is the source of the project’s design inspiration. Like the mountains (stillness), the building’s mass is formally passive. The travertine tile rain screen wrapping the residential units evokes a character that is earthlike: a piece of land extruded upwards, akin to the dramatic geography nearby. Aretes, ridge-like features carved by erosion which create dynamic shadows along rock faces, are much like a building’s corners, windows and terraces. On this facade, painted metal sunshades and spandrel panels, punctuated by building openings, create similar deep shadows.

Like water (movement), the proposed retail spaces, main lobby, building circulation and balconies express a sense of dynamic motion and openess: their material expression glassy and fluid with undulating and fritted patterns. A feature stair sits in the southwest corner of the elevator lobby, encouraging residents to climb its daylit steps, promoting healthy habits and lower energy usage. Active ground floor retail, behind a transparent facade, holds the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Centinela Avenue while wrapping a central retail plaza which serves as a neighborhood amenity.