Architect Frank Gehry has unveiled a revised design for 8150 Sunset - a proposed mixed-use housing complex near the eastern terminus of the Sunset Strip. 

The project, which is being developed by Townscape Partners, calls for the construction of two mid-rise structures containing 203 residential units - a portion of which would be set aside as workforce and affordable housing - above 57,300 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The revised plan, which is to be presented to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, is the result of conditions of approval imposed on the project by the Los Angeles City Council in 2016.  The updated proposal calls for smaller buildings - rising to a maximum 178 feet in height - with mass redistributed across the development site.  Buildings are net set back farther from neighboring structures, providing for a larger central courtyard and preserving a view corridor between the two main structures.

The larger courtyard is intended to reference a past occupant of the property at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard - the iconic Garden of Allah hotel, which was demolished in the 1960s.

“I was in Los Angeles when the Garden of Allah existed," said Gehry is a news release. "With this project, I wanted to capture the feeling of the experience of that place which was vibrant and memorable."

The updated design for 8150 Sunset also calls for a largely glass-facade, doing away with the patchwork of exterior finishes called for in the prior iteration of the development.

“This is a building system that has not much been used in building residential towers," said Gehry.  "It seemed that we could make a crystalline sculpture out of the buildings so that when it all went together, it had a unity and simplicity about it.”

One aspect of the updated proposal which remains unchanged is the pending demolition of the Lytton Savings Building, which was built on the property following the demolition of the Garden of Allah.  The Googie-style building - designed by the late architect Kurt Meyer - has been designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmark, and was the subject of an ultimately unsuccessful preservation battle waged by the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Townscape, which is based in Los Angeles, expects to begin construction of the 8150 Sunset development in 2021.  Completion is anticipated by 2023.

The project is the firm's second large-scale mixed-use development, following the 8899 Beverly adaptive reuse project in West Hollywood.