Path Villas Eucalyptus

Project Design

KFA is a Los Angeles firm founded by Wade Killefer and Barbara Flammang that has built thousands of market rate and affordable housing projects in Los Angeles, and provided a training ground for many architects working in multifamily housing in Los Angeles today.

PATH Villas Eucalyptus (2018) provides affordable, supportive housing for extremely low-income seniors in the City of Inglewood, Los Angeles County. The project comprises 40 one- and two-bedroom units in a setting designed to promote both independence and social connection.

The heart of the building is its central landscaped courtyard, which serves as a gathering space for residents, and includes a barbecue area, community garden plots, and shaded seating. It features pitched roofs and a subdued color scheme in contrast to the blockier, brighter mass of the front building. To activate the space, multiple units have doors, porches, patios, and canopies adjacent to the space. The concept of a “mews” was central to the design intent, providing residents with transitional areas between private and communal environments—places to relax, interact, and enjoy fresh air while maintaining a sense of personal space.

John Arnold, partner at KFA, and project designer at PATH Villas Eucalyptus, drew from his British heritage for the central meeting space.

“My grandfather was born in 1914 in a row of cottages on a dead-end alley, or mews, off of the market street in Penryn, Cornwall. When I visited there in the 1980s, I became enamored with the idea of the mews: humble residences hidden behind the larger, grander façades, and away from the public bustle of the main thoroughfare. It was in the mews where the people could live freely to gossip, play or just sit in the quiet of their semi-public, human-scaled space. This is also the spirit of porches, and was the inspiration for this courtyard design.”

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Top: PATH Villas Eucalyptus, façade; Bottom, central “mews” at PATH Villas Eucalyptus. Photos by Jim Simmons.