What Is Habitat 6?

Habitat 6 is a small-lot residential development at 1829 North Kenmore Avenue in Los Feliz. The project contains six multilevel townhouses built on land that might traditionally have held one or two detached homes. It was brought forward by Integrated Development, with EMC Partners identified in real estate records as the developer, and Rios Clementi Hale Studios serving as architect.

Each residence averages approximately 1,900 square feet and includes three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a private outdoor area, a separate entrance, and a two-car garage. Original asking prices reportedly ranged from about $1.25 million to $1.45 million. The development was sold out by September 2019.

Those prices place Habitat 6 firmly in the design-conscious market-rate category, not the affordable-housing category. Its greater importance lies in the architectural ideas it tests: how to add homes to an established neighborhood while preserving daylight, privacy, outdoor access, and a recognizable sense of domestic life.

A Los Feliz Setting Rich in Architecture

Los Feliz is an especially appropriate setting for such an experiment. Positioned below Griffith Park and close to the shops and restaurants of Vermont and Hillhurst avenues, the neighborhood combines walkable commercial streets with an unusually varied collection of residential architecture. Historic homes by figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra share the broader district with Spanish Colonial houses, apartment buildings, bungalows, and contemporary infill developments.

Habitat 6 does not imitate those older buildings. Instead, it joins the neighborhood’s tradition of testing new ideas about Southern California living, particularly the relationship among architecture, landscape, climate, and light.

Small-Lot Housing Without the Row-House Gloom

Los Angeles adopted its Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance in 2005 to allow compact, individually owned homes in multifamily and commercial zones. The policy created opportunities for “missing middle” housing: projects denser than detached suburban houses but smaller and more residential in character than large apartment blocks.

The simplest response to a narrow urban parcel would have been a conventional row of side-by-side townhouses. That arrangement might have produced the desired number of homes, but several middle units would have had exterior walls facing directly into neighboring buildings. The result could have been long, dim interiors with daylight arriving mainly from the front and back.

Habitat 6 instead divides the residences into three bars arranged in a loose U-shaped composition. This configuration gives every home exposure on three sides, increasing opportunities for windows, airflow, views, and outdoor connections. It also breaks the project into smaller visual pieces, preventing six homes from reading as one enormous block.

The plan is a useful reminder that density is not simply a matter of squeezing in the maximum amount of floor area. Good urban housing also depends on what happens between buildings: the openings, patios, pathways, setbacks, landscape pockets, and carefully protected sightlines that allow residents to breathe both literally and figuratively.

A Floor Plan Organized Around the Sun

Habitat 6 reverses the organization found in many multistory townhouses. Garages and flexible rooms occupy the ground level, while the primary living spaces are placed on the second floor, where they can receive more daylight and maintain greater separation from passing cars and pedestrians.

This elevated living level contains the kitchen, dining area, and main gathering space in an open-plan arrangement. Bedrooms occupy the upper portion of the homes, where additional windows can capture daylight above some of the surrounding walls and roofs.

Moving the living room upstairs does require residents to climb more steps while carrying groceries. The architecture does not magically cause a bag of oranges to levitate from the garage. However, the trade-off is that the rooms used most frequently during the day occupy one of the brightest parts of each building.

The strategy also supports a clearer separation of functions. Ground-floor flexible spaces can operate as offices, guest rooms, studios, exercise areas, or quiet retreats. The second floor becomes the social center, while the upper level offers more private sleeping quarters. The vertical journey creates distinct zones without relying on numerous internal walls.

Windows That Balance Daylight and Privacy

Adding more glass sounds like the obvious way to brighten a house, but urban sites make the issue more complicated. An enormous window is less delightful when it provides a panoramic view of a neighbor brushing their teeth. Habitat 6 therefore uses several window types rather than repeating a single standardized opening.

Clerestory Windows

Clerestory windows are positioned high on the walls, allowing daylight to enter while limiting direct views from adjacent homes. They are especially effective in bedrooms and circulation areas where privacy matters but a connection to the changing sky remains desirable.

High-Sill Punched Windows

Smaller punched windows with raised sills admit light and selected views without exposing entire rooms. Their position helps residents place beds, cabinets, desks, or artwork below them, making the walls more functional than full-height glazing would allow.

Floor-to-Ceiling Glass

Large glass panels appear where surrounding conditions provide enough separation or where the view is directed toward a private terrace. Full-height glazing is also used near stairs and hallways, spaces where privacy is less sensitive and daylight can travel into the center of the plan.

This mix illustrates an important principle of residential daylighting: the best window is not necessarily the biggest window. Orientation, height, neighboring buildings, glare, solar heat, and the activities inside a room all influence the ideal opening. Habitat 6 treats windows as precisely placed instruments rather than decorative rectangles scattered across a façade.

Materials That Help the Interiors Feel Brighter

The interior palette quietly strengthens the daylight strategy. Wide-plank European white oak floors reflect warm, soft tones through the rooms, while white walls and white lacquer cabinetry distribute incoming light without making the spaces feel sterile.

Carrara marble counters and backsplashes bring subtle movement to the kitchens. Their pale surfaces support the overall brightness, but the stone’s gray veining prevents the rooms from looking like laboratories awaiting a nervous scientist. Integrated LED task lighting beneath the upper cabinets supplies focused illumination after sunset or on darker days.

A cedar-clad volume beside the kitchen conceals a walk-in pantry and powder room. The cedar echoes the exterior cladding, visually connecting the inside of each home with the warmer materials outside. It also introduces texture and color into an otherwise restrained palette.

Open staircases use slender steel stringers and concealed supports to preserve sightlines. White oak built-ins beneath the stairs provide storage while doubling as a protective edge, reducing the need for a visually heavy guardrail. Even the floor vents were designed to coordinate with the oak flooring, allowing air to move through the home without filling the ceilings with bulky ductwork that would have reduced their apparent height.

Bathrooms continue the material story with white oak vanities, engineered-stone counters, wall-mounted fixtures, and patterned Azulej tiles designed by Patricia Urquiola. The decorative tile supplies personality in controlled doses. It is the architectural equivalent of wearing interesting socks with a very well-tailored suit.

Private Outdoor Space as a Real Room

Every Habitat 6 residence has direct access to private outdoor space. Depending on the home’s position, this may take the form of a terrace, patio, or backyard enclosed by poured-in-place concrete walls. Some outdoor areas include built-in concrete fire pits, extending their usefulness into cooler evenings.

These spaces are not leftover strips of land created after the buildings were arranged. They function as outdoor rooms connected to the interiors through large openings and carefully controlled views. Concrete supplies privacy and durability, while cedar cladding and planting soften the composition.

Private entrances further distinguish the townhouses from conventional apartment living. Residents move directly between the street, shared pathways, garages, patios, and their own front doors instead of passing through a large communal lobby. That small ritual can make a dense development feel more personal and house-like.

Why Natural Light Matters in City Homes

Daylighting is the controlled use of sunlight and diffuse sky light to illuminate interior spaces. Building-science guidance emphasizes that effective daylighting can reduce dependence on electric lighting when windows, shading, orientation, and interior layouts work together.

Light also influences the human circadian system, which helps regulate sleep, alertness, mood, and other daily biological processes. Research on residential environments has associated better daytime access to natural light with improved circadian alignment and sleep-related outcomes. A bright room is not a medical treatment, of course, and architecture should never be marketed as bottled happiness with a mortgage attached. Still, the quality and timing of indoor light can meaningfully influence comfort and well-being.

More glass is not automatically more sustainable. Poorly oriented windows may create glare and unwanted heat gain, especially under the strong Southern California sun. The most successful daylighting plans balance brightness with thermal comfort, privacy, shading, ventilation, and energy-efficient glazing. Habitat 6 is compelling because it focuses on window placement and building arrangement, not glass for glass’s sake.

What Habitat 6 Contributes to Los Angeles Housing

Habitat 6 demonstrates that moderate-density infill can preserve many qualities associated with detached houses. The residences have individual entrances, multiple exposures, private open space, flexible rooms, garages, and distinct identities. At the same time, six households occupy a site that could otherwise have accommodated far fewer residents.

The project belongs to a broader family of Los Angeles small-lot developments that experiment with courtyards, angled walls, shared pathways, roof terraces, and sculpted building envelopes. Together, these projects show that zoning capacity alone does not guarantee livability. Design decisions determine whether added density produces appealing homes or merely more enclosed square footage.

There is an important limitation: high-design market-rate townhouses are not a direct answer to the region’s affordability crisis. Habitat 6 originally entered the market at prices well beyond the reach of many Los Angeles households. Its planning lessons, however, can be adapted to housing at different price points. Strategic massing, high windows, efficient circulation, useful outdoor areas, and thoughtfully placed storage do not have to be reserved for luxury development.

The project’s strongest message is that density and quality should not be treated as opponents. A city can add homes while still asking serious questions about sunlight, privacy, landscape, comfort, and human scale.

Practical Design Lessons From Habitat 6

Design the Site Before Perfecting the Floor Plans

The U-shaped arrangement solves several problems before anyone begins selecting kitchen finishes. It increases the number of exposed walls, separates views, creates outdoor pockets, and breaks down the apparent mass of the project.

Put Daytime Rooms Where Daylight Is Strongest

Elevating kitchens and living rooms gives the most frequently occupied daytime spaces better access to sunlight. On another site, the ideal solution might be a courtyard, skylight, or taller window, but the principle remains the same: room placement should respond to light conditions.

Treat Privacy as Part of Daylighting

Clerestory windows and raised sills prove that bright rooms do not require residents to perform daily life on display. Privacy and daylight can reinforce one another when openings are positioned deliberately.

Use a Consistent Material Palette

White oak, cedar, pale stone, white walls, and restrained metal details repeat throughout the interiors. The continuity creates visual calm and makes the homes feel larger without relying on flashy materials in every room.

Make Outdoor Space Useful

A small patio with appropriate privacy, direct access, seating, and planting may offer more value than a larger but awkward strip of exposed pavement. Square footage is helpful; usable square footage is better.

Living With the Habitat 6 Idea: A Resident-Style Experience

The following walkthrough is an informed, experience-based scenario rather than a claim of firsthand residence. It illustrates how Habitat 6’s architectural choices could shape an ordinary day.

Morning Light Without the Morning Audience

The day begins on the upper floor, where a clerestory window brightens the bedroom before the curtains are opened. Because the glass sits above normal eye level, the room receives a soft indication that morning has arrived without offering neighbors a live broadcast titled “Person Searches for Missing Slipper.”

Moving downstairs, the second-floor living area feels noticeably brighter than a typical ground-level townhouse room hemmed in by fences and parked cars. Sunlight reaches the white walls and oak floor from several directions. Even when direct sun shifts away, the pale surfaces keep the room from becoming flat or gloomy.

The kitchen benefits from this elevated position. Preparing coffee beside Carrara marble feels less like working in a service zone and more like occupying the center of the home. The cedar pantry volume provides a warm visual anchor and keeps food, appliances, and household supplies from colonizing the counters.

A Home That Adapts During the Workday

On the ground floor, the flexible room can function as a home office. Its separation from the main living area helps contain work calls and computer equipment, while access near the entrance makes it practical for meeting a client without leading them through the entire house.

Vertical organization can be inconvenient when moving repeatedly among floors, but it also creates psychological boundaries. Going upstairs at lunch feels like leaving the office. Returning downstairs afterward signals that the workday has resumed. In a period when homes frequently serve as offices, gyms, classrooms, and emergency storage facilities for mysterious charging cables, those boundaries are valuable.

Throughout the afternoon, different windows become active as the sun changes position. A high-sill opening may illuminate a wall without creating harsh glare at a desk. Full-height glass near the stairs turns circulation into a changing visual experience rather than a dim tunnel connecting one level to another.

Outdoor Space That Is Actually Used

Later, the private terrace becomes an extension of the living room. Concrete walls block distracting views and create a sense of enclosure, while wood cladding and planting reduce the hardness of the urban setting. There is enough separation to read, eat, or talk without feeling surrounded by the entire development.

This is where Habitat 6’s balance of density and privacy becomes most tangible. Other homes are nearby, but their windows are not aimed carelessly at the terrace. The resident remains aware of belonging to a compact community without feeling trapped inside a very stylish surveillance experiment.

Evening Reveals the Value of Restraint

As daylight fades, integrated task lighting takes over in the kitchen rather than forcing one bright ceiling fixture to illuminate everything. The open staircase allows light to pass between levels, and the consistent materials prevent the interior from fragmenting into unrelated decorative themes.

The experience is not flawless. Residents must accept stairs, close neighbors, limited ground-level living space, and the maintenance demands of a multistory home. Large areas of glass may require shades and careful climate control during hot weather. A two-car garage consumes valuable space that another development might use for an additional bedroom or shared courtyard.

Even so, the daily experience suggested by Habitat 6 is more generous than its compact urban footprint implies. The architecture does not attempt to imitate a suburban house on a large lawn. It creates a different model in which light, vertical movement, private outdoor rooms, and carefully framed views become the luxuries that matter most.

Conclusion: Brighter Density Is Better Density

Habitat 6 succeeds because it begins with a human question rather than a stylistic one: how can people live closely together without surrendering sunlight, privacy, outdoor access, and a sense of home?

Its answer combines a U-shaped site plan, three-sided exposures, elevated living rooms, varied window types, private terraces, efficient storage, and a warm, reflective material palette. None of these moves is revolutionary by itself. Their careful coordination is what transforms a tight Los Angeles parcel into six distinctive, light-filled residences.

The project cannot serve as a universal blueprint. Its stairs may not suit every household, its original prices were far from broadly affordable, and its generous parking reflects a car-oriented city. Nevertheless, Habitat 6 offers a valuable argument for architects, planners, and developers: increasing urban density does not have to mean producing darker, less humane homes. With the right arrangement, a small lot can provide more housing and more light at the same time.