ISABEL HOUSE & R-1

NORTHEAST LOS ANGELES, 2019 & 2020

PROJECT
Michael Tessler, a building developer deeply committed to sustainable design and construction, created a prototype for a small, affordable, climate-responsive home in Los Angeles.

R1 and the Isabel House, made with renewable materials and designed for passive heating and cooling, is the future of a conscientious, ecologically-minded building. We fabricated tongue and groove flooring from a Shamel Ash tree which grew in Downtown Los Angeles. Urban Lumber plays a leading role in lowering construction’s carbon footprint, minimizing waste and creating a tangible connection between product and user. This project perfectly represents the benefits Angel City Lumber hopes to bring to our region through the re-use of one of Los Angeles’s most overlooked resources--its trees.

PROJECT SERVICES
Concept Development
Project Management
Chain of Custody Custom Milling
Urban Lumber Consultancy

PRODUCTS
Flooring
Door casings
Veneer

SPECIES & SOURCE
Shamel Ash - LA Sports Arena, CA
California Sycamore - LA Sports Arena, CA

Project Team
Responsive Homes - Developer
utopiad.org + Daveed Kapoor - Architect

SHAMEL ASH
Shamel Ash is a dream wood. It’s machinable, workable, joinable and sandable. Its monochromatic bone-color and swooping grain gives great contrast to its darker woodtone counterparts. It is bone-white and monochromatic in color, offering a nice alternative to dramatic heartwood/sapwood variation. It is excellent for both outdoor and indoor applications, also atypical to commercial Ash species.

It is also misunderstood. People shun the Shamel Ash because it is invasive to Southern California. It grows quickly, spreads canopy, produces amazing lumber, and because we have let it stray from cultivation it threatens other flora. We think people need to take some responsibility. The trees are only doing what they know how to do.