The design competition of the Small Lots, Big Impacts initiative gives designers, architects, and students the opportunity to propose how small vacant lots across Los Angeles should be converted into compelling, community-oriented, resilient housing developments that make better use of land that typically sits empty or accommodates just one housing unit. We call on designers everywhere to bring their ingenuity and compassion to the Small Lots, Big Impacts design competition with proposals that advance Los Angeles' legacy of multifamily housing design and offer housing ideas rooted in equity, resilience, and sustainability.
Through the design competition, we ask participants to address one of the City's fundamental housing challenges. Where one household lived in the past, today we need to increase the number of residents while retaining or even expanding upon the multiple benefits of home: access to the outdoors, comfortable relationships with neighbors, flexibility for changing needs, ample natural light, stability, opportunities for wealth building, a sense of identity, and safety from an increasingly volatile climate.
Submissions to the design competition are expected to demonstrate a variety of innovative housing schemes that help set the course for Los Angeles' future. After the raging fires of early 2025 that expanded the housing crisis, destroyed whole neighborhoods, and destabilized all Angelenos, forecasting a more resilient, equitable, collective, 21st century urbanism in the Southwest and beyond is all the more urgent.
The goal of this initiative is to build well-designed demonstration projects of infill-scale housing on vacant or underutilized publicly-owned lots. Across two phases, Small Lots, Big Impacts will first illustrate a breadth of possible housing models in cityLAB UCLA's Design Competition, before the Los Angeles Housing Department publishes its Request For Qualifications (RFQ) for housing development in Summer 2025.
This Design Competition is an open forum to invite and evaluate the strongest ideas for postsuburban America's housing future. We expect the submissions to inspire development on thousands of similar privately-owned lots in the Los Angeles Basin and in other cities. An esteemed jury will select competition winners anonymously.
The Small Lots, Big Impacts initiative is the outcome of a collaboration between cityLAB-UCLA, LA4LA, and the City of Los Angeles, including the Office of Mayor Karen Bass, the Housing Department, and City Council.
Title
Call for Submissions: Small Lots, Big ImpactsType
Competition Announcement (Built Projects & Masterplans)Organizers
Registration Deadline
April 07, 2025 11:59 PMSubmission Deadline
May 04, 2025 11:59 PMPrice
Free
