With the population of homeless disabled veterans on the rise in Los Angeles, local architecture and design firm Brooks and Scarpa took to the task of developing a reasonable and long-lasting solution. A project dubbed the Six, Brooks and Scarpa’s vision is a housing community comprised of 52 units which don’t just provide a place for disabled vets to live, but one which also affords rehabilitation and support. Considering Los Angeles is home to more than roughly 43,000 homeless people — of which nearly 3,000 are homeless vets — the Six hopes to slightly alleviate what’s becoming a rapidly growing problem in Southern California.
Instead of designing and building a shelter composed of 52 cookie-cutter rooms, Brooks and Scarpa decided to give the Six — located in LA’s MacArthur Park — a healthy helping of large public spaces. While the units do grant tenants their own private space, the firm intentionally “deemphasized” the creation of private areas to instead focus on bigger public spaces. Because of this, Brooks and Scarpa hope to allow the disabled veterans an opportunity to stray from a secluded lifestyle and enjoy their surrounding community.
“The ground level contains offices, support spaces for the veterans, bike storage, and parking while the second level has a large public courtyard,” said Brooks and Scarpa on its project page. “Surrounded by four levels of housing units with balconies wrapped with a wood screen made from recycled planking the courtyard has large openings with green roofs that visually connects the space to the street on the lower level beyond. This allows the tenants to enjoy a secured open space while still connecting to the larger community.”
In addition to these areas, the Six also features a green roof on its highest level, flanked by an open public patio and edible garden — not to mention gorgeous panoramic views of the MacArthur Park neighborhood. Speaking on its green roof, Brooks and Scarpa went into the project knowing it wanted to make the building as energy efficient as possible, intending to “exceed standard practice.”
By leaning on passive design strategies such as situating the building to control solar cooling loads and installing windows capable of making the best use of natural light, the firm was able to make the building 50 percent more efficient than typically designed structures.
The Six celebrated its grand opening last April and (unsurprisingly) each unit in the building is currently filled.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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With AI progressing so fast, it's only a matter of time before we start getting AI companions like the ones we used to see in movies like R2-D2, Wall-E, or Baymax. Now, Singapore-based OKA Technology has unveiled Mori, a cute little AI companion that looks less like a conventional home robot and more like someone turned the Pokémon Foongus into a table lamp.
Mori isn't meant to clean your house or control your smart home, but to serve as what OKA calls a "Nature Companion." It uses subtle movements, warm lighting, nature-inspired sounds, and small reactions to make its presence around the house feel calming rather than distracting. Mori can sit quietly while you read, sway along to music, welcome you when you enter a room, or encourage you to slow down for a moment without requiring a screen or a conversation.