The affordable housing and homeless issues in Los Angeles arebecoming direr. While solutions range from building more supply tomeet demand and looking to the city to lift or change regulationsthat impede development, the design community has one low-costsolution: shipping container housing. KTGY Architecture +Planning is designing the city's first shipping containercommunity—which uses shipping containers as the main buildingmaterial, for residents transitioning out of homelessness. Hope onAlvarado is in the Westlake District and will feature 84 studio andone-bedroom units ranging in size from 400 to 480 square feet.Developed by Aedis Real Estate Group, this will bethe first of a series of similar projects. We sat down withMark Oberholzer, an associate principal at KTGY,to talk about the new project and why shipping containers have madea fine solution to the housing problem.

GlobeSt.com: What was the impetus for you to developthis community, and why is this a good location?