Rebuilding LA: Altadena architects talk after the fire

'Constructing the built environment has to be rethought holistically, rethought in a very radical way,' says Heather Flood as she surveys the remains of what once was her Altadena, California home. All that’s left of the French Country, 2,000 sq ft residence is a Batchelder tile fireplace and brick chimney, a pile of collapsed stucco, and the burnt carcass of an overturned refrigerator. Flood and her husband, Josh Goldsmith, evacuated on 7 January during the wind storm and fierce wildfires that ripped through communities, destroying houses, businesses, and schools, and killing at least 29 people.

Flood is dean of the school of architecture and professor at Woodbury University in nearby Burbank. For her, the Eaton Fire is an emotional, personal tragedy and an architectural problem urgently in need of a solution. 'I’ve never been super into sustainability or resilience, but I can't look away from them now,' she says, emphasising that architects must find a better way to design at the edge of the wildland-urban interface. It’s an edge requiring reassessment. According to Flood, although her property is located about a mile from the wilderness of the San Gabriel Mountains, her insurance didn’t categorise it as at high risk for fire.

Rebuilding LA: we talk to Altadena's architects

Like so many people, Flood spent the last few weeks navigating recovery – insurance claims, paperwork for FEMA clean-up – and in conversation (via regular Zooms) with her closest neighbours about how, when, and what to rebuild. There’s hope amongst folks on her block that they might act collectively or pool resources to expedite the process. Darrell Park lives across the street; he lost not only his home but also the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) he built in the backyard. It took him three years to get through permitting hoops with the LA County Building and Safety Department. Despite initiatives and assurances from California governor Gavin Newson and LA mayor Karen Bass, he’s more than sceptical that permit office officials can efficiently process the thousands of plan checks needed to build back Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.

Park, a self-proclaimed policy wonk who ran for election to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2020 (and lost), shares his proposal: a fast-track pilot programme to construct 100 houses in 100 days. It’s one of many ideas being generated by the community, including incentivising ADUs, rolling out prefabs, and building with fire-resilient materials. Various groups are discussing how licensed architects might be used to 'self-check' plans in order to expedite the permitting process.

As we drive around the burn zone, the surreal diagram of the fire’s erratic path becomes visible: a perfectly intact craftsman bungalow surrounded by oaks at the end of a destroyed block, an enclave of preserved estates within walking distance to Eaton Canyon, where a power line sparked the blaze. Flood points to what once was a metal roof; the kind used to guard against flying embers, it draped like a blanket over the ruins of the house it was supposed to protect. 'You can’t outrun climate change,' she notes. 'It is coming for everybody.'

Architect Steven Lewis, a principal at ZGF Architects and former president of the National Organization of Minority Architects, is what some might call lucky; the fires stopped yards away from his front yard. While his home was spared, many of his neighbours in western Altadena weren’t as fortunate. The historically Black neighbourhood is a tight-knit community with households spanning generations and families with multiple homes in the area. It is also where the most fire deaths occurred – 17 of the 29. Evacuation orders on the western side lagged hours behind the ones issued on the eastern side even as the winds whipped flames and smoke at enormous speed.

Lewis, who first moved to Altadena in 1980, was the urban design director for the Central of Detroit for three years before returning to Altadena in 2018. He is dedicated to helping the place retain its identity as rebuilding efforts take shape and is working with the Pasadena Foothill AIA Chapter and colleagues from NOMA. 'Detroit has neighbourhoods that are as close to devastation as Altadena and the Palisades, where for blocks and blocks there’s nothing vertical coming off the ground,' says Lewis. 'The difference being, of course, that it took decades for that decline to happen in Detroit, and ours happened overnight.'

He shares a lesson from working in Detroit: 'Nothing about us, without us, is for us.' The mantra resonates deeply after the Eaton Fire. Regardless of future infrastructure or homeowner aesthetics, Lewis believes that involving the community in leading the way forward is not only crucial to preserving the spirit and rich heritage of Altadena, it’s the only way.