Home to the academic powerhouses of Caltech, UCLA and more recently USC, Los Angeles is a powerful center of innovation, and therefore actively engaged in finding technological solutions to the perils of climate change.
Housed in 61,000 square feet of renovated mid-century warehouses, La Kretz Innovation Campus is LA’s latest addition to address that challenge, the home of both a Department of Water and Power Energy Innovation Center, and more importantly LA Cleantech Incubator – a locus of engineers, scientists, and policymakers whose mission is to shepherd start-ups with promising new clean technologies into becoming successful and globally-minded companies.
Preserving the character of the warehouse district in which the facility is located (as well as the existing structures’ carbon footprint), the buildings’ exteriors have primarily been maintained in their original condition, which is also the case in the interior, though its strengthened brick walls and wood trusses are in open dialogue with a collection of dynamic architectural elements such as a waiting area known as the “green room,” jewellike skylight “funnels” that light up the reception area, a series of enclosed offices and conference rooms backed up to the brick walls, open work areas, and other necessary programmatic elements, all joined in a “village” concept with “streets,” a “loop,” and a “plaza” large enough for gatherings of up to 140 people.
Walking the walk, the facility achieved LEED-Platinum as well as WELL-Gold (the first facility in the United States to garner both certifications simultaneously) by integrating advanced sustainability technologies that include a greywater filtration system, bioswales, a microgrid, and a solar photovoltaic canopy over the parking lot.
