Skip to content

Breathing new life into old buildings

Proper Hotel, designed by Omgivning. Photo by Hunter Kerhart shows scaffolding on a brick building downtown at dusk.

Before the pandemic, downtown L.A. was experiencing a renaissance. New bars, restaurants, hotels and apartment buildings were turning the sleepy urban core back into the popular shopping and entertainment destination it was a century ago.

Now, however, you’re more likely to see “For Lease” signs than the announcement of a grand opening. But signs of economic life are slowly returning, says architect and UCLA alumna Karin Liljegren, and finding use for empty ground-floor commercial space will be key to downtown’s recovery.

“We should have no empty spaces,” she said. “We’ve got to get the ground floor activated.”

That can be done in creative ways, she adds, such as restaurants that become co-working spaces, pop-up galleries or community drop-in spaces.

Walk into any old downtown L.A. building that’s been converted into a new use, and chances are Liljegren had something to do with bringing it back to life.

Over 20 years, Liljegren has overseen or consulted on more than 400 adaptive reuse projects, mostly in downtown’s historic core.

Last year, the American Institute of Architects named Liljegren to the College of Fellows, considered one of the architecture world’s highest honors.

A New Jersey native, Liljegren received her bachelor’s in architecture from UNC Charlotte and her master’s in architecture from UCLA. At that time, UCLA’s architecture program was housed within the school of public planning, which meant her education included form-building as well as placemaking.

Upon graduating in 1994, she was hired at Killefer Flammang Architects, a firm founded by Wade Killefer and Barbara Flammang, who had met as graduate students at UCLA.

Read More