31 live-work “for rent” units in Downtown San Diego.

Downtown’s Little Italy was built up with small lot development of dense urban housing.  Currently the development community has elected to completely disregard this wonderful fabric and create a gated foreboding multifamily high-rise housing and destroy the previous community feeling.

Lusso Lofts is designed to build on the existing scale and rhythm of Little Italy and provide a direct not foreboding communication with the urban environment.  A main internal alley is developed to provide light and air as well as form an on grade common court for tenant interaction and parking.  The project is broken up into several buildings to create a sense of individuality and street presence.  All units are accessed from the public street or alley eliminating the need for double loaded corridors, elevators and stair towers.  A majority of the units boast two story volumes and live work environments and storefronts.

Lusso was developed on an extremely tight budget of $72s.f. and organized to demonstrate that an underground parking scheme does not have to be utilized in order to create a project of 65 dwelling units per acre while economically developing civilized urban housing.