Intergenerational Housing for LA

Year: Summer 2026

Intergenerational Housing Models for LA began as a six month grant from United Way Greater Los Angeles in partnership with Cedars Sinai, entailing prototype development of scalable and feasible Intergenerational Housing Models tailored to Los Angeles.

cityLAB led the process of research, community engagement, design iteration, and financial modeling, calling on trusted partners to contribute innovative and grounded work. Kevin Daly Architects generated the design schemes and Abode Communities provided financial modeling and analysis. In order to introduce community specificity to the designs, while maintaining regional scalability, we chose sites in Altadena and MacArthur Park, seen as representative of suburban and urban Angeleno conditions, respectively. Community partners Community Women Vital Voices (Altadena) and Heart of Los Angeles (MacArthur Park) helped run community feedback workshops, leading to insightful and sometimes surprising learnings on the realities of intergenerational mixing.

The team has been struck by the great potential of Intergenerational Housing to foster supportive social networks, protect financially vulnerable groups, and create sustainable and enjoyable forms of housing density. In looking at the future of housing in Los Angeles, we believe that a new typology–the Intergenerational Housing development–must be developed and codified, beginning with pilot projects to lead the way.

The project was presented to United Way Greater Los Angeles, their community partners, and community members, on August 13, 2026. Further, our Intergenerational Housing Models for LA report details both the process and findings of this prototype development.